Modern Floating Mantel Shelf

Materials and the sequence of the job sit together on this page.

I love a good mantel. Mantels come in so many shapes and sizes to fit any style or space. We have built two (so far!), a faux built-in mantel (that hid all of our electronics cords!) and a rustic floating mantel on our stone wall — and featured many, many more. Our guest today has a great modern floating mantel shelf to share with you. The best part about floating mantels is that they are just, well, shelves! So you can put them on any wall and still have a great mantel-type space to decorate. 

Here are a few other floating mantels/shelves I’ve loved:

Rustic Floating Shelves with Drawers Not Just a Housewife

Floating Mantel Ledge Shelf Shanty 2 Chic

Modern Industrial Floating Shelves Vintage Revivals

Mantel Shelf with Corbels I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar

Floating Wall Shelf with Storage Lowe’s Creative options

And now, a great modern Handmade floating mantel shelf from our guest Kendra!

Handmade Floating Mantel Shelf

by Kendra of Pots, Pans and Paintbrushes

My name is Kendra Germenis, and I am the host of Pots, Pans and Paintbrushes – my life inspired by food and art. While my life is filled with a little bit of everything and all things random, my creative focus lies in art, cooking and remodeling. My biggest project these days is remodeling my first home. My husband and I are transforming our drabby brown 70’s house into an updated colorful and eclectic home. Some projects that have added to the madness include our complete living room before and after, a few Handmade floating shelves and a shabby chic dresser makeover.

Between 1,000 Handmade and remodeling projects, excessive cooking, maintaining my blog and Etsy shop (kitsyco.com) and keeping a personal life, my world has been, and continues to be, quite the adventure… and I love every minute of it. Today specifically, I am loving this solid feature on one of my go-to blogs, Bekob. Thanks for hosting me!

Handmade Floating Mantel
Amidst our living room remodel, after refreshing our brown living room brick wall and built-ins with a coat of white paint, my husband and I faced a unique challenge – what to do with our big bulky brown mantel.  

Our options included:

• Sand, strip and re-paint the current the mantel
• Buy a mantel, possibly a standard white one
• Handmade our own mantel

Considering 95% of our home remodel was a Handmade effort between our family and us and considering our remodel modest-cost was wearing thin, we put on our creative hats, sketched an option and made our own original Handmade mantel. And guess what? You can do it too.

Project Supplies

• Three 8 feet 1” x 12” oak boards
• One small can of Varathane dark walnut wood stain
• Wood glue

Project Tools

• Circular saw, table saw or miter saw (to cut the wood)
• Sand paper or palm sander
• Sponge brushe or old rag (for staining)
• Clamps (for fastening)

Making the Mantel: Step by Step   Step 1. Cut the three oak boards in half to create six 4 feet boards using a table saw, circular saw or miter saw (whichever you prefer, depending on which tools you have at your discretion).   Step 2. Sand the boards as needed to smooth any rough edges.   Step 3. Following the directions on the can of stain, stain each board using a sponge brush or wipe on the stain using a rag.
I personally stained each side and edge of the wood, even the ones not showing, with a sponge brush. If needed, the stain can be touched up before or after the mantel is assembled. I did some tiny touch ups once the mantel was mounted.   Step 4. After the stain is dry, alternate stacking the boards with a 2” overhang on each side. Arrange the boards so that the best looking sides show.

 Step 5. Once stacked, apply wood glue between each layer of wood. Be careful of using too much glue or applying glue too closely to the edges, or the glue may seep through the cracks or drip down the side.

 Step 6. Use clamps to secure the freshly glued mantel. You may even consider placing rags or a supporting board beneath each clamp hold so that your mantel is not dented or scratched. It’s also important in this step to ensure your boards are evenly aligned while clamped because once the glue dries, there’s no turning back.

Step 7. Referencing the wood glue directions, leave the clamps in place until the glue firmly dries and the mantel is set, typically 24-48 hours.

  Mounting the Mantel   The best method of installation is simply mimicking the existing set-up of your current mantel. For us that meant that we reinstalled the hardware from our old mantel (unique key hole wall mount hardware) onto our new mantel. The supporting bolts were already drilled into our brick wall from the previous mantel, so we simply just had to hang our new mantel in place. And voila!
Conclusion   This Handmade project was fairly reasonable in retrospect to the impact the floating mantel has made on our living room. The unique look blends perfectly with our eclectic space and is definitely a conversation starter. Getting this one-of-a-kind focal point simply required the proper supplies, a trip to the local home improvement store (Home Depot for us), a little instructional reassurance from product packaging and one solid handy man (shout out to my husband). Not to mention, the project totaled under a whopping $100 and was completed in 4 to 6 hours (excluding dry and set time), a price that can’t be beat.

What’s the best part about this Handmade project? You can do it too!   Thanks for sharing with us, Kendra! You’re doing a great job on your house!