Simple European Farmhouse Barn Beam Fireplace Mantel Makeover

Transitioning our traditional mantel to a European style barn beam fireplace mantel has had one of the largest impacts on our living room.

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally did it!

We finished the barn beam fireplace mantel in our living room.

It only took us 9 months since starting the planning phase of this project to come full circle.

But I guess that’s real life huh?

You can watch the YouTube video of me sharing about our new mantel here.

Things happen, and before you know it, you’re slowed down.

But what I try to keep in the forefront of my mind when things like this happen is this little saying.

“You never fail until you stop trying”

Growing up that is what I always reminded myself.

The only real failure is in quitting.

Well, we didn’t quit.

So as far as I’m concerned we didn’t fail.

But before I jump into this fun reveal I want to extend the same encouragement to you.

If you’ve started something and it’s taking you longer than expected to complete it: the only true failure is to quit.

As long as you wake up tomorrow and get after it again, you are not a failure!

You’re simply battling.

Okay, now before I share all my personal thoughts on the reveal let me answer a few questions.

How big should a barn beam mantel be?

We decided to make our barn beam span the length of the stone.

When we brought the mantel in it scrapped the walls a little so we made it a little bit shorter.

If your fireplace isn’t in the corner like mine you could extend beyond the length to be wider than the stone portion of the fireplace.

As far as the height and depth we went with 6.5” x 6.5”.

I checked out a bunch of companies that sell barn beam mantels and almost all of them were 6×6-8×8.

Since our living room isn’t huge and the ceilings aren’t extra high I decided to stick with a common size.

How do you attach a barn beam mantel?

The most common way to hang a floating barn beam mantel is with a mantel bracket.

You can pick one of these up on Etsy and I even found a couple different styles on Amazon.

But regardless of which option you go with you need to ensure that you’re attaching the brackets to the studs in the wall.

Before you have the bracket attached to the wall I recommend you make a template with a scrap piece of wood.

We wanted to ensure we had the right spacing before we started drilling into the barn beam.

My husband lives by the motto “Measure twice; cut once.”

It was good that we did this because we made a mistake drilling the holes on the first template and had to make another one.

So once you have the template drilled and the mantel bracket attached to the wall slide the template onto the bracket and make sure it fits properly.

Then we took the template and clamped it to our beam and began drilling the holes to the appropriate depth.

How much we paid for our Barn Beam Fireplace Mantel

This is the really cool part about DIY projects.

Mantel: $60 (Facebook marketplace)
Industrial Pipe: $30
Rugged Structural Wood Screw: $27
Drywall: $15 (We used a piece left over from another project)
Limewash Paint: $40

Now, because we did have to buy a few random supplies like, sandpaper-type drill bits, masonry brush, etc. lets round up and say it was $200.

Can you believe that?!

Our European farmhouse barn beam fireplace makeover was about $200!

If we had bought a hand-hewn beam mantel from a local reclaimed wood company here in Ohio that alone would have cost $800-900.

Even the rough-sawn beans this size are $400!

Not to mention, if we decided to take down all the stone and add stone that was the right style and color that would have been even more costly.

But I’ll tell you what…

I couldn’t be happier knowing that this project completely transformed our living room space and the biggest thing it costs us was time and energy.

Living Room Transformation

I was actually thinking about it yesterday while I was sweeping the living room.

Early on in my journey of sharing our home with you I NEVER shared the living room.

I thought it looked hideous and no one would like it, so I just decided to never share it.

Now that the fireplace is finished I can say with 100% certainty the issue for me was never the living room.

I didn’t like the fireplace.

It was very orange and the mantel was very traditinal.

None of these things are “wrong” or “bad” they are just things I didn’t particularly care for.

But now it feels like it belongs in our home and I love it.

Did it turn out exactly how I imagined it?

Nope.

If you remember my limewash debacle then you know I was hoping the stone would look a little more authentic and have more patina.

My husband told me to wait to distress the stone anymore until the mantel was installed because he was certain I’d like the stone after the warmth from the mantel was added.

Don’t tell my husband I said this, but he was right.

Now that the mantel is on I love it and will be leaving the stone alone haha!

Helpful Hints for Your Barn Beam Mantel

As usual when we do a DIY project I want to share with you things we learned and give you tips to make it easier for you.

Learn from our mistakes kind of thing I guess.

Mantel Braket

You’ll notice in the pictures that we didn’t actually use a bracket like the ones I recommend.

That’s because we wanted to save money and decided to use industrial pipe shelf brackets.

My husband is an engineer and he was talking with some of his engineer buddies trying to figure out how to make the project less expensive and this is what they came up with.

But as I mentioned before, yes, we saved a little money, but it cost us time for sure.

We paid $30 for all 4 of the pipes and for the length of the beam, we needed it was going to be around $150 for the mantel bracket.

So, while I know it can be done this way (we have a floating mantel on our fireplace) my husband wouldn’t do it this way again haha!

Reclaimed Barn Beam

If you’re like me and my husband, you’ve probably NEVER heard of an Alaskan chainsaw.

We bought this barn beam knowing that it was going to take some figuring out to get it square.

These rounded beams look beautiful in log cabins, but that is not the style of home we have.

If my father-in-law didn’t have an Alaskan chainsaw this mantel would probably still be sitting in the garage waiting for inspiration.

Talking to my husband he admitted that even though the beam was cheaper (probably because most people want a squared beam) he would have spent the additional $40-50 to not have to deal with it.

It added a lot of time to the project.

We’re thinking beam is maple, but whatever it is it’s hard.

We had to sharpen the chainsaw blade multiple times and swap chainsaws a couple of times to get it cut.

Poor Planning on My Part

So at our house the way a project usually goes is something like this:

Me: “He babe! I saw this thing and I think we could do it for much cheaper and it would look really good. What do you think?”

Husband: (After days of analyzing the project and running numbers, making pie graphs, and maybe even throwing some things into Google sketch-up) “I think we could make it work. Give me the details of how you want it to look when we’re done and I’ll get the supplies needed.”

I failed to research the size of beam I wanted.

So when we took the beam up to his parent’s house and cut it down with the Alaskan chainsaw I had no idea how much to have him cut off.

But after we got it home and held it up it was clear that it was too big.

So then we had to make another trip to his parent’s house to get the Alaskan chain saw and to cut it AGAIN.

That was honestly the biggest delay in getting this mantel up.

So my suggestion is to start with the 6×6 – 8×8 size.

Tape some brown paper where the mantel will go to get a feel so you know what size you actually want.

Barn Beam Fireplace Mantel Reveal

Ultimately we are very happy with the way it turned out.

If I’m being completely honest my first thought after it was finished was “I can’t wait to decorate this mantel for Christmas!”

I know.

Christmas is still a long way away and it’s probably a crime that I’ve even thought about Christmas but still.

Can you imagine?!

If you missed the other posts for this reveal you can check them out below.

Planning and Inspiration for a European Cottage Fireplace

Limewash Painting the Stone

Thanks again for stopping by.

It means so much to me that you are on this journey with me!

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Have a great week! XoXo

Open Your Doors,
Aliya

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