The Unveiling of the March Mantel!

Wow, can you believe March is here? February just seemed to fly by, probably because I was busy working on the March mantel which turned into a TOTAL redo!

First, I need to give credit where credit is due, I was so totally inspired by Donna's mantel gate over at Funky Junk Interiors. If you haven't seen it, quick, click this link because her gate is awesome!

Donna at Funky Junk Interiors Awesome Mantel Gate

Did you see hers? And you came back here? I'm honored, because usually I get lost over at her website and forget what I was doing.

Anyway, so all I had to say to my husband were those two sweet little words to get him to help me build a gate. Those sweet little words were "Power Tools."

Let's get this show on the road.  First we took an old pallet we got for free and put it on the back of the truck and began dismantling it:

That's our border collie mix, Gulliver. He wanted to help.

I decided I wanted my gate slats spaced apart and not butted together because I wanted more of an open, airy garden gate, so we spaced them evenly and added the cross bars of the "Z."

Yup, Gulliver is still there. I kept wondering why he was hanging around then saw the dog treat bag up in the truck. Oops!

After we spaced the slats so carefully, I realized we had to flip the whole thing over because I wanted to drill the screws in from the back so you wouldn't see them. Ah well.

After the top and bottom parts were screwed together, we added the middle cross bar.

Okay, confession time, after I took the above picture (by the way, that's hubby's arm), we realized the gate was too tall for above our mantel, so had to disassemble, cut off some more of the length and reassemble again. Measure twice, cut once anyone? Maybe next time.

Then I sloppy painted it with flat white paint. I wanted some of the natural wood showing through so didn't put too many coats of paint on.

After that I sanded the gate in spots to make it look more worn. Especially the upper right "grab to open" area.

See? Doesn't it look like we've been grabbing that corner of the gate for years to open it? After I was done sanding I added some gate hinges on the left side of the gate.

Time for the reveal! I found some barbed wire in my husbands shop area and took a metal star I've had for a while and decorated the front of the gate.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

For the rest of the mantel, I added a few pieces from my white enamelware collection and also some homemade finials I made (tutorial on those later this month).

Of course, I needed to work a bird in there, so a nest with a small ceramic bird sits on top of one of my enamelware buckets.

Homemade finials with a cow that was given to me by a friend a few years ago.

Now the mantel in its entirety:

My picture this month is just a silly shot of the 3 of us that I had printed in sepia.

Now the best part, my total cost this month was $14.50!

$3.00 for the flowers (1/2 price coupon at Dollar General), $5 for the gate hardware, $5 for the white paint and $1.50 for what I made the finials out of. Woo hoo! Under budget! Everything else I already had.

Thanks for looking!

Until next time,

3/7/11 update. Just found out that Linda over at Coastal Charm featured my mantel gate.  Wow! Thanks, Linda!

Linking to these fun and fabulous linky parties:

• Coastal Charm
• Krafty Kat
• The Stories of A2Z
• Faded Charm Cottage
• The Shappy Chic Cottage
• Beyond the Picket Fence - Under $100
• Chic on a Shoestring
• Funky Junk Interiors - Saturday Night Special
• Tatertots and Jello - Weekend Wrap Party
• DIY Home Sweet Home Project
• C.R.A.F.T.
• Fingerprints on the Fridge