I feel like a mantel can set the tone for the whole room.

When decorating our house this Christmas, I started with the mantels and then moved to the rest of the house.

TV/Living Room:

I am so happy with how this mantel turned out.  I wanted to use the gold framed picture we have because it is a beautiful winter scene.  The frame is VERY gold…so I decided we needed to embrace the bold gold.  So it is mostly golds with some touches of silver and crystal.

With the twinkle lights on at night it glows nicely.

Sunroom/Family Room:

I struggled a little more with this room.  Partially because the back end of this room tends to be dark.  The brick is darker in color and seems to absorb the light.

I ended with this:

This is how it started:

I am much happier with the end product, but I usually continue to move things around throughout the entire season…so it could still change again.

I didn’t like the reds and deep greens in this room.  It was looking old and run down, especially when they were put up everywhere else in the room too.  So, we moved to silvers, whites and bright green with a few splashes of blue.  I think it looks lighter and airier now.

I love it with the twinkle lights on…especially at night!

What do you think of the baby gate inside the fireplace…haha… not the prettiest, but it works!

The other challenge with this room is accommodating the bookcases on either side of the mantel.  They are great built-ins, but they need to flow with what is on the mantel.

On my to-do list is to paint the built-ins a different color.  I think I want to paint them a white slightly more bright than the walls and maybe with the back of the bookcase wall an airy blue.  Hopefully I will get to it this winter sometime… Please Share it! 🙂