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Rustic fireplace mantels are marking a strong return to an era of log cabin simplicity. With hand-hewn textures, hardy wood material and affordability in equal measure, handsome rustic fireplace mantels are cozying up fireplaces everywhere'quicker than you can say Abe Lincoln.

Rustic Fireplace Mantel Trends

Georgia mantel manufacturer Park Pigott says homeowners are specific about styling when it comes to rustic fireplace mantels. A top seller for Pigott has been a reproduction of an 1850s Kentucky farm house mantel, along with Craftsman-style mantels. Though those styles recall later eras, hand-hewn fireplace mantels with a much more rough-hewn look are also becoming a hit with today's homeowners.

Popular styles in rustic fireplace mantels include raw, hand-hewn pine planks that you sand and stain as a weekend project. For a less demanding do-it-yourselfer, you can simply install a pine plank that's already been sanded and stained. Some even prefer a much simpler fixture: a pine log sawed in half and set into special brackets.

"A lot of people are buying timber frame and log homes today," explains Pigott of the trend to get rustic. "Twenty years ago, nobody would dream of living in a log house, even if it was brand new. 100 years ago, you either lived in a log cabin, or if you (were wealthy), you lived in a nice house with a nice mantel. If you lived in a log cabin, it was a lot more primitive."

Rustic Fireplace Mantel Process

Even more primitive than the style of rustic fireplace mantels is the tool used to create the look. Called an adz, the tool traditionally used centuries ago for log cabins and woodworking has a blade attached at a right angle to the handle (an axe blade is perpendicular to the handle). "Hand-hewn means shaped with an adz, which gives it that rustic look, like old log cabins," Pigott says. "With an adz, there are two kinds. One cuts flat, one cuts curved. We use curved and it's just like a hoe with a curved blade, if you will. You start off with a beam that's been planed down and then do the hewing. It's done just the same way you did it 100 years ago."

The process, which creates a dappled look in the rustic fireplace mantel'as if someone repeatedly dipped at it with an especially sharp ice cream scoop'is an arduous one. Centuries ago, a woodsman would stand astride the plank of wood, take a downwards swipe with the blade, and then walk backwards, repeating the motion. Today's process isn't much different. "It's a lot of work," Pigott says.

Rustic Fireplace Mantel Materials

The work doesn't stop there. Once the wood is shaped, it has to be dried in giant kilns'a process Pigott says that can take up to a month. To help cut down on the drying time, Pigott uses white pine, because of its porous quality.

"Kiln-dried white pine is softer and dries faster than green wood or wood that's been air dried,' Pigott says, adding oak and cherry woods don't dry as fast and aren't suitable for rustic fireplace mantels. 'Anything you build out of wood''will buck, warp, split or shrink if it's not dried. Even construction grade lumber is dried to a degree. A lot of people who want a rustic beam will go out and cut down a tree, saw it up, and put it on a mantel. But once they burn a fire or two it will buck and warp."

white pine is used for its affordability. 'People that buy rustic fireplace shelves typically want something cheap,' Pigott explains. 'A full fireplace mantel can cost from $2,000 - $2,500, but a (rustic fireplace mantel) beam sells for $250 - $1,000.'