Mantle, mantle on the wall.

I really love my fireplace. San Francisco has cold winter nights and summer's can be foggy, so I can use it year round to keep out the chill. At some point in this turn-of-the-century Victorian, somebody had the idea to 'modernize' the place and they covered up what I can only assume was a beautiful brick fireplace with shiny, new copper facing. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but many years since it was installed, the fireplace now has a cool patina to it with lots of character. The one drawback to it was that it didn't have a mantel. I've always liked a good mantel. It's a place somewhat akin to a personal shrine, where people place memorabilia and family photos. A place for objects that are special to you.


So, missing a mantel, I decided to create my own. I headed over to my local West Elm and checked out their wall shelving. I found a great 4' long 'floating' wall shelf in white laminated wood. I was nervous to start drilling into the wall above the fireplace, so I called over my trusty friend Joni, aka McGyver, and she arrived with all her tools and put it up for me in like, five minutes. I'm quite pleased with the results and it was super easy and very inexpensive. So, if you're 'mantle-less' it's a very simple fix. One you might consider to display what's special to you.


Top left photo courtesy of Limonada.