Only one pic at a time can be loaded from an iPad? Oh boy!

I think the mantel looks nice -- not cluttered. But I do find the 3 pieces of artwork competing for attention with each other. Love the pop of red with your "new" shade!

Thank spammy, I felt the same way about the paintings, so I removed
the two smaller ones for a few days; they were sorely missing to me,
so, up again they went. I'm hopeless.

Could you share a photo of the entire wall, floor to ceiling?

I'm loving the idea of a mantle over the flat screen TV. I have nowhere in my LR to set out the ever-growing Christmas Nativity set. A mantle would solve that problem.

I would never have thought of that!

Sure, I have to take pics with my camera though, as posting one at a time is
nuts. I'll be back. :)

Alrighty, here we go...

I wanted the modern tv to fit into a not so modern room...
So this was my solution. Also, as caroline pointed out,
it is a great way to get
a mantle into a room that doesn't have a Fireplace.

The unit the tv sits on we made in 2005, the DVD cabinet
on the left was made in 2006 and the cabinets over
the Roll top desk we made in 2007...The TV stand, the
mantle and the bookcase we just made for the new TV.
oh boy, iI thought I could post them all at once from
my computer...bare with me.

The stand we have the Tv on we left open (hollow) as we
store the 3-D glasses in there as well as the center speakers for the surround sound.

The challenge was getting the stain to match.

pix # 2

pix # 3

pix # 4

pix #5

I"ll be happy to help with sizes etc,,,for anyone interested
in doing this. I also have another pic to post...

As you can see there is a lot going on in this room.

I have never seen a TV mantle before; I think you've invented something! Cool solution.

Thank-you so much for sharing this.

We have a large tv as well and it is on a low stand in front of a 10' high wall. It just looks so empty above it and I have often thought that a mantle above it would be a good idea but thought it might look odd or silly. I You have shown me otherwise. I want to post art work above the tv but was wanting a base as visual support. Love this idea.

Now to show your pics to my DH and start planning.

That's a really creative way to integrate the TV into theroom. Really big TVs can dominate a room- not so in your room. Good job!

What if you switched the larger picture into the center position over the TV, that might look more balanced and intentional.

I like the TV mantel as well!

Cliff and Joan, congratulations on finding a great solution to the ubiquitous "tv problem!!" There are a lot of people with traditional furniture / eclectic decor who would benefit from this kind of arrangement for their television. As usual, your carpentry and furniture making skills are impressive, but this time you get extra bonus points for creativity!

Thank you mtnredux... :) I'm happy that I finally invented something! :)

blfenton, How high is the cabinet your tv in on? Ours is 21" high.
...It seemed too low for this TV, that's why we made the little stand for
the tv to sit on. The stand is 4" high. Also, the brackets were an after
thought, I originally planned to have a floating shelf. However, it didn't
look right (too modern for the feel of the room) so we added the brackets.
If you need any measurements, just ask. My main objective was
to keep the TV and the adjacent wall cabinets as close to the wall as I
could.

Thank you Red House, that was my worry to have the TV "that ate the room." We were presently surprise that the "surround" furniture made
the "Monster" in the room blend into the decor."

Thanks Junko, We tried lots of different paintings, and arrangements.
My hubby's Dad was the artist, and we have a lot of his paintings....and I always come back to this arrangement. Especially, The Cottage, which is my
favorite. I bought the Little Woodmaker, for my hubby, he's walking home from work, and I'm inside the cottage cooking him a nice dinner.
Actually, everything on this mantle other than the books is memorabilia,
and has a story.

opoopogo, Yes, I sprayed the base. This lamp was my Dad's lamp and was
in his study for as long as I can remember. This is not the first time I painted
it. I did it once before in antique bronze and left the inside of the shade white.
This time, I sprayed the entire base and inside the shade gold, and the
outside of the shade red. I was thinking of rubbing on some bronze paint,
but it looks so nice and bright, especially when lit that I decided to leave it
as is...I also, have one like it (a little smaller)in our bedroom, that would benefit from a red shade... :)

Thanks, kswl, I was happy to find a solution to a big sore thumb problem.

Wonderful solution. Your room is beautiful, I enjoyed see the pictures and love your beautiful wall cabinets.

Hmm. Now I'm wondering how a nice timber frame mantel would look above our TV...

Good idea!
I think your tv mantel may be much copied by those with traditional rooms.

There are so many interesting things to see and enjoy in this wonderful room! I would be a terrible guest - I would want to see, touch, and ask dozens of questions about every delightful item!

I love, love, love the longhorns over the fireplace - and the long rifle. Is it an authentic flintlock? We have a reproduction one that DH built. It's historically correct and has hand forged hardware, and shoots very well.

I love, love, love the 'dogs' grouping on the book on the TV mantle! Who is the young man and dog in the oval frame? And the sweet pup in the rectangular frame? The Hummel boy and pup could not be anywhere else!

Yes! I want the dimensions and details of every piece you've made! And, since I'm being both nosy and greedy, could you post full view photos of the other two walls!

I want to sit in the leather chair and read one of the books. Do you have a collection of dog stories? I want to sit on the hearth and drink tea! I want to sit opposite the TV and watch a movie! You have the most perfect room evvvv-er!

Thanks Caroline, I'll take pics tomorrow as today I have to go on a
bunch of errands. The horns and small antique leather chair and lots of
other things in the room are from my hubby's grandfathers den.
He inherited his Grandpa's antique gun collection. The one on the FP is the only one that we have on display in the family room. It's an authentic
45 caliber Wesson ( before Smith merged with Wesson) My hubby's Dad
gave us the collection and the horns when we built this FP.

You have a good eagle eye to notice the 'dog collection' the oval frame has a pic of our son when he was three with our beagle Patch. The other framed
pic is our beagle CJ, and the dog book is The AKC dog book. we also have
his grandpa's AKC dog book. The music box belonged to my hubby's Mom,
it plays, 'once a soldier' The gold pocket watch was my hubby's Grandfathers
watch. The dragonfly pot was a gift from my son, he does a bit of international flying for his job, and always brings me back a gift.
I told you everything has a story... :)

this is a pic of the bookcase before final assembly and finishing.

This is a pic before the mantle was built. I am a visual person and need
a lot of visual aids when I do a design. Note the cardboard cutout on
the wall ...I was trying to figure out a profile for the mantle as well as the size.
I wanted it to be a little more dramatic (and bigger) than the matching DVD cabinet and book cabinet.
Also, it looks so low without 4" tall TV stand. It was the monster in the room
before the mantle and stand. :)
Also, I was measuring where I wanted the pegs installed in the book cabinet.
He pre-drilled lots of holes for the pegs. We also cut glass shelves.

This is also re-cycled oak wood from our son's church. They ripped out all
the old kneelers and replaced them with fiberglass kneelers. This was a curbside find!
It all had to be stripped of the leather, all the staples and screws removed,
plained and then all plugs were made to fill in the holes...This is truly
holey, holy wood! :)

May I critique your TV unit? I think your TV stand is too narrow for your TV. I think it looks cluttered with the mantle but is a good idea. Congratulations for thinking of it. I guess I am a less is more kind of person....maybe too much so. How would it look if you put your TV mantle even with the top of your pretty side shelves and hung your TV on the wall, under the mantle like you have it now? Would it be too high up for comfortable watching? Your house is interesting and I am sure you enjoy your treasurers.

I showed this idea to my DH and he is on board with the idea. We are not DIY people so we would have to find someone to do it but it will be well worth it. Our tv stand is 24" and is black.

How wide is the mantle that you made or I guess how far does it come out over the tv. It seems that the underside of the mantle is open and the tv is tucked in underneath.

We are in a post and beam house with pretty simple lines and a floating shelf would work for us but I do like the idea of corbels because it visually prevents the tv from extending sideways along the wall. I would have to do some research to see what kind of corbels would work for us.

blfenton,
The depth of the mantle is determined by the depth of the tv (either on
a stand or wall mounted)
Firstly, the wood we made everything from is
3/4" thick.

Our tv cab is 21" high,

the little stand we made to sit the tv on (cause I wanted it higher)
is 4"high. total height from the floor 25"

The tv is out from the wall 6 1/4" inches.

The mantle is 9 3/4" deep on the top, and 8" deep on the bottom. Note:
the higher you install the mantle the shallower you want it to be, or you won't
be able to see the stuff on the mantle. I could have gone with an inch or so
deeper, but I wanted it to hug the wall as close as possible. I used our FP
mantle as a guide, which is 10 inch deep,

There is just about an 1/8" clearance on the bottom of the mantle in order
to slip the tv inside.

The brackets (corbels) are 1 1/2" wide x 8" long. There is also only about
1/8" clearance between the TV and inside of the corbel. I made an oak tag
pattern of the corbels and that's what we used to make the brackets. I
knew I wanted an outside curve on the brackets. Also, there is a backplate
2/4" deep on the brackets -- one reason was to make it deeper-- cause the wood is 51/2" deep and the other reason was to fill in the inside more cause
I didn't want to see the wall on either side of the brackets.
I can't think of anything else, but if you can, just ask.

If your cab is black, I assume you want the mantle and brackets black.
What kind of finish is the cab? If it's painted, I recommend poplar wood.

grandmaof3 the two cabs flanking the tv are not on the same plane.
the cab on the right is 38" tall the cab on the left is 29" tall.. the book cab
on the right is installed 4" higher and 4" lower than the DVD cab.
There is no way we could have a wide bottom cab, cause then the chairs wouldn't fit. Thanks for your input.

Great job! I always love seeing photos of your home. I know you've said you don't know when to stop, but I've never viewed your home as cluttery. It always looks very clean and well organized.
Love the red shade on that lamp too!

Thank-you so much for the information. That will help for the planning stage of this idea. I already have my tape measure out and looking at styles of mantles. Thanks

Thanks sheesharee, :)

blfenton, I forgot the the front measurement of the shelf,
it's 4 3/4"

Caroline, as promised here is the other wall, its an open floor plan so there is only one more wall.

It's a little dark today, but I did my best to get pix
with only natural light.
First, this my command station, aptly named by my son
cause it has everything at my fingertips, laptop, light,
phone, view of the outside and tv.
The chair was a rescue from my sisters garage, it belonged to my Dad. We reupholstered it twice...
last time in cream leather, we scored this leather
at a good price, it's the leather they use in Mercedes Benz cars. We made the matching tufted footstool.
There are five chairs in this room counting my desk
chair, everyone has a story! The little table on my right also belonged to my Dad. The laptop table we made.

This is a chair we picked up at good will...
We refinished it and upholstered it in red...
If my command station chair is a mercedes,
this is my Ferrari...The horned rimmed footstool
is actually the mate to the little brown chair by the tv.
Hubby's grandpa made the horned rimmed footstool,

When we reupholstered the red chair, I loved the
little footstool with it, so we made a matching leather
footstool to go with Grandpa's little leather chair.
We used my Mothers cut down coffee table legs for the legs for the footstool. I got really lucky finding the lovely fringe
around the footstool. The leather is recycled from our old
leather couch...
The little chair is 0ver 100 years old and is a favorite of mine,,,sorry I'm going off on this chair...

Here's the Ferrari, with Grandpa's footstool...

This is the overall look... Everything in this room
has a story. I think that's why it's my favorite room.
We made most of the furniture, the rest we hunted
down...

Just one more thing...The new TV are very reflective,
We made a motorized shade for the 10 foot window,
and the three smaller windows are pull chain shades.
Just having the big shade down during the day for tv
viewing is enough, I never pull the other shades down.

Your pics are always such a treat! I don't know what I admire more, the creativity, the skills or the obvious love and enjoyment that goes into each of your projects. As someone who has little skills with a husband with no skills at all, your projects look nothing short of a miracle to me. Your house is filled with beautiful things each with its own history and memories. Love your stained glass projects too. Thanks for sharing.

This post was edited by nutsaboutplants on Sun, Oct 19, 14 at 14:43

Is there a handsome green frog on the right side of the fireplace mantle!

I saw the aircraft reflection in one of the photos of the TV; I wondered what it was - and now I know!

Is the bird real? What kind?

I'm sure each of these items has a "story," too.

I am in awe of your lovely room. I would never leave it.

Thanks Caroline, yes, it's a handsome frog.
The plane is Snoopy's bi plane... our son that whittles made it for me.
It's just awesome, he made it for outside, but I hung it inside.

The bird is a canary, Bon-Jovi...he's a singing fool.
...the hound and the canary have a symbiotic relationship.
the snoring makes the bird sing and the singing makes
the hound snore!

check it out for some giggles...

Here is a link that might be useful: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C2BACJEn7Xs

Oh I am in love with that songster; Bon-Jovi rocks! And the pup - too sweet. And the fish! You are living in a little piece of Heaven on Earth.

I have always loved birds, wild birds, tame birds, big birds, little birds. I've had parakeets off and on since my mid-20s (that's a long time ago!) and raised them for a large group of pet shops for a while. I got worried about how buyers may not take proper care of my "babies." I'm rabid on proper nutrition for caged birds. I went back to just parakeets and cockatiels for myself.

While I was stationed in Spain I had a Green Singing Finch, Serinus mozambicus, that I kept in my office. I had to find him a home before being stationed back in the States. Once I arrived at Dover AFB, DE, I found another pair of the delightful little "wild canaries."

My last birds were parakeets. I got them while in California and then moved them here in 2003. Pudge, the English Budgerigar male, lived to be 14; Jill, the Blue Bird of Unhappiness, died soon after Pudge at the age of 12. I never allowed them to breed.

Thank you so much for the link to your lovely pets, and helping solve my "entertainment wall" in the still-in-progress living room.

Pudge is the big green boy; he was finger tame and talked a bit. Jill was the light of his life. Jill hated everyone and everything and brought blood to any finger that approached her! I loved them both.