Pine Beetle Fireplace Mantle

This piece started out over 10' long, 2' wide, and almost 8" thick. It was so warped, I didn't know if it could even be salvaged. Using my planer router on two 16' foot rails, I planed it down to about 4" thick thinking it would make a really unique bench. Once I got it to that thickness, it said it wanted to be a mantle over our fireplace. So, I cut it down to 8' and trimmed the back side of it so it would more or less sit flush to the wall with a small gap right in the middle. This is kind of fun because when people see the mantle, I can stick my hand up through from the back, and they almost always get a little giggle out of it.