Facade for chimney in Brookwood

This is a shot of the wood facade we made for the rear of the chimney in my Brookwood. I cut out a template of veneer to fit the chimney, the stairs, and the upper floors and covered that with some cut down, left-over bass wood pieces. Then I waxed the daylights out of the wood with paste finishing wax. The stairs are cut from faux stone tiles I bought at Lowe's and are designed to fit in the slots to acheive a free-floating effect. Notice the shine on the wood, that is one application of stain with eight coats of paste wax (polished ALOT between coats). It's a lot of work, particularly elbow work, but it really comes out nice and is cheap.....er.....inexpensive as my mother would say. I tried attaching a piece of Sham-wow to my cutter on my dremel to buff it, but there's something about the hand buffing that just comes out so much nicer. One trick I found and use a lot is to use an old piece of levi to do the final buff. It works great!