When we moved into our little cookie cutter, the exact same house is repeated 4 times on our block (and there just aren't that many stinkin' houses on the block!) we were gifted with a builder mantle that was exactly 3 inches deep. I'll give you a second to picture that. Yes, 3! Come on! What in the world am I going to do with 3 inches!
All I could fit on it was a craggy string of hydrangea garland, and it would fall off if you looked at it wrong!
It's Par-Tay time! This is the only before picture I could find of it decorated (if you could call it that). I mean seriously, I couldn't even hang stockings on that sucker for fear a slight breeze would knock the stocking hangers off and bean a passing munchkin.
Here's the mantle nekked before we started:
I re purposed the mirror out of an old one I had been given that had an itty bitty oak frame around it. I have no excuses for those little useless votives...I claim temporary insanity.
We just added trim and moulding to the existing mantle to beef it up. Fluted molding along the sides, dental along the inner top, and a 6 inch top. I couldn't go any deeper because our T.V sits in an alcove next to fireplace and as it was the six inches blocked part of the picture. To finish we painted her a glossy off white.
Here she is all purdied up
My before and after:
What do you think?
I have had so much fun decorating it. I wish I had pictures of what she looks like normally and gussied up for holidays but I don't. And tomorrow you will see why I will never have one again, sniff. Maybe I am being a bit melodramatic.
The only picture I have is of my meager beginnings to get the holiday mantle up.
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