Seasonal Looks For My Mantle

I have talked about my family room and my mantle before. For those who missed its description I will tell you a little bit about it. When we had our home built 30yrs ago, my hubby wanted our fireplace to have brick along the entire end of the room. Being the loving wife and thinking how cute that he had a preference, I acquiesced. After the house was built and I looked at the possibilities of how to decorate an all brick mantle that was 17 ft. long and only had 3ft 9in. of wall space above it, I thought maybe I had made a mistake.
After lot’s of thinking and planning we had a contractor build a beautiful mantle to wrap over the brick mantle and also put legs on each side of the fireplace. I looked for years and years to find an over mantle piece that I liked and could afford. I wanted an antique. Finally after looking for years I found one in Jackson California at an antique store. It was mahogany so it had to be painted. We added molding at the bottom to make it looks as if it was integral to the massive mantle. Then this girl was verrrrry happy. We also added sconces on each side of the over mantle that are reproductions of the same era, the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.

Now I get to decorate a mantle that I love, but it is still difficult at times because of the spanse of space. I am a big is better, less is more kind of girl, but there is a really fine line between enough and not enough on this mantle. I like to change out my house for the seasons, so I am going to show you some pictures of the mantle dressed for Spring, Summer and Winter months. Let me introduce to you my mantle………….

Winter Mantle

  

Sorry for the glare in the pictures. This room gets a lot of natural light. You will notice I put darker colors on the mantle for winter. I bring in more black in the pictures and I add black and red to the books. Instead of white urns that I have for the Spring I replace them with green urns. This look is not as airy as my Spring or Summer looks. Now lets take a look at my Spring Mantle…….

In the Spring I bring in more white, raspberry and blue to the mix. I love the large green vase, It was made in Italy and it has wonderful color and a sculptural affect. Sometimes I have tall branches with blooms placed in this vase.

Now on to the Summer Mantle. You have already seen some of the pictures in my cobalt blue post………..

Summer Mantle

Left Side of Mantle

Right Side 

In the Summer you will notice that I add more of the blue and white and lime for coolness. I take out the pinks of Spring.  So now you have it! My mantle in all the seasons except for Christmas and then I go all out. This is when I become a, "more is more girl."  I will save those pictures for Christmas time.  In all the pictures of the mirror, you probably noticed the reflection of green shutters and the top of my large birdcage. I thought I would show that to you also. So on that note I leave you with this……..

The old wooden shutters were found at a salvage yard in Berkeley Calif. I painted them a depression era green from Pratt and Lambert paints called Northern green. This is what made me decide to paint my kitchen green with the help of my DIL who made the suggestion. She was so right! I love my kitchen cupboards.  The lamps are vintage 1930’s era Warren Kessler Milk glass. I used linen drum shades from Tarjay. I hope you have enjoyed viewing my mantle.

“Enjoy the Process” Of:

Changing an area in your home for the seasons.

Kathysue