The mantle project

The mantle project is effectively done! This was not without 2 extra trips to Gnome Despot. because no project can be completed without multiple trips...

I bought an unfinished mantle kit from the Gnome Despot a few weeks ago. It came with the wood pieces needed to mount it, but no hardware though it listed what hardware you'd need in the instructions (and not on the outside of the box). So Steve went out to buy the hardware. That was Extra Trip #1.

When he got home with the hardware, he glued and then screwed in the mounting board (for lack of a better term) to set while I worked on the mantle's finish. It even came out level. Woohoo!

I put on a coat of an all-in-one stain/varnish substance and let it dry. According to the directions on the all-in-one stain/varnish substance, it says to sand it down with very fine steel wool (#000 or finer) after the first application. Steve was supposed to buy me some of this very fine steel wool (#000) during Extra Trip #1 to Gnome Despot. He forgot. This was the cause for Extra Trip #2.

I pulled out the steel wool and I was surprised to find that it's practically soft. I start sanding and it creates this very fine (imagine that!) dark grey dust. It also makes the mantle surprisingly smooth. Ok, I know that sounds like a dumb statement, but you don't tend to figure that something that soft could have that much of an impact in terms of "sanding" something.

The spots where the wood grain runs through are a little rough, so I wonder if I should have sanded it before I stained/varnished it the first time or would that have made it worse? Oh well.

I was also surprised to find that the color wasn't affected at all by the sanding. I expected it to be lighter and thus the need for a second coat. It turns out that the only reason we really needed the second coat was to make sure it's well sealed since sanding it probably opened up tiny pockets.

When I was finished, I wiped the mantle down with a damp sponge, added a 2nd coat of stain/varnish, and let it dry overnight. It bubbled and looked like it was almost foaming. I expected to need to sand it down again because the stain/varnish didn't go on smoothly. Turns out I didn't! Shocker!

Steve mounted the mantle to the wall on Saturday morning. We need to move the Monet print we have to accommodate the mantle now, and then I get to decorate! I made all of our stockings with glitter glue (hot glue guns rule!), and now we can hang them! Yaay!