Interchangeable Wood Mantel

Sorry for all the posts about my mantel lately :) This one will be a different post though, not completely decor related, although feel free to check out the decor on it ;). This is one of the three "fall" mantels I have had so far this year lol. Excessive? Yes.

You may remember me talking about changing my mantel color way back in the day. I've gotten over that. I like how it currently looks with the somewhat orange-ness of it and it ties into my pillows I have in there. Plus it gives a natural element to my living room. So, I've gotten over wanting to paint it grey or white. Plus, lets me honest, the hubs would NEVER allow that. That's one thing he has put his foot down on. So even if I wanted to change it, he would probably camp by it for a week making sure not a single drop of paint got near it :)

But as you all know, my tastes change a lot. So even though I love the current mantel, I would love to change it whenever I can to whatever I want, but alas, it is secured to the wall really really well....trust me, I've checked ;) So to solve this problem? Why not just put a 'faux' interchangeable mantel over it? Then I can change it with the season, with the mantel decor, whenever I want and just for the heck of it?? Painting the mantel was so permanent, but now, I can change it to whatever color I want!

All it takes is a couple pieces of wood. My current mantel is pretty big. Bigger than I thought. So it took a 1x12 piece of wood cut at about 61.5 inches to cover the front. The length of the current mantel is 60 inches, then I added 3/4 of an inch to each side since I wanted the overlap joints to show on the sides, not in the front.

Then I measured the original mantel's sides, and found that I needed about 10 inches to cover each side, so I cut two 10 inch pieces out of a 1x12.

Next was for the top piece, so since the mantel was 60 inches long and about 10 inches deep, I used a 1x10 this time (even though there's a small gap right by the wall because a 1x10 is really 9.5" not 10", but since it's on the top of the mantel, and only a half inch, no one would ever know). I cut the 1x10 to 61.5 inches. I did the same for the bottom of the 'faux' mantel.

So essentially, I made a little coffin for my current mantel. I secured each joint and connection point with some wood glue and a metal bracket you can find by the wood section at any home improvement store.

I was contemplating what color to paint this, but then realized that this is so easy to make and somewhat inexpensive, I can make one in any color. So I painted this one white. The next one will be stained a pretty walnut brown. And who knows, I may make another one some crazy accent color :) With them being so interchangeable, you can do whatever you want!

I realized as I put up the new mantel, that it was really really big lol. So, to break up all the white space, I hung a decorative iron piece on it just using nails. I spray painted the piece a grey to tie in with my current decor.

For the size of my mantel, there was no need to secure this 'faux' mantel anywhere to it or to the wall. If you secured the pieces together correctly, the top piece of the faux mantel should sit nicely on the top of the current mantel. No need to secure :) Of course, test to make sure before you take my word for it ;) It worked for me though!

My only qualms about this? It's super big lol. In order to cover the whole original mantel, I had to make this mantel quite large, so it took some getting use to. Maybe next time, I'll angle the front piece in a bit, so it doesn't take up so much visual space. We'll see :)

I love how this looks with my 'beachy' summery decor to. It was hard to part ways with it!

 ....Until next year I guess ..... :)

The total cost of this project will vary depending on what you have on hand and how big your mantel is. I had most of the wood on hand besides the 1x12 so it cost me about $9. But if you need to get all the wood, it could round up being $20-$25.

And on a different note, I know I'm totally late about doing this, but I finally got my Halloween decorations up!! Yay! I've been kind of waiting for a few storms to pass, cuz the wind reeks havoc on spider webs, and oh how I am so glad I did. My neighbor put hers up three weeks ago and it looks like a disaster :) Here's to procrastinating! lol