How To Stain Yellow Southern Pine Wooden Beam Mantel

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Today I am sharing how to stain a yellow southern pine wooden beam mantel. Updating your mantel is one of the biggest things you can do to modernize your fireplace.

How To stain A Wood Mantel

The yellow southern pine wooden beam is over 100 years old and was in the barn when we bought the house the house. 

The previous owner had renovated a warehouse in the city nearby and he left the southern beams in the barn.

Here is the granite slab mantel that came with the house.

If you didn’t see the blog post, “how to remove a granite stone mantel,” check it out so you can see the before of the fireplace.

The new wooden beam mantel adds so much more character and texture to the family room and we absolutely love it. 

Jake picked up one of the yellow southern pine beams and sandblasted the old paint off at his shop.

Here is the pine wood beam below prior to us sanding and staining.

We used a chainsaw to cut the yellow southern pine mantel to size we needed.

Removing old paint from southern pine wood

We used a hand wood sander to remove the old paint. 

Once the old paint was removed, we ran the pine wooden beam through his sanding machine and honestly, the beam natural was beautiful.

Dark Wood Stain 

I wanted a more warm toned dark wood look so I ordered Rubio Monocoat Stain in a dark stain color called Chocolate.

This wood stain is actually a wood flooring stain and very durable.

 Minwax dark wood stain colors are also very similar. 

Staining yellow pine wood instructions

Prior to staining, you must sand the pine wood beam mantel.

1.  Simply pour your wood stain into a small throw away container and apply with a lint free rag.

2. Apply stain (wearing gloves) according to the directions on the can. Be sure pine wood beam is clean from any dust.

We counted over 100 lines on the beam which means this is a really old beam!

Isn’t that really cool?

How does yellow pine stain?

I used a dark wood stain color which was very easy to apply and hid any large imperfections. 

This was actually the sample wood piece below so we could test the color prior to staining the entire wood beam.

I absolutely love this yellow southern pine wooden beam mantel turned out. 

Jake also designed corbels to be mounted under the pine wood mantel. 

The dark wood stain is such a fabulous color, deep, dark and rich. I will be sharing in a couple days how we mounted this gigantic (very heavy) southern pine wood beam to the existing fireplace.