DIY Mantle

Build Your Own Mantle

I've been wanting a mantle in my house for quite sometime because I wanted to add a little character to my living room and, of course, I wanted another surface to decorate.

During the holidays it was always hard because there were no places to put our decorations, so we'd end up with lots of little holes in the wall from hanging things. 

Well, now we have a bunch of places for decorations: a mantle, a piano top, a side shelf and a bookshelf.

Of course all those things aren't solely for decorations, but this mantle is :)

When I was coming up for ideas on how to build my mantle I turned to google images and Pinterest for some great ideas on small mantles.  Then it was up to me to sketch out the design and dimensions on grid paper.  After that was complete, all I needed was to shop for supplies so I could dive right in.

As you can see, I'm no professional, so I definitely needed to caulk, spackle and sand.

It took me a really long time to decide on a paint color, so this is what our mantle looked like for quite some time.

I finally decided on Behr's Yellow Gold paint.  My husband and I thought it would go nicely with our red chairs and also help to make our living room a little more cozy, but at the same time still give the room a crazy accent:)

After I painted I thought surely it was a mistake!
It was like the sun was is our living room and the yellow was sooooo bright!
My plans were to glaze over the paint, but I still thought it might be too bright.
Then when I did glaze over the yellow, I mixed a glaze that was too dark. 
The glaze was almost black in color and when I applied it to the mantle, it looked like there was soot all over :)

Sometimes when you're painting you just have to try things out and when they don't work, you just have to start over.  Once I lightened the glaze to a dark brown it worked out wonderfully!

  The lighter glaze gave me just the look we were going for and now the room looks all warm and cozy!

And here it is, decorated with some very simple accessories.

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