Honeycut Mantle...

Oh do I have a treat for you! Drew has been working his little magic fingers on a house that needed a lot of love. Above is the awesome before... Asian landscape wallpaper, pink stone mantle. Can only go up from here...

And Drew smashed it out of the park. The owners were considering a simple fix for now over the pink. When we work with clients we give suggestions, not to increase our profit (although it doesn't hurt) we are truly more concerned with us leaving you with a product you will absolutely love... So Drew asked them while you are doing these updates leaving the mantle the way it is will leave the rest of the updates still feeling old. They agreed.

I will show you the rest of the updates Drew did in a bit... For now the mantle needs a spot light...

I could stare at this beauty all day. Sometimes it is easier to get a better idea of all the work that goes into something like this before it gets painted...

A lot of people will skim coat the Sheetrock smooth... After our last paneled walls where our sheet rockers left a lot of tiny pinholes that are often hard to avoid we vowed to never take that route. Drew installed 1/2" MDF and then rabbeted pencil mould inset panels.

Then he used the same trim but cut the rabbet off so its inset in the mantle instead of overlay on the paneling.... Does it feel like I'm speaking Chinese?

A little crown moulding on top of the leg of the mantle...

Each and every piece custom cut, glued and nailed. Drew hates this picture because he said he made a bad cut in the bottom left corner.... So close to perfection...

After prep and sprayed with oil based paint in Benjamin Moore White Dove... And the panel is sprayed in oil base tinted Benjamin Moore Cliffside Gray. The client wanted a gray that was more on the blue side... And this gray was it!

I found this 1" hex tile through classifieds marked down more than 60%. It turned out amazing! Drew had the brilliant idea to do chair rail tile on the inside mouth of the fireplace, sometimes working with that smaller tile it gets really tricky to get a crispl line. This really finished it off nice. If you notice the profile of the chair rail tile mimics the pencil mould inset perfectly.

And here it is... I will say almost finished. I get too excited, drew still needs to grout caulk and he might repair inside the fireplace where someone chipped away the concrete.... I couldn't wait!