Hi Folks,

I have been reading through the forums a lot lately. We have a major home-remodeling project going on. I have been tempted to post a question through out the project, but then better sense prevailed, that made me search the forum first and I ALWAYS found the answer. So Thanks! to everybody for being so generous with your experiences.

However, I think I may have a question that may not have been asked earlier.

We have a brick fireplace. I need to add a mantle to it. I was thinking of just the mantle shelf originally, but I am wondering now if I should add skirts and legs to it as well.

Our mantle width is 84 inches and the most it can go to (because it is kind of set in a little bit) is 90 inches.

I looked at Home Depot and Lowes website and the biggest mantle shelf they have is 6 ft (74 inches). Do you know of any brick and mortar store that has 7ft mantles?

I googeled for mantle shelves and found www.mantelsdirect.com. Does anybody have any experience wih this website? Can you please share? Are there any other such places that you have used? Also, when ordering a custome mantle, should I consider the size of the brick wall as the lookout width (smaller, lower width of the mantle) or should it be the overall width (larger, upper width of the mantle)

I then went back to Home Depot website and am wondering if instead of ordering custom shelf, maybe, I can get a 6 ft shelf and then add skirt and legs to make up for the extra foot needed.

Any thoughts, suggestions, information you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,