Cabinet to Mantle!
Hi bloggin friends! I hope you are having a WONDERFUL week! I am! I and I am so so so looking forward to this weekend! I am headed back to Michigan to spend some time with my best-est friend Becks (and her wonderful husband Nick). So this will be the last you will hear from me until Monday…..
Butttt on the bright side, I am SUPER excited to show you my finally finished living room and my up-cycled cabinet turned mantle or fake mantle or FANTLE?!?!!!
{Here we are, as of today…but let me show you how we got there!}
{Hubs picked our house out all on his own, I had never seen the place because I was living in Michigan and couldn’t get away to come and tour it. Soo my tour was via pictures–here is what the living room looked like before we moved in.}
***I knew from the moment I saw the mantle-less fireplace, that would have to change! But this house is a rental so I knew my mantle would have to be inexpensive and not permanent.***
***Enter creativity***
{My mother-in-law once again saved the day! She had this red beauty outside and was thinking of getting rid of it in the near future….buttt when I saw it I just knew it was my mantle and she graciously donated it to the crazy list of amazing furniture she gave me}
***At this point, as tacky as it is in this picture, we were playing with the size and the height of my cabinet-fantle, we had already removed the doors (the are both sides of the cabinet)***
{Every time I move into a place even if it is just a rental, I feel compelled to make it HOME and paint ALWAYS helps so so much…so goodbye dark blue walls hello light grey/with cool light blue tones–ahh starting to feel better already!!!}
{Next hubs and I removed the shelves and middle divider of the cabinet—looking like a mantle already right?!? Then we dismantled the mantle (GET IT DIS-MANTLED hahahha).
We also chopped each of the “outer parts” of the cabinet in half so it would fit closer to the wall. And then re-mantled the mantle and nailed it all back together (too much with the mantle jokes?!?).
{At this point we brought the fake-mantle back inside to check it out—see how it would fit and wow am I glad we did! Do you notice that the fake-mantle is sitting higher than the fireplace?}
***Do you kind of like the red at this stage? I did…I debated painting it at all….but it just looked unfinished…..ahhh the debating that goes along with up-cycling!!!***
{Soo we made a little list of areas the mantle needed boards added to look more “finished”. Know what the cool thing was?!? We didn’t have to buy a single board or nail for this project we literally re-used everything that was already part of the cabinet! Sweet right?!? Because like I said for a rental renovation it MUST be inexpensive!!!}
***Ohh and did you notice we kind of stripped the mantle of the red? We left some red because I really wanted to be able to sand away some of the white paint I used and still get some peeks of red and boy I am glad we did—the little red makes me happy!***
{And then I added vinyl- because well I love quotes. And I thought this quote was a good one because I can seasonally change out the “word” on the mantle —and I love that! (did you notice my summer word below the seashells that is there for right now?)}
{I painted all of the cabinet white except for the top which I painfully sanded down and then stained—-I wanted it to kind of look like my dining room table}
{I decided to keep both of the doors from the cabinet and use them on both sides of the mantle because it just gives you a little larger and unique space to decorate!}
{What do you think? I was going for a kind of beach-y cottage-y feel—-how did I do?}
***Know what else is cool?!? Everything I used for my beach cottage living room was either made by me OR found for not-a-lot at a garage sale!!!***
{Did I mention that I painted everything white and then distressed a TON with my little hand sander that I LOVE so very much!?!?}
What do you think? Not bad for a fake mantle right?!?!? Want to come hang out?
I am going to go hang out at some of these parties—come and visit them and be inspired!!!
