decorating,  DIY

Arrow Mantel Art

Brace yourselves. Today I’m going to show you a work-in-progress.

I thought it would be super fun to see how long it takes for me to figure out how to finish what I started! That was sarcasm, folks.

Seriously though, I have a feeling it’s going to take me awhile to figure out how this project ends.

It all started because I needed art for the mother of all mantels. It’s probably 8-feet long.

As most things begin around here, I had an AWESOME idea and a spare piece of plywood. I’m running out of spare pieces of plywood though, so I might have to stop blogging then. 😉

Through a bit of measuring and remeasuring and reminding myself that the “3rd time is the charm” I marked cut lines for a set of arrows. Handy Husband cut them out for me. He’s helpful that way. For the record, I’m good at measuring things. I’m not so good about making my mark in the same exact way for every measurement.

Miraculously, I ended up with 3 identical arrows.

arrowmantel5
The plywood I was using had already been stained for another project. I painted over it with some white paint I had on hand. Then I randomly sanded down some parts of the arrows.

Now that I’ve stared at them for a couple of weeks, I might sand them some more so that more of the stain comes through. We’ll see.

arrowmantel3
I originally envisioned that the arrows would lean on the mantel.

I failed to take into account how right-heavy the arrows are. Not exactly good for balancing!

Since I’m not committed enough to this idea to make holes in the brick to facilitate the leaning  in process, I affixed the arrows directly to the brick with Command Strips.

I really wish I had invented Command Strips. And why isn’t there a knock-off yet? Those suckers are expensive. My free project now cost me $8.54 because leaning-in just wasn’t working for me.

arrowmantel2
The reason why this mantel art is a work-in-progress is because the space to the right of the arrows still needs something. Or maybe the whole thing needs something.

I also need to do something about the fireplace hole. This is a working fireplace, but I don’t know if we are going to use it – at least not very often. It looks a little sad to me the way it is though.

arrowmantel7
All in all, I’m happy to be making progress. As far as an estimation as to when I’ll figure out how to finish this arrow mantel art project, it’s somewhere between now and I have no clue.


If you made it to the end of this post (YAY!), you probably need something else to read! How about one of these…

Distressed Arrow Art from wood scraps

Refinished Dining Table

Pottery Barn Farmhouse Bed Knock Off – Update One Year Later


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