An oak mantle, after the Arts and Crafts Style, with inset bookcase.

Greetings, all. This is the first mantle I’ve designed and built. It’s after the Arts and Crafts style and I just finished installing it in our recently remodeled living room. I also made the built in book case above it. I’m waiting for the finish on the trim to dry so I can install it before Thanksgiving on the bookcase and to finish off the inside edges between the mantle and the bricks. It’s made of red oak, rift cut, pretty much using standard cabinetry techniques. The overall dimensions are 60.125” wide by 50” tall. The blocks at the base are set flush with the outside edges, the top blocks are set back .250” and the long inset piece in each leg is set back .625”. All of the inside edges are hand champfered, and all the outside edges are hand eased. It was constructed in three pieces, the two legs and the cross piece, then assembled and roughed into place, with the shelf on top, so I could trim the bottoms of the legs to get it square and also so the top of the mantle shelf would line up with the bottom shelf of the bookcase, with the mantle shelf just proud of the bookcase shelf by about 1/16”. I sweated that one out. To keep them aligned, I made a doweling jig that I used to drill four holes in the edge of the bookcase and the back of the shelf, into which 5/16” dowels are dry driven. I didn’t use glue to they could move around independently with changes in the weather.
The bookcase is made of 3/4” oak plywood, including the shelves. I had some left over oak that I ran through a 3/4” bullnose bit on the router table and then ripped those edging pieces 1” deep and attached to the plywood shelves with contact cement and a few brads. The shelves are set into stopped dadoes, set back 2” from the front edge of the carcase. The back is commercially made oak bead board.
I couldn’t find the exact color stain I wanted, so I ended up applying two coats of Minwax Gunstock, which I left on for only five minutes each, and then two coats of Minwax Provincial, which I left on for 15 minutes each all rag applied (I pretreated the wood, by the way), and hand rubbed into the grain, then three coats of Minwax wipe on satin poly, with 300 grit sanding in between the coats.
In retrospect, the only thing I would have done differently would be to have edge joined four pieces of oak to use as the base of the center piece, with the grain in the two end sections pointing down, line the top and bottom blocks of the legs, and the two center sections of the grain pointing up.
The keystones in the center piece match those that I created for the window sills in the room, to tie everything together.

I hope you like it and would appreciate any comments or criticisms.