The Fireplace Accent Wall is Finished!

Honestly, I would love to lay out a beautiful step-by-step tutorial on this wood feature for you, but David and I are not woodworkers. We had a solid idea of how it was going to work, but we made tons of mistakes along the way, and we don't have the widest range of tools that would have made some of these steps easier. However, we are thrilled with the way it turned out which is all that really matters.

Last time I checked in, we were here:


If you missed the other updates, you can check out how we painted the wall, German smeared the fireplace, and built these floating shelves.

I'll try to lay out my thought process in designing the wood feature behind the TV. I knew I wanted a chevron pattern, and I knew I wanted it to float off the wall a little bit so that we could hide the cords for the TV.

We started with poplar, the same wood we used for the floating shelves. I eyeballed an angle that I liked and that left us enough width to stretch across the entire width of the fireplace.


We cut all our pieces at this angle until we had enough length that the center line measured at least 44", which is the amount of space between our fireplace and our ceiling.

I unfortunately don't have pictures of the next part as we had our hands full, but we cut a straight line across the bottom of the chevron pattern, took those pieces, and fitted them into the top of the chevron so that we had straight lines on the top and the bottom.

Then we flipped the wood upside down and bracketed it together.


We used a flat metal bracket for this. Then, just to hold the pieces together that the bracket missed until we could get it up on the wall, we just used a staple gun to stabilize each piece. We did these steps on both sides, as we were working with the chevron one half at a time.


From here we cut straight lines down the vertical sides until the pattern matched the width of the fireplace.

We switched to working inside for a little while, as we had to make the chevron float off the wall so the TV cords could fall behind it.


We used our poplar again since the sides of these "stud" pieces would be visible, and we wanted the color of the wood to match all the way around. We screwed these into studs in the wall, and also added a stud above the TV bracket after this picture was taken (directly above the middle piece in the picture above, just from the ceiling to the top of the bracket).

Next we needed to cut a hole out of the chevron pattern so that we could slot the TV into it.


Somewhere around here our math got a little screwed up, and we ultimately ended up needing to raise the TV bracket a couple of inches because we cut the hole out a little too high. We also gave it a good sanding at this point. Once the hole was cut out, it was time to glue and screw the chevron to the wall!


We just used some wood glue on the studs, and the same long screws we used to secure the studs to the drywall. We did try to place the screws very intentionally. Even though I was going to cover them with wood filler, I didn't want then to be just any old place when you looked closely.


As we were doing this, we made sure the cords for the TV ran up behind the chevron and came out of the hole where the TV bracket was. We just had to plug them in as we were hanging the TV back up.

Speaking of cords, we did have to brutalize my lovely floating shelves a little bit.


We carved out a hole on each side so that the necessary cords could run up the side of the fireplace to the TV, sound bar, and cable box.


Once the chevron was all screwed in, I filled in the screw heads with "natural" colored wood filler. It hides them really well, with the exception of a couple spots where the grain is darker. I much prefer it to the gold screws showing.


We wound up having to hang the TV before I was able to seal the wood, but I just worked around the TV. I only did one coat of the sealer because, frankly, I couldn't take the smell anymore (it smelled like black licorice)! I figured that since it's a wall feature and not a table or surface people will be touching all the time, one coat would be just fine.

And finally it was the part I'd been waiting for: time to decorate!


I filled the floating shelves with black and white family photos in various sizes, all in black frames with white mats for consistency. It finally feels like this room is complete.


We absolutely love the natural wood, and have trouble even remembering what this wall used to look like:


So blah, right?! I'll take this view any day!


I also picked up that cute ceramic drum stool at HomeGoods to hide the mess of cords in the corner and so the cable box and DVD player have somewhere to sit.

I am ready to wash my hands of this room and move on to the next! In the meantime I'll be staring at it lovingly.

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