Fireplace & Mantel Ideas

I usually don't write book reviews but felt I should since I really disagee with the reviewers who gave this book one star. This book doesn't have any advertisements. It contains over 20 original mantel designs that my wife and I felt we could build from common materials. I am not an experienced craftsman, but this book helped me gain the confidence I needed to begin the project. We are quite pleased with the results. I built the "Oak Manor" mantel which was simple to build and was completed in a week of my spare time. Our friends can't believe how good it looks and I have loaned this book several times. The next fireplace I build I would like to be a ventless since this book answered all my technical questions and gave me several ideas on where and how to install various types of fieplaces. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about fireplaces and would like to build their own mantel.

My wife and I recently bought a new house and wanted to install a fireplace. We knew little about fireplace technology or what manufacturers offered. I had no idea until I read this book that there were so many options. The book describes in detail not only the many options but how they work and whether they're appropriate for your particular fireplace. The book also gave us great inspiration with choosing a mantel design. The book contains several mantel designs and how to build each one. The beautiful photos and construction illustrations were very helpful when we built ours. The big fireplace suppliers are also noted in the book with lots of helpful photos of their offerings. For myself, the wealth of knowledge I gained about fireplaces was priceless and very easy to read! I would recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about adding a fireplace to your home or redesigning an existing one.

Unlike a few others who have reviewed this book, I found this book to be extremely helpful and useful to me. I imagine that the critics of this book are serious wood craftsmen who are looking for books on carving mantels. This book is not that. It is for others like myself who want to make home improvements and are handy with tools. The author shows ways to add a hand carved look to a mantel without having to carve it yourself. I am neither an artist or master crafstman. The book showed me several mantels that were elegant in design but simple to construct. I built a contemporary mantel for my new home which was very inexpensive to construct and the materials were readily available. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys doing their own home improvements!

In Fireplace & Mantel Ideas, John Lewman showcases more than one hundred classic fireplace mantel designs including English traditional, Country French, Victorian, Art Nouveau, Classic French, Neoclassical, and more. With fifteen complete comprehensive, easy-to-read design and installation guides that enable the do-it-yourself enthusiast to build and finish himself, Fireplace & Mantel Ideas is an ideal reference for architectural inspiration and practical home renovation. The informative text is enhanced with a full color "Idea Gallery" presenting photos of existing fireplace installations. A detailed appendix includes a complete list of manufacturers and suppliers. If you are anticipating having a fireplace mantel in your home's decor, begin by a thorough reading of John Lewman's Fireplace & Mantel Ideas!

I found this book to be a great resource for both understanding new and traditional fireplace technology as well as helping me to select a mantel for our house. I found the how-to designs useful and built a mantel using common materials and tools using this book as a guide (I also used the book to make revisions to my fireplace in order to to acheive maximum heat efficiency). I would recommend this book to anyone interested in getting a good overview of the technology and anyone who is anxious to take on the project of building an affordable mantel.