$494 Living Room Fireplace Refresh
This post is part of our “Your Space by Style & Grace” series, which showcases my solutions to your design problems.
If there is a fireplace in a room, the fireplace is typically the focal point of that space. My dear friend (and neighbor!) Shawn was facing a design challenge with her fireplace. She really wanted its styling to beautiful and impactful, because when you walk in the front door, the sight line brings your eye directly to the fireplace! She styled it a couple years ago herself, but after living with it for awhile, she felt like it was not really representative of her style and the overall space.
When she came to me for guidance, I was so excited, because I love coming up with solutions to your design problems! I asked her what she was hoping for in the redesigned space, and she said she wanted the fireplace mantel to feel lighter, the accessories to be more contemporary, and the whole room to feel more cohesive. With a healthy budget of $500, I was excited to see how I could meet her design needs and stretch the budget to make a major impact!
Since the main focus of this design challenge was the fireplace, that’s what I focused on first. I did not want to change anything with brick or the beautiful wooden mantel, which means the change is all in the accessories. Time to go shopping! The first things that caught my eye were these gorgeous metal lanterns in matte gold. With the clean lines and sharp angles from the brick, the mantel, and now the lanterns, I wanted something a little softer to create some contrast. This French country style wall mirror and its beautiful scalloped top was the perfect complement. Sometimes, I think people in the store think I’m crazy, because I start mixing and matching products to put together looks right in the middle of the aisle!
All the mantel accessories achieved exactly what I was hoping in the space. I was a little bit concerned about the scale of some of the objects, because the fireplace is so tall but the varying heights and levels worked out perfectly. The great news is that styling the mantel only used up about half of my budget! Now I could use the rest of the my budget to really tie the whole living room space together.
One of the easiest ways to tie a space together is with throw pillows! There are so many options and they are pretty cost effective for the amount of impact. Because Shawn wanted a lighter look on the mantel, I went with some lighter woven throw pillows to tie the style together. I mixed in some light colorblock pillows as well for some variety in palette and texture.
After purchasing the throw pillows and some smaller accessories for the mantel, I came in just barely under budget at $494! The even better news — Shawn loved it!!! Shop this post below, and be sure to check back next month for the next installment of Your Space by Style & Grace!
