When Life Doesn’t Give You a Mantle

Those of you who have been following my blog for awhile or those of you who are in my friends and family know that I have been waiting for over a year now on a beautiful HEART PINE mantle. My mantle is going to be about a foot thick and is made from reclaimed floor beams from a 200 year old barn in Georgia. Can you say gorgeous? My contractor first had to find someone who let him use his planer (sp?) on it and that took about nine months because his friend who had the extra large planer needed to have a blade replaced on it or something like that. Well, my mantel has been planed, but now the contractor is building brackets. I’ve given up hope on having a mantle for Christmas, so I had to take matters into my own hands.

The fireplace before. It’s a Buck Stove, which is great in the winter, but really ugly year round. It sort of has a little shelf on top of it, but there are these ugly brass knobs on each end of it that make it hard to decorate around. The shelf isn’t proper mantle height either. I could have bought a pre-made mantle, but then I would have to drill into the brick and I didn’t want something that permanent because I would have a beautiful mantle one day. I also didn’t want to spend more than $15.

So I started thinking one day; what if I built a box to sit on top of the shelf? Kind of an upside down window box? It would add height to the shelf, cover up the ugly brass knobs and be a great TEMPORARY solution. The only catch was that I had to sell my idea to J.D. I’m not the best at verbalizing my ideas, so they usually end up with me running my mouth and trying to make hand gestures to describe what I am thinking. It took a trip to Lowe’s and learning how to use the circular saw, but she finally grasped what I was thinking!

TaDa! We did it! It took one 8ft long by 7 1/4 (I think) strip of mdf and a strip of 48 inch wood laminate meant for shelves (that’s the top). I think we cut two 18.5 inch sections of mdf and then two 7.25 inch pieces and glued them into a box and then used finishing nails to secure them. We then attached the wood laminate with glue and nails and brought her inside to try her out.

I decided she needed a coat of black paint, pronto!

I basically coated the entire thing with Zinsser primer. Zinsser makes a primer that will adhere to anything, even laminate, without sanding. I discovered that stuff back in February when we started priming our ugly knotty pine paneling. I let the primer dry/cure for two days and then I spray painted multiple coats of gloss black paint.

Here she looks all decorated for fall:

Seriously, I could just sit on the couch and stare at my fireplace all day long. I love it! I know my mantle is far from perfect, but it is meeting my needs until my beautiful reclaimed wood one comes home to me!

I think that sister of mine is finally learning how to interpret my crazy gestures.

Edited to add:

PS. Did you know that either spelling of mantle/mantel is correct? After I published the first time, I realized that I had used both spellings and I had to check!

The birds!

I love fall. I love Halloween. I love Thanksgiving. I love decorating for the fall season and the holidays that fall (ha!) in it. When I stumbled upon this idea in the latest Country Living magazine, I knew I had to try it.

Crow in a jar. No, that shelf isn't his permanent home, the white background made him show up better, nor is the shelf crooked, that's my photography skills for you. I'm just keeping it real.

This was so super easy. I grabbed a pasta sauce jar and made spaghetti so that I could use the jar. I used $8.00 pasta sauce. Heck no, I didn't pay $8.00 for it! It was on clearance at Publix for $1.00! I bought like 12 jars. The funny thing is, I like the $2.49 Classico sauce so much better. Anyway, I spray painted the inside and outside of the lid black. I found a twig in my yard and spray painted it black. I bought a little black crow at Michael's for like .79 on sale and I hot-glued that crow to the twig and the twig to the bottom of the jar. I added a little moss around the twig and screwed the jar lid on the jar and TA DA! a crow in a jar!

I love it! I bought a giant jar of pickles so that I could make one with a larger crow. I am going to have a giant crow collection (maybe three or so) for Halloween. What do you think?

Once upon a time....

there was a very lonely corner in a kitchen. It had a very ugly blank switch plate and giant old inoperable wall heater from the days before central heating and air that couldn't be removed and patched because of the tongue and groove wall paneling but its owners were just grateful they painted it white instead of the ugly poo brown it was before. Anyhoo this corner was lonely. I knew it needed plates. The more I thought about the plates, the more I knew that the plates needed a shelf to prop their pretty selves on. I'm pretty much like the mouse in "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...". Actually, I think the book is written about me.

Sad corner. Sad face :-( The corner is much improved by the artwork of Larissa Herbert. As I looked her up to link to her, I noticed she has new artwork of herbs that would just be perfect for my kitchen. Herbs people! Herbs!

Well one day I was perusing a the Goodwill and I happened upon a fantastically ugly shelf for $2.98! This shelf even had grooves in the top to hold plates! Be still my heart!

The fantastically ugly shelf in my fantastically ugly carport. Holla.

I immediately knew what I was going to do with that puppy; sand it, prime it and douse it with every home decorating bloggers dream: HEIRLOOM WHITE spray paint by Rustoleum. What they don't tell you is that stuff is incredibly hard to find. Lowe's discontinued it several months ago. It now appears that Home Depot is following suit. JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby sell it for $4.99 a can! I checked at three Home Depot's and finally found mini spray cans that they had on clearance for $1.99. Yeah, I bought six of them. Obsessive much?

The shelf, primed.

Giant trash bags make great drop cloths. When the paint dries, you can use them for their original purpose.

My shelf in my kitchen. I am seriously in love.

I even used Nester's Hide me some ugly thermostat trick. Goodbye ugly switch plate! Unfortunately the really ugly vent is still there, but my shelf draws your eye down so it isn't as noticeable.

Can I tell you that I have seriously become addicted to thrift store shopping? To those of you who have known me for a long time this will come as a serious shock!

A daily reminder of my grandparents…

 

I have been trying to figure out what to do with the board and batten wall in our kitchen. I finally decided on framing some of my favorite recipes from my grandparents. I went through all of their old recipes and selected my favorites: Mississippi Mud Cake, Gramma’s Pecan Pie, Pineapple Apple Sauce and Sweet Potato Soufflé.

 

 

I decided on floating frames because some of the recipes are two sided. I found the frames at Michael’s for $7.99 each. But I had a coupon for 50% off all frames! Score! I love that I can see my grandparents handwriting on our walls everyday!

The Office!

THE OFFICE season premiere is tonight! This is my favorite show of all time. I own seasons 1-4 and can't wait to purchase season five.

A photo from one of my favorite episodes of season four:


Seriously, how many of your have worked with people like these characters? What character are you most like? How many of you watch The Office?

On a different note, I promise to start blogging again. I don't know what happened to me this summer, but it seems like I stopped cold turkey! I haven't done very many projects around the house, but I need to show you what I have done. I will definitely work on that this weekend.