Crowning Achievement

Before Grandpa J. arrived for his visit this weekend, he said to me on the phone, "Think about some projects around the house that we can work on!" Well, I found one for him, all right. : )

I've hated the mantle over our fireplace since we moved into this house three years ago. It was oak, it was dated, and it was just plain ugly. Here's a picture of the old mantle:


So about a month ago, I finally decided to do something about it. I got a crowbar and dismantled it, leaving only the fascia board. Here's a picture of it after my demo job was complete:


My plan was to use that existing fascia board as a base to build up something new. It seemed like it would be a relatively easy weekend project: I mean, it was five pieces, and there was already a good base for attaching everything. How hard could it be? Famous last words, of course. I totally underestimated the difficulty level and amount of time the job would require—problems that were compounded by the fact that a board I ordered to use as a mantle shelf didn't arrive in time, and my pre-purchased cherry crown molding was too wide to fit in any of the various saws we had borrowed. There was one point when I was ready to throw in the towel and just hire somebody to build the damn thing (which is what I probably would have done in the first place had I known all that would be involved). Here's Elsa, Dad, and Belle as we wrapped up work on Friday night—a day when we essentially made no progress whatsoever, other than learning what not to do.

But as usual, Dad came through for me. After several false starts and scouring the entire city for a suitable shelf-board replacement, we eventually ended up with a beautiful finished product (I still need to sand it, stain it, fill holes, etc.):

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to my Dad for helping build this gorgeous new mantle. I really feel like this is the mantle our fireplace was meant to have all along. And, in spite of all the problems, I had a great time working on it with you. As a result, this mantle comes ready-made with lots of great memories already. : ) Thank you also to Phyllis for watching Elsa quite a bit on Saturday while we worked on it—aside from being a huge help to us, I'm sure Elsa loved spending time with one of her doting Grandmas!