Bedroom Fireplace Mantle with TV Niche

Over the weekend I began framing the mantle area for the fireplace in the master bedroom. I started out by making a simple rectangular hearth out of 2x6's and screwed that to the floor. Next I ran the gas line, electric, coax cable and ethernet cable up through the hearth, as the TV will be mounted above the fireplace.

The niche area for the TV will have a curved/arched top. I took two pieces of OSB to cut my template out of. I clamped them together so both pieces would be identical after I made the cut.


Once the two pieces were cut, I had to build them out to the proper thickness by nailing in spacer blocks. I needed to use several of them so that when I drywall this curve there will be plenty of spots to screw into.


The next step was to mount the arched piece I just built, into the framework for the mantle. In the pic below, the TV will mount in the upper area and the firebox will be in the bottom. You can also see the gas line and wires coming up through the hearth in the lower right corner.


I put the marble mantle in place to make sure everything was fitting together properly. The next step is to drywall everything.

to be continued...