A Farmhouse Style Fireplace Mantel Update

By seeing all the beautiful farmhouse style fireplace mantels on Pinterest, I wanted one. Desperately. The farmhouse style fireplace mantel would be the focal point of my family room. I was determined to have my fireplace mantel updated before fall this year. This is how I achieved that look. My farmhouse style mantel update.

One of the features that I fell in love with when we bought our house back in the nineties, was the fireplace and mantel. The mantel was big and had lots of space to decorate. I imagined all sorts of family pictures and knick knacks and candles and the list goes on to dress up this mantle. But over time, I grew to loathe this monstrosity. It became dull and dreary.

I have wanted to renovate my mantel for years. However, as with all projects, there is a sense of, if we begin this fireplace mantel remodel what will we find beneath all that wood? So, we put it off.

I envisioned a cozy family room with the mantle being the focal point. It was time to make that vision come to life.

The Update Begins

There once was a glass mirror there in the middle where you see the empty space. That came down a while back. The mirror was hideous even for 1991 when the house was built. Sorry I don’t have any pictures of that. No, I’m not sorry. It was that bad!

Removing the mirror did help somewhat. That kept me happy for a few more years. There were times I vowed I would tear the mantel down regardless of what was underneath.

Reluctantly, my mister gave in to my wishes to take down the monstrosity I called our fireplace mantel.

And so we began. Our mantel is made of lots of different pieces of wood. There was a top piece that was held in place by EIGHT heavy duty screws. I have no idea why that would need so many screws to hold it when it wasn’t holding any weight.

Then two long pieces of wood along each side with what I call sconces screwed into that. So, the mantel came down piece by piece.

After looking at the mantel and how it was constructed, it was decided that not all of it should come down. Unless we wanted to gut the entire thing. The bottom side surround was set into the grout in the hearth. I like the tile on the hearth and didn’t want to replace that. So the most economical solution was to saw the wood little by little to achieve the farmhouse style fireplace mantel I was trying to achieve.

Decisions Decisions

The next problem was that the large middle piece of wood  you see below (marked by the arrows) actually goes behind the mantel. So, we couldn’t remove it without taking EVERYTHING down.

The best thing to do was continue to saw those little pieces marked cut to even out the top. Getting that even was difficult at best. It was uneven. We went to the hardware store and purchase a piece of molding to place on top of where we finished sawing. The molding evened the long piece of wood across the top plus that gave a little bit more design to my vision of the farmhouse style fireplace mantel .

Once all the demolition was complete, we filled in the holes in the drywall. Then sanded then sanded some more.

Painting the wall over the fireplace made great progress towards the fireplace update. Finally, it was time to paint my mantel white!

To remove any type of finish, the wood needs to be sanded. I knew I didn’t want to do any more sanding. Sanding is not a fun job at all.  There are lots of angles to sand.

I found out about a Sand Deglosser that eliminates hand sanding. Wipe it on with a cloth, let dry for ten minutes. Apply a second coat. Let dry again. Then paint. It worked wonderfully!

The Reveal

Here is my farmhouse style fireplace mantel reveal. It took three coats of paint.  White weathered satin finish paint. I didn’t want anything glossy.

I couldn’t resist adding a few fall decor to the finished mantel.

This update has made a huge improvement in the family room. The family room feels bigger. The height of the fireplace as it was before seemed to draw the ceiling down. This room isn’t very big anyway so by removing the big clunky fireplace surround, we visually made the room feel bigger. Painting it white helped as well.

The whole update didn’t really take that long but life gets in the way. Vacations, work etc. It took longer than we intended but so very much worth the effort.

I love the white mantel and can’t wait to decorate for Christmas. Just kidding about Christmas decor. Well, kinda.