Sold to Scott M in New Jersey (NJ) – October 5, 2018
We have several similar ones available from the same batch. Please contact us with your specific needs. Thanks!

With a natural finish, Red Elm is not really what I’d call red. It’s more of a sandy peach color. This mantel shelf was cut from a large 10×10, vintage barn beam from the 1800s. The front and bottom are original hands hewn and the top is cut smooth. This provides the nice rectangular shape as well as a flat surface for decorations. Depending on the height of your mantel, the top may or may not be particularly visible. We’ve also seen people mount the flat side down when resting on a brick fireplace.

The texture on this mantel has particularly pleasant hand hewing — enough to be interesting and authentic, but not so much as to be distracting. This mantel shelf was finished with Briwax. It provides a nice clean finish and keeps the color very close to raw wood.

This mantel beam came from an early 1900s vintage barn between Waconia, MN and Cologne, MN. This particular beam was almost 20 feet long and resting in the milking parlor. It was probably recovered from another nearby barn. These towns are about 40 miles SW of Minneapolis downtown. This is the current edge of modern farm country in these parts. Once upon a time before the suburbs, farm country was much closer to Minneapolis downtown. The soil here is still rich and runs black as deep as three feet. This was also the Western edge of what was once referred to as the Big Woods. If you have ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder books, you’ll see references to these very woods.

This mantel beam is priced at $100 per LF at 64 inches. We can cut this one down in length and reduce the price by $8.33 per inch up to a $100 discount. It can be shipped via FedEx Gnd for $75. If you’d like it cut down, please contact us at antiqueww@gmail.com or call 888-226-5370.

The Tag — Murine For Your Eyes. While this advertisement dates back to the 1940s, Murine dates back to the late 1800s. Rumor has it that the company was started by a gentleman and son who had eye injuries and we cured by a doctor’s previously unmarketed medicine.