Winchester Fireplace Wall & White Oak Built-In

Winchester, CA

Location

Winchester, CA

Materials

Rift-sawn white oak mantel, face frame, doors and countertop; domestic maple cabinet boxes; black granite hearth cap; hand-built poplar slat backing in Sherwin-Williams Tricorn Black; Portola Roman Clay in Mariposa; Rubio Monocoat Oil Plus 2C in Natural

Timeline

6 working days on site, plus 3 days of shop fabrication

Investment

$17,590

The Investment

$17,590

Turn-key total

6 working days on site, plus 3 days of shop fabrication

Start to finish, on site.

What drove the cost

Plaster surround removal, pop-out framing, and new electrical for a countertop outlet and switched picture light
Drywall and Portola Roman Clay across the full wall, including the return
Floating mitered rift white oak mantel on a French cleat
Black granite hearth cap over the existing hearth
Base cabinet: maple boxes, rift oak face frame, four Shaker doors, solid oak top
Upper cubbies: 1-1/2 inch laminated panels, white oak veneer, solid oak nosing, grooved and cleated
Hand-built black slat backing, templated to each cubby
Rubio Monocoat finish on all white oak
Not included: the TV, the record player, flooring, and any change to the existing firebox or gas line

The price is all-inclusive: design, materials, build, paint, and final detailing.

The story

How this project came together.

A builder-grade fireplace wall rebuilt edge to edge: a floating rift-sawn white oak mantel, a black granite hearth cap, and a built-in with record-height cubbies over hand-built black slats, all set against a hand-troweled Portola Roman Clay wall.

Winchester grew fast through the 2000s building boom, and homes from those years came with the same fireplace package: an arched TV niche, a plaster mantel surround, a painted hearth, and an empty drywall alcove beside it. It works. It just doesn't say anything. This homeowner had put real money into a new kitchen, and the kitchen looks straight at this wall.

The wood choice was settled before anyone sharpened a pencil. The new kitchen has two small rift white oak accents, so the wall was built in the same material to read as part of the same house. The existing firebox never moved. We removed the plaster surround, framed a new pop-out over the old arched niche, and capped the existing hearth in black granite, which kept the whole job in carpentry territory instead of fireplace replacement.

The cubbies were the hard part. With an open, stepped layout there is nowhere to hide a fastener, so two sheets of 3/4 inch plywood were laminated into 1-1/2 inch panels, veneered in white oak, and capped with solid oak nosing, then every shelf was grooved into its neighbors and cleated with glue and pin nails. The slats took the most hours: nothing on the market looked right, so one continuous slat panel was built, painted, then templated and cut to fit each cubby so the slats wrap around the shelves.

The best detail is the tall cubby on the left. The record player sits at the bottom, the playing record's jacket stands up behind it, and an antique brass picture light washes over both. An earlier version of the layout dropped that cubby for one more small one. Keeping it turned out to be the best call on the job.

The honest part: the first Roman Clay application left burnish marks on the light Mariposa color. It did not meet our standard, so a second finisher smooth-coated the entire wall and reapplied the clay. Holland & Sons covered that redo. The homeowner never paid a dollar for it.