Tuesday, August 5

Mantle Mania.

Perhaps these seems more like a fall or winter themed post, but you must remember, I am writing from San Francisco, and while yesterday was sunny and warm, today it's foggy and cold, and I've lit a fire to sit and blog by. Summers in San Francisco got me thinking about fireplace mantles and how they are very often the focal point of a room. I found some beautiful mantles in my magazine clipping files, as well as on flickr and thought I'd share. After all, no matter where you live, warm climate or not, a mantle is always a special place to display your treasure mementos, family heirlooms, holiday souvenirs and photographs. Here's some mantles to hopefully inspire you to share your personal collections.

Analisa's non-working, but beautiful fireplace; kitschy fun from Bazaar Style.

Clean, white goodness from Golden Paws.


Eclectic and dramatic black mantles from Juli; and Marky1969.


A bit of zen from Good_Egg.



Sophisticated beauty from Loua and;
a very handsome mantle from highdesignfool.

Copper-faced mantel from sfgirlbybay;
and pretty bedroom mantle from Homebug.


Parisian chic from the pages of Cookie.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Foggy and Cold in August- yuck! Hope it warms up for you again! Love the mantel with all of the letters.

Alicia said...

A nice cool day sounds lovely to me.

I will be dreaming of all of these until my next house comes along. Right now, I am tortured to have a fireplace without a mantle which is so wrong.

sfgirlbybay said...

Tracey - this is typical for SF and then September - October brings our beautiful Indian Summer.

Alicia - my fireplace was mantle-less, too so I added a West Elm floating shelf (see the top right photo). It helped a lot!

Anonymous said...

Interesting how few of these have a screen. I've looked high and low for a good one or just something different for my own fireplace.

Anonymous said...

style like this makes me happy!

Melissa G said...

As for the fireplace mantles, aren't they magical, whether or not the actual fireplace operates. M-Boo and I used to rent at an art deco apartment that had two fireplaces - in the living room and the dining room. The dining room one had been filled in, and we just didn't risk trying to use the other one. But the mantles were brilliant for those little decorative ornaments and photos, for which we had a lot of. A great piece of aesthetic.

Between your blog and watching exterior city footage in the Charmed series (DVD) it has all made me fall madly in love with San Francisco. It now must be my most favorite places that I have never visited.

Amber Mann said...

I like the one with the letters and numbers.

tyesha said...

Thanks for an inspiring post. I am in the middle of contemplating my own new mantle. You inspired a post from me.

happy tuesday! tyesha

http://floriddisposition.blogspot.com/
http://flickr.com/photos/floriddisposition/sets/72157606564297524/

Camilla said...

It was a cold Winters day here in Melbourne Australia today - so i felt quite cosy seeing all the pics of warm fires!
Thanks for the gorgeousness!

Stacy said...

I love the letters everywhere.

Marie Söderberg said...

stopping by from "this is glamorous"...you have lovely images.