Fireplace Renovation : German Schmear and Rustic Mantle
No life story here! Let’s just dive right in :) Total cost $75 Total time about 4 days total Day 1) remove old mantle and German schmear (about 5 hours total) Day 2) build new mantle (2 hours) Day 3) distress the new mantle (about 2 hours) Day 4) stain The biggest cost saving tip I can give you here (coming from sara 😂): do NOT go buy a bunch of tools. Ethan is a Lowe’s junkie and has everything, or his dad does, and I guarantee you you have a friend that does too! Or hey you can borrow ours. The first step of this was removing the old mantle so Ethan will explain how he did that. Removing the current mantle will depend on how yours is constructed. Ours was built at the time of construction and was assembled from various trim molding pieces, wood glue and lots of finishing nails. The only real option to remove this was to bust it up. We took a rubber mallet to the front top edge and began prying it off with a hammer. From there we just had to work each piece apart until we cou