Livingroom Mantel

Sharing my own little DIY fixer upper project. The point of this post is to ALWAYS keep your eyes peeled. Everyday I pull into your neighborhood and I'm always looking in other people's yards (haha) seeing if they've put anything by the road that they don't want. Reason being, most of the accent pieces in our home are straight from the side of the road. 

Nothing like a little bit of sanding and a coat of paint to bring something back to life. My dad always told me nothing was ever broken, with a creative mind you can make it into whatever you want it to be. 

I've always wanted a mantel in our house, but our house wasn't built that way. We have no mantel, we have no fireplace, we have no built ins.. nothing. I love our house, but it's a cookie cutter home..it was built fast. The cabinets are standard, faucets.. standard, everything is standard, so it's taken a lot of creativity to classy it up on a budget. I knew that if I was ever going to get a mantel, we would have to build it. 

Patience is a virtue, my friends. After years and years of waiting, not really having anyone to build a mantel for me, I found this little entertainment piece. I immediately called Travis to run two houses down to get it. I knew that it might turn out to be nothing, but I wanted to at least try. I'm so glad I did. 

BEFORE

By the way, the photo below is inspo. I don't own the rights to it and can not give credit because I do not know who it belongs to BUT it was the closest thing I could find to what I was trying to create. I actually found it after I had already painted and style the mantel. After seeing that wreath, I had to add one too. 

below is our DIY mantel project

I sanded and put on about 3 coats of white paint, and it's good as new. I am so excited to be able to decorate a mantel for the holidays. I've waited years for this!