We needed a mantle.
We shopped around and priced some places, 80$ per foot! We wanted around 5 feet, so a grand total of $300-$450. There are premade options available for order in the $200 range but still ridiculous and not much in our style. After browsing the few blogsites that made their own floating shelf mantles (seriously, why is there not more info?) I decided I could totally do it.
Shopping List:
8 feet of 1x8 pine ... 20.00
6 feet of 1x6 pine ... 17.00
5 feet of common board. 1x6 ... 4.00
10 feet of simple molding ... 10.00
(not in the stainable quality area, just the regular junk at Home Depot and a lot cheaper, you can't tell).
2x4 ... 3.00
Ebony Stain ... 8.00
Polyurethane ... 11.00
Total: 80.00 (right on target)
Other stuff:Cardboard box to make a model.
Miter Saw - got a new one at a garage sale for 10 bucks? That works so much better than a cutting box, which wouldn't have fit the pine planks anyway.
Hammer
Random nails
Screws
Socks for staining (by far work the best)
Shirt for wiping stain
Woodglue
Model
Originally I wanted the mantle to be 8 inches deep and 8 inches tall. I made a mock one out of cardboard and the dimensions were way too thick. I cut it down to 6 inches tall and 8 inches deep and it worked much better.
Plans
I am super lucky that we like simple lines. It made it a lot cheaper. I don't have a table saw so I planned everything out so I wouldn't have to cut anything lengthwise.
Construction
Pretty much nails, glue, and wood filler.
Staining
It took 2 coats of stain to get it dark enough while still being able to see the grain and 3 coats of polyurethane.
Installation
So not sure if I did this right. Saw a blog where they did it like this, then another that said you shouldn't. It took me forever to find the freakin' studs to mount it. Just kept drilling away. This isn't actually brick, they are just brick tiles glued onto the drywall, easier than worrying about all the crappy masonry stuff. Used a 2x4 and some screws to hold it. Tested the weight by hanging off it. Looks fairly stable.
Math stuff!
So we installed it the first time and I didn't like the height. So I checked some measurements. The ratios were off.
The length of the red section was just off of the length of the green. I figured the crappy 9:10 ratio was making it look super awkward, so enter
Phi is the golden ratio and is approximately 1.6180339887498948482... and is used in aesthetics. So I measured the fireplace (24 inches) and calculated a possible height for the shelf using phi, 1.618x=24 or 24/1.618 = 14.83. I measured 15 inches and tried it again and it looks so much better!
But not only that.
Check this out:
http://www.radovleugel.com/golden-ratio-calculator
For the measurement of 24 and 15 inches, 6 inches is also a close approximation (the height of the shelf) and the length is 61, just shy of 63. Look at all the golden ratios! YAY MATH
Anyway, so I got mad carpentry skillz. Super excited about how clean the corners look. They can be a betch.
