I am lucky to have two fireplaces in our home to style, and in both of these spaces, I would say that the fireplace is the focal point in the room. This is the fireplace in my Living Room...
And here is the fireplace in our family room...
When we renovated our home 7 years ago, I knew right away that I wanted to paint the brick fireplace white, and this continues to be one of my favorite elements in our home. It's fun to decorate because it's a blank slate and the white brick lends itself to different styles.
Today I thought it would be fun to show you this mantle styled 3 different ways, and at 3 different price points. Look number 1 is the existing look in our family room and then I went shopping to two of my favorite local stores to create looks 2 and 3.
Even though the vignettes I created are different, my approach to each one is the same - start with a piece of art and use it as your jumping off point. You can pull colors from that for your accessories, both on the mantle and around the entire room. Let's look at my mantle styled 3 ways!
Look 1 - Modern Farmhouse Flowers
The first look is actually how my mantle has been styled since I gave my family room a makeover last Fall, which you can read about here. I love the set of Dahlia Prints, which I purchased from Juniper Print Shop as a digital download (Dahlia I and Dahlia II).
Everything else you see on the mantle comes from Target - the frames, the candle holder and the set of wooden vases. The faux magnolia stems are the one exception, they are from a local shop, Trims in Edgemont Village. I have had most these items for years, and can't exactly remember the price, but this is a fairly budget friendly approach to styling your mantle.
Look 2- Romantic Modern Farmhouse
I sourced the above items from Homesense, and the price for all 5 pieces came to $97.95...can you believe that? A beautifully styled mantle for under $100!
Homesense is so great from a budget point of view, but can be tricky because you never know what you are going to find there and it can be hit or miss. My advice when you are looking for specific decor at Homesense is to be patient, it might take you a couple of visits to find what you are looking for.
As I mentioned above, I like to start with the artwork first, and the cow painting spoke to me. It is mostly black and white but has a blush pink tone to it. I love modern farmhouse style AND also soft pink elements so this piece was a clear winner.
From there I went to the accessories department and found the pretty glass vase with faux pink flowers, a peace sign sculpture and a gold candle holder.
I actually laid these things out on the floor of Homesense to see if I like the way they looked together...
In a perfect world there would have been two of the gold candle holders, in different heights, but despite me desperately searching all the shelves, this was the only one. I thought the little jar candle worked well with my vignette so it was a good "option B"
As I was cruising around the store, I fell in love with this pink throw blanket and the pillow with the gold thread, so I tossed them into the cart as well.
I thought this was a great illustration of how you can tie your mantle decor in to your couch styling. Here is how all of the decorative elements look together:
The throw blanket has the same pink tones as the flowers and art, and the gold thread on the pillow (which is hard to see in the photo) ties into the gold candle holder. These two items came to $61.57 bringing the total cost for all of the items in the Romantic Modern Farmhouse vignette to $171.29.
Look 3 - Modern & Moody Mantle
I took this look in a totally different direction, and I think it really illustrates how you can completely change the look of a space with a piece of artwork and some thoughtfully selected accessories. Everything you see on this mantle comes from Urban Barn, with the exception of the candle holders, they are from Amazon (click here for the link).
Urban Barn has some great wall decor, and while the price point is a bit higher than Homesense, I think they are still very affordable! I loved this colorful abstract art piece by Victoria artist, Andrea Soos.
I selected a few accessories to balance out the mantle, first up this tall black vase and faux fern stems.
Then I added this brass sculpture for some visual interest...
Pictured on the stool is a pillow that I already had on hand from H&M home, which I incorporated to once again highlight how you can tie in your mantle decor to other areas in the room, like your couch.
The art, vase, faux fern stems and the brass decorative sculpture cost $270.59 and the candle holders were a steal at $16.99 bringing the total cost of the Modern Moody Mantle Vignette to $287.58.
Fireplace Mantle Styled 3 Ways
Let's take a look at these 3 looks side by side:
Which one is your favorite? It's a tough choice for me, but I think I prefer Look number two (the middle one). I hope you enjoyed this fun styling post, I really enjoyed creating the looks, photographing them and sharing them with you! For daily styling tips and inspiration, follow me over on instagram ...@littlenestdesign
If you have questions about this post or are looking for some help styling your own home, email me at khansen@littlenestdesign.com.
Thanks for reading!
xo, Kerri