FALSE MANTELS AND CHIMNEY BREASTS: DOING IT RIGHT

Cambria Swanbridge quartz worktops around a small Aga in this Redhill kitchen

A design feature that has grown in popularity over recent years is the false chimney breast or mantel, generally around a hob or range. This is distinct from a genuine mantel, where the chimney structure is genuinely part of the architecture of the house. In a false mantel set-up the “chimney” is only a setting for an extractor fan which may or may not have its own ducted exit.

A word about words: the photos for this blog are sitting on my hard drive under the title false mantles. This is, in fact, having looked it up, wrong. It should be false mantels. Although the words have the same origin in the Latin mantellum – a cloak – they started to diverge some time ago, with mantle being used for fabric (a cloak, a gas mantle) and the figurative use to mean sign of authority, position or power, from the Elijah/Elisha story in the Bible, and mantel to mean a solid structure of wood or masonry over and surrounding fire or oven.

The exception to all of that is US English, where mantle is used more commonly for both, but we can ignore that, I am sure. 😉 For all that info and more besides, take a look at the online Merriam-Webster here.

False mantels are a great way to breathe character into a kitchen. Unlike a real chimney breast, which will run all the way to the floor, severely limiting the units around the range/hob, a false mantel is built on top of perfectly normal kitchen units, allowing cupboard or pan drawers to be built.

A customer’s photo of their range tucked into a false mantel.
Steel Grey granite worktops.

The Typical “Built-On” False Mantel

For many kitchen installations, the best way to create a false mantel is by building the sides and top of the “chimney breast” after the worktops have been installed. The dresser/mantel units sit on the worktops, and appear to support the top section with the extractor, although this will also be well anchored to the wall.

The difficulty that arises in our particular trade is that the vast majority of our installations involve a two-visit model: one man comes to template, and then two men come to fit worktops, upstands, splashbacks and windowsills. Our quoting is based on that model, and additional visits obviously have cost implications.

With false mantels, the granite or quartz worktops and their upstands and/or splashbacks are most frequently not fitted at the same time – at least on the run with the mantel. That needs to be built and then the upstands and splashback trimmed and fitted in a separate visit. In the worst case, especially where large splashbacks are involved, two further visits (for measuring and fitting) may be required.

All of that has cost implications, of course. But for many designs there is really no way around it, especially if you want a job well done. With the exception of the situation described below, we will need to visit three times, and cost that in to do it right. And the kinds of kitchens which have false mantles are precisely those where “doing it right” is paramount – customers for whom design flair, attention to detail and a commitment to the very best quality work is essential.

The Exception: The “Floating” False Mantel

The exception to all of the above is the situation where the false mantel/dresser is to be fully supported by the wall and an upstand is to be fitted as a plinth all around the bottom of each dresser column. In this case, the false mantel can be built “floating”, with a gap of around 50mm above the kitchen carcass height, allowing us to slot the worktop in underneath with 20mm of clearance. Upstands then cover the gap, and can be fitted on the same visit. This approach saves on our site visits, so is cost effective, but does require upstands and the dresser to be fully supported by the wall, with no load-bearing running through the worktop to the kitchen units below.

The images above show a kitchen with a false mantel being fitted by this route. Photos taken at time of templating.

Help us to help you

If you are thinking of installing a false mantel, please make sure you discuss your plans with us before the initial quotation. Unless you are going for the “Floating” option described above, we need to cost in the extra visit(s). We hate hitting customers with price increases after templating, but we will have to do that if we don’t know what you have in mind. Remember – kitchen plans rarely show this kind of feature so you need to tell us verbally.

Misty Carrara Quartz Worktops with a false mantel in an Epsom kitchen

False mantel layouts often incorporate breakfronts in the granite or quartz worktops

Classic Quartz Fiji installation in the Kitchen Design Hub Showroom, Uckfield, East Sussex

Detail of a Charlotte Williams Design kitchen in Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Notice the elegant breakfront in Novaestone Bianco Carrara
and the small upstands neatly surrounding the column of the mantel.

Cimstone Cortina with standard height upstands
in a Crawley, West Sussex kitchen featuring a false chimney breast

Another Charlotte Williams Design kitchen, also in Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Classic Quartz Marbre Carrara quartz worktops

A magnificent false mantel and breakfront installation in Radianz Alluring
Norden Kitchens, Ewell, Surrey