"How I Spent My Christmas Vacation"

[butt]

Got a few days of bachelorhood, and decided to make a mess while I had the house to myself. The mantle that was in the house was a POS, generic MDF "semi-gloss white" afterthought. I dug into my stash of material I've saved over the years, and went to town. The material I used on the new mantle is white oak.   

Before:




Added a 2x4 for wood to wood nailing (nailing into brick is not a good idea). Let the 'liquid nails' adhesive set up over night before continuing. There will also be a 2x4 glued and screwed flat to the wall, to support the eventual mantle top.



Nailed first piece, flush w/ the top of the 2x4. This stock was actually some left over plinth block material, that I thought had a cool profile when laid over on edge. (camera phone, so excuse bad pics)



Heres second piece:



Third:





Not sure if you can see it in the pics, but I tried to match the grain in my outside corners. Think it turned out ok.

Thats all for now. Have a beefy top in the works, but that will be tomorrow.






New Pics:

Kinda tweaked my back yesterday, so did not make much progress. Got back on it this morning. I went cheep on the top. I've skinned some crap 1/2" plywood, w/ 1/4" on top and bottom. Note the bottom piece of 1/2" ply does not go to the wall, to allow clearance of the 2x4 nailer:





Got clamps holding the bottom band of 1/4" while the glue sets up.





And, the top.


yeah, few nail holes to fill
Also, the nosing needs a few coats of polyurethane, but will do that later.

[Eric]

Looks sweet.
 

[BJ1435]

Very nice. 

[Reaper]

Looks nice.

[snipa]

Classy!

[butt]

Thanks guys! Appreciate the kind words.

I've updated the post with new pics to show it completed (still have a few clear coats to put on it) but it gives you an idea of what I was going for. 

[COmpaQ]

wow looks great!
I have been loafting all break haha