Make Believe Mantle

Ya know how when you notice something in your house that isn't quite what you want it to be, then all the sudden its all you can see when you walk into that room? Has that ever happened to you? Well, after we built our coffee table here and I took some pictures for this here blog, I was so annoyed by the look of our too small shelf. Its amazing how looking at a picture can really point something out to you that you hadn't really noticed before.

This shelf was put up in a hurry when we first moved in, trying to make it look a little more "homey" for our first visitors. It worked for awhile, but when we moved the big couch against that wall, it dwarfed the shelf even more. So after bugging my handy BIL and repeatedly showing him pictures I liked, kinda like this one...

 Pinterest

and this one...

 Pottery Barn

So one weekend while my husband and I were out of town, Ryan got a wild hair and decided to build one, (I swear it was like subliminal messaging) and look how good it turned out!

I love that it has that chunky mantle look to it. It is so much more fun decorating for fall when you have a make believe mantle.

Now I cant even begin to explain how he built it, all I know is that I love it :) Maybe someday, I will be brave enough to attempt that wonderful chippy look like the ones above. But for now it works just fine!

I am linked at Home Stories A 2 Z

Dining Room Chairs

So I never did show you all how our dining room chairs turned out after I reupholstered them! If you remember they were stained and old and looked like this...

Ewww! Not pretty.

Well after a little bit of work they now look like this!

I am so happy with the way they turned out. It was so easy to recover them and made such a dramatic difference. As I mentioned here I really wanted to try sewing on a stripe of lace down the center of the seat, because I loved the look of this chair.

So on one of the chairs I tried it.

It was pretty, but it just didn't look right with the style of the chair. Maybe when we buy a new dining room set that has a more country styled chair I can try this again. But as for now Ill just stick with the plain linen. :)