How To: Add A Mantel to a Bedroom Fireplace, Step Up The Experience
Have you ever thought it would be nice (especially on cold nights) to have a fireplace in your bedroom? What about if you have one but you don’t have a mantel. It maybe just a in wall unit which can look nice enough, but what if you could add a mantel to a bedroom fireplace and improve how the room looks and feels? Historically many houses had bedrooms with fireplaces but around the mid-century, multiple fireplaces started to become a thing of the past.
Especially with Mid-Century Modern houses, fireplaces were a central theme in the living room or a game room in a basement. However, they typically went away from the bedrooms. Today there is a trend to add back in a fireplace. You may have seen or own an electric in wall unit like the one above (link below) which look amazing to say the least. They typically use electricity to create the “feeling” without heat and they use lights to mimic a fire or you can turn them on to warm a room.This can create a nice connection to the past and you won’t have to deal with burning wood. A little mess that comes with a “real” fireplace.
For us, we sought to find a house that had multiple fireplaces (even if they burned wood). We were lucky enough to find our house which has one in our living room and our master bedroom. A while back in this post, I replaced the old mantel and moved it (vs. selling or throwing it out) with the vision of one day connecting it to the fireplace in the master bedroom.
It sat there for a couple of years resting on an old Adidas shoe (that thing is toast now) until I had a day to take care of it. Either way, adding a mantel to your bedroom with a real or electric fireplace is easy to do. You only need a mantel and your imagination.
How to install a Mantel in your bedroom
This is not a hard project, but one that takes a little time and measuring. Just be patient and you will be able to mount the mantel in no time.
Total Time Needed :
2
Hours
30
Minutes
Total Cost:
300
USD
Required Tools:
Things Needed?
– Touch up paint and brushes
Steps to configure the How-to Schema:
In our case, I needed to remove the marble slabs from the wall. It was a royal pain to do, but if you find yourself doing this type of demo and removal just know one thing. TAKE YOUR TIME. If it’s like ours, it is glued to the sheet rock. If you get too excited to remove it, you can damage the wall and it will take much longer for the installation. I used a hammer as a pry bar, and ever so slowly removed the marble slabs. I only had one section that needed some repair after.
Most people will start here (you already have a fireplace / electric or real one without a mantel). MEASURE 3 times and make the appropriate marks on the wall with a pencil. If you have a friend or spouse with you, have them help by making sure the mantel is centered over the fireplace entrance. Make sure it fits well over the fireplace in general. All of these points become important once you start to connect it to the wall. *Also note, try to use a flashlight to find the studs on the wall. Nails do and will move and sometimes make a bubble when the house moves and shifts. It is an easy way to identify where the 2×4 is. You will want to secure the mantel to the 2×4 vs. just a wall anchor.
The biggest challenge is to also consider the baseboards. You will most likely need to cut them out. Depending on how your fireplace is configured, you may need to add tile below the fireplace or/and molding trim. I used a dremel and cutting wheel once I marked the edge of the mantel.
If everything looks like it lines up then OK, you are ready to attach the mantel to the wall. My challenge was to ensure I was lined up with the wall 2×4’s. I was lucky and had no problems. You can also add one at the top in the middle to add for additional sense of security.
I only have some things to take care of to complete today’s work anyway. #1.Seal up the screw holes and #2.Paint the mirror (see below)
Painting the Mantel Mirror
Thanks to my brother and his wife, they were moving a while back and Cathy gave us this gold mirror. It was a leftover from a room that they had no destination / space for. I took it gladly and fully knowing we would eventually figure out how to use it. Enter in the fireplace in the bedroom. I thought perhaps some black paint on the mirror would look great. What I did not know, is the paint started to crackle in some areas and also would run off. It ended up looking even more interesting than what I originally thought and let it be.
Finished Adding the Mantel to our Fireplace
We are really happy on how this turned out. After 3 years of a lean to against the wall, not able to use the shelf and never motivated to hang the mirror… it feels awesome to have it finished! Here are the finished pictures below. Like all projects, it take time. Don’t beat yourself up too much if everything does not turn out perfect. You can go back and fix things over time, but get the majority done. Come back tomorrow to finish up. Burning out on projects never gets you to the finish line!
Onto our next project – we hope you enjoyed this mini-transformation and hope you can add a nice mantel to a bedroom with an electric fireplace or if you have a real one. It will add more elegance and enhance the room you are in!
Don’t forget you can find a mantel on Facebook Marketplace and CRAIGSLIST all day long for next to nothing.
Until next time!
