I Only Wanted A Mantle

 And the saga continues...

First, a bit of backstory or those of you who may be new to the blog and my boring life.  Five years ago, I bought me a new house.  I knew it was a fixer upper when I bought it, and I wish I'd been in a financial position at that time to mortgage enough extra to completely remodel it.  Alas, I only got the mortgage by the skin of my teeth as it was.  I've been trying to do some work on it, but mostly it's been cosmetic -- painting and the like. 

One of those cosmetic things was to strip all the thick, sticky, gloppy paint off of my fireplace and re-paint it.   Part of that process included pulling the mantle down and stripping it as well.  I'm not sure what kind of paint the previous owners used, but everything I put on those mantles stuck.  The paint was thick and rubbery, and when I was stripping the mantle, it peeled off in huge sheets.  

The mantle was easy enough to pull off, as it was only attached to the wall with four or five large nails, driven in at an angle.  It's proven much more difficult to put back up.  

A couple of years ago, I'd bought some blind shelf brackets, and Cody put up half of my mantle.  That's when we discovered we couldn't use those brackets with the mantle I have, because the corners are mitered.  He said he was going to buy more wood and build me an all new mantle, but he never did.  Last Fall, I asked him if he was still going to do that, or should I just hire someone.  He said he still intended to, but again, he hasn't done it. 

As it happens, I was going to put out my fall decorations this weekend, and I decided that by golly, I was tired of waiting.  I got the bright idea that I could use masonry screws and just screw the wood into the bricks themselves.  Well, I was aiming for the mortar between the bricks.  Turns out, that wasn't such a bright idea after all.  All that happened was the mortar crumbled and the mantle fell off anyway. 

It was at this moment, I sat down and had a bit of a meltdown.  Not a total meltdown, but well... I expressed some frustration.  

A few moments later, I got out of the chair and set the mantle into place, weighing it down with some bricks I'd found in the back yard, and began trying to think of a solution.  

I thought about driving wood screws through them, but after the previous owner and Cody had both driven nails/screws into the studs, I didn't think it would be too stable.  Too many holes in the studs.

For now, it's going to stay just like it is. Those pavers are pretty heavy, and they are keeping the boards surprisingly stable.  I wouldn't risk putting anything fragile or valuable on them, but they'll hold some leafy garland and maybe a Styrofoam pumpkin or two.  Lightweight stuff. 

But it got me to thinking...what if I got some construction adhesive and glued the board to the bricks, then used this old bit of framing as trim?

I wish I had a table saw.  Then I could rip it length wise and it would look so much better.  It's a bit wide as it is.  

I know some of you probably choked when I mentioned construction adhesive, but whatever I do will be a temporary fix anyway.  When I get the house remodeled, I want to pull that whole thing down and replace it.  I don't like the bricks that are there in the first place, and want to put a different kind -- I'm thinking the smooth ones that make up the base there.  If I can get them colored a very light gray, they might look like stones.  That's the look I was going for when I painted the bricks that are there, but that paint dried a lot darker than I thought it would.  I'm not going to go back and re-do it, though.  It'll just have to stay as it is. 

Speaking of dark, I love the dark walnut stain I put on the boards, but I'm debating anyway about sanding it down and re-staining it a lighter color, since that's a very dark corner anyway.   I keep going back and forth.  Half the time, I think it looks fine the way it is; the other half I'm thinking, "No, it'll look better lighter."  I can't make up my mind.

I'll probably just leave it as it is for now. 

While we're dreaming, even though the stove I have is a good one, I'd really like to have one that you can see the flames through the doors, like this one.

It'll add a real ambiance to that corner.

The only other thing I did was to drag my fall decorations from the shed into the house. 

You would know, the box with the fall stuff was on the very bottom of the stack. 

Heh, if that's not a metaphor for my life, I don't know what is.