A new mantel

It was high time for a new mantel even though I was still madly in love with my fall mantel (see it here). And as I look through those pictures I'm still impressed that I was able to throw that together. My mantel is now my favorite place to decorate in my house, which is funny because it's in a room that has absolutely no idea what is going on at all. I hate the layout of the room, the couches, the weird ledge thing on the other wall. But the mantel. The fireplace. It has got it going on.

So, here's my new mantel! The one and only reason I changed it up was because my amazing and generous parents got us a gas fireplace for Christmas and it was installed this week! Thanks mom and dad! I took everything down so that the guys could work without worry about all my precious glass and breakable things and decided that I'd switch it up. Also, tragic but my glass apothecary jar broke a few months ago. We came home to find it shattered on the ground and I have no idea how the heck it fell. So, now I have to obviously find a new jar (Tj Maxx, duh) and replace it.

How cool are those vintage mason jars? They were all gifts from my parents and brother and I love them. I'm reusing most of the decorations from my old mantel, but I hung up the mirror (which is probably too small for this space but it's what I got and was a thrift store score so it stays) and added the wood spice rack to hold my vintage bottles. I didn't want to use the books in stacks again but I was at a loss for what else would serve this purpose. I'm going to be on the hunt for mantel decorations at every estate sale I hit up this spring.

We're planning on painting the wood around the fireplace (including the mantel) black this weekend. So, I'm not sure why I even set the mantel up, but I did because I guess I enjoy making a lot of work for myself. You can also see a small space about the fireplace that needs to be painted white since the old fireplace was bigger and covered that area and there's a small spot right below the mantel that was missed when we painted, so that's a quick project that'll happen this weekend. I probably can't explain the OCD I have towards the line above the fireplace and how irritated it makes me. But. I'm holding strong until this weekend when I have an extra set of hands that don't belong to a toddler.

The room still has a long way to go but I'm learning to be patient and change things up little by little. I have a lot of hatred for the leather couches for some reason, even though they're extremely nice. Perhaps it's those awful pillows that need to be recovered yesterday. The pillows and the cushions on that chair are all getting makeovers in the near future, as well as the coffee table I hid from you all because I scratched the heck out of it with a piece of wood on accident and then promptly spilled acetone on it. I may or may not have done it on purpose to create a necessary project. I'll never say.