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DIY Shiplap and Stained Wood Beam Farmhouse Style Fireplace Mantle

October 16, 2018 / 1,050 Comments

Shiplap fireplace mantles with wood beams look so beautiful in farmhouse and cottage style homes. The center of our home is our living room, it’s our place of gathering, and we have updated and changed nearly every inch of it to create a warm and inviting place for our family except for our small, builder-grade fireplace mantle through several DIY home projects. The fireplace should be a bold focal point in our home as it can be seen from anywhere in the main living area, but it has unfortunately been one of the last projects to be completed to update our home from builder-grade to farmhouse cozy. Instead of a beautiful focal point, our fireplace is small, flat, plain and boring; so we set out to update our old builder-grade fireplace mantle with a new DIY farmhouse style stained wood beam mantle and DIY shiplap accent wall to breathe new life into the heart of our home.

Before & After Photos

Our home was originally painted orange with honey oak trim before we completely updated the whole interior. The fireplace mantle was painted white when we painted the rest of the trim in the house white, as seen in the second photo below. The last photo shows what the fireplace looks like after we added the DIY shiplap and stained beam mantle.

DIY Shiplap and Stained Wood Beam Tutorial

This tutorial will start with our white builder-grade fireplace mantle and walk you through the steps to add a farmhouse stained wood beam mantle with a framed shiplap accent wall.

Our fireplace surround is very flat, with hardly any depth. We had to determine how we wanted to update this without needing to completely rebuild a bigger structure (our DIY needed to be easy and reasonable!) So we decided to leave the surround flat, but make it wider. We used the overall width of the surround after adding the new wider planks to determine the width of the wood beam and the shiplap.

Tools

Materials

Measurements

  • 55″ long, 1/4″ thick underlayment plywood, cut into 6″ wide shiplap pieces (9 pieces)
  • 3.5″ wide, 1/2″ thick wood trim board, cut into 55″ length to trim out the shiplap (2 pieces)
  • 3.5″ wide, 1/2″ thick wood trim board, cut 62″ to cover demo under the mantle (1 piece)
  • 6″ wide, 1/2″ thick wood trim board, cut 55″ long to reframe and widen the fireplace (2 pieces)
  • 6″ wide, 2″ thick stud cut 70″ long for the mantle (1)

*Tip: you can have your underlayment cut into 6″ wide “shiplap” planks and cut to your desired length at some lumber yards for a small fee.

For a detailed DIY faux shiplap intallation tutorial check out this post of our DIY shiplap entryway wall.

Step 1 – Demo

To demo, we removed the existing mantle and the two 4″ trim boards on either side of the surround. We replaced them with 6″ wide trim boards, purchased and cut from the lumber store. To remove the mantle and trim boards we used a crowbar and pried them off the wall carefully, pulling the nails out from the wall as it came off. Some of the surrounding drywall was removed during the process, but we knew we could repair it later. We cut the additional 2″ from the baseboard trim with a multi-tool without removing the trim from the wall (we cut it in place).

If you have a decent fireplace surround, you probably won’t need to do any demo and rebuilding like we did. You will still need to replace your mantle if you intend to add a beam.

Step 2 – Widen fireplace surround & install mantle beam

First, the trim boards were then secured to the wall with wood glue and then nailed in with a nail gun to widen the fireplace surround.

Next, we secured our 2×6″ beam to the wall.  We decided on only 2″ in thickness because of how shallow our surround is. We didn’t want too thick of a wood mantle or it wouldn’t have looked proportionate to the surround. You can use a thicker beam with the same installation method.

To secure the wood to the wall we used a kreg jig to drill 3 pocket holes in the top of the mantle lining up with the 3 studs in the wall and then used 4″ long screws to secure it in place.

Step 3 – Install horizontal shiplap boards

Before installing the shiplap, we marked 3 vertical lines from the fireplace to the ceiling where the studs in the wall were. This is important for mounting the wood beam and to install the shiplap later. We also marked where the shiplap edges needed to lie to use as a guide while installing it. We made a center mark on the wall and used our shiplap length of 55″ divided evenly into 27.5″ and marked out from center that exact distance in order to perfectly center the shiplap.

Next we installed the shiplap above the wood beam. The bottom piece of shiplap lies directly on top of the beam, and each piece after that is installed above it. Using wood glue on each piece, we adhered it to the wall first. When you stick the board to the wall, you need to nail it in before moving to the next board. If you don’t, it will move and sag.

We placed a board, put the spacers in, moved the board into the perfect position, then nailed the board in and removed the spacers. We did this for each board, one at a time, as we moved up the wall. We used 18 gauge, 1 1/4″ brad nails with our brad nailer gun and air compressor.

*Tip: For a more detailed tutorial on installing DIY shiplap see this post. 

There were 2 outlets on this wall, one was inactive and was covered before we began this project, so we covered the one hole with the shiplap and used an electrical box extender for the other outlet to bring it flush with the shiplap. If you have electrical outlets or light switches where you plan to install your shiplap you will need to measure them and use a oscillating multi-tool to cut out the small area around the outlet. We measure exactly where we would need to cut out the shiplap to go around the electrical outlet and made the cuts. We had to cut 2 pieces of shiplap to fit around the top and bottom of the electrical outlet.

The shiplap wall was completed with 9 horizontal boards.

Step 4 – Add vertical trim boards

Next we installed 3.5″ wide 1/2″ thick trim boards on either side of the shiplap from mantle to ceiling to give it a framed and finished look. These side boards are twice as thick as the shiplap to add depth to the wall and give it a true framed appearance. As with the shiplap, a layer of glue then nailed into place with a brad nailer is all these need.

Once we finished installing the shiplap, we cut and installed a 62″ long 3.5″ wide 1/2″ thick piece of wood over the uneven area under the mantle (the same size trim board that we use to frame the shiplap). This area looked like this because when we removed the old mantle and extended the sides we were left with this.

Being the non-professional DIYers that we are, the easiest thing to do was simply cover it with a piece of trim board and move on, especially because we eventually planned to completely renovate this fireplace in the future and add a brick hearth. You probably won’t need to add this trim piece if you aren’t dealing with a poorly demo’ed small fireplace mantle like we were.

Step 5 – Caulk seams and holes

All the seams of the new DIY mantle were caulked before painting – this helped to hide imperfections and give it a finished look. We also caulked the nail holes in the lower portion of the mantle to give it a finished look, but not the upper (shiplap) portion. It is completely optional to caulk shiplap nail holes, just I think it looks more charming to leave them uncaulked.

 Step 6 – Paint the shiplap & trim

We used the same paint as our kitchen cabinets and shiplap entry wall: Benjamin Moore Advance Dove White. The finish is satin. First the whole fireplace was painted with a light coat of primer. We used Killz. Then we painted 3 light layers of paint using mostly a roller and a trim brush for the edges and small areas. Let the paint dry completely between each layer. It can take a bit of paint to cover raw wood so doing light layers with dry time helps coat evenly without buildup.

In the photos below you can see the color difference between the primer (left) and the paint (right).

 Step 7 – Fill the holes in the beam

Before staining the mantle, fill the holes with wood filler. Fill it generously and completely and leave a bump on top. For deep holes like these, wait 24 hours for it to dry completely, it will flatten down as the filled settles.  Finally, sand it flat.

Step 8 – Stain the beam

Sand the whole mantle for any imperfections and to smooth the wood out. Tape off the wall and shiplap and stain your favorite color!

I used a mix of 1/3 Minwax Special Walnut and 2/3 Minwax Weathered Oak.

 The finished fireplace mantle

I hope this inspires your own DIY shiplap fireplace mantle and wood stained beam project to update your builder-grade fireplace!

If your looking for even more fireplace renovation ideas, take a look at my post on how we completely renovated our fireplace by adding a DIY brick hearth and painted our brick fireplace white.

See more DIY home projects here!

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