When Sarah was visiting about a month ago, it was the night before we would fly back to Texas, and we were both sort of just draped over family room furniture, casual chatting. I looked around the family room and asked, 'okay, be honest, tell me what needs to be changed in this room before we list the house?' She gave it a quick once-over and told me that the deer head needed to go, and I should send the deer antlers over the fireplace to the same place. Taking down the kids' photos from 16 years ago would probably be a good thing, and then, there was just 'so much stuff' going on in the room, a general clearing out would be good.'

It's taken me two weeks to work on it, but I went to google and typed in 'how to decorate fireplace mantle' and several really great websites came up. One in particular talked about 'Three Plus One'. The general idea is that you find three of something, three related similar but not exactly alike items, and place them on one side of the mantle. They should not be the same height but shouldn't vary too much either. You place them together on one side, but not lined up like soldiers. Layer them somewhat, some forward, some just a bit back. At an angle is good too. There should be a space at the end of them, to serve as an edge for the grouping. Then the "One" should be a slightly larger item, placed at the other end of the fireplace mantle. It can match or not, but it should have something in common whether it's color or style or whatever. It should have the 'visual mass' of the three items on the other end of the mantle. And don't put it at the end of the mantle either. Leave an edge. The article talked about mirrors and also just placing paintings on the mantle rather than hanging them.

Here's what I came up with:

No 'before' pictures, but trust me, it looks much better without the deer antlers, mining lantern and whatever else was up here. I bought this mirror for $20 and turned it on it's side. This is the family room mantle, so I went with a bit more casual look.

This is actually a faux fireplace, in the living room. There are tea sets, with a more formal/frilly decor, so I went with antique coffee pots. I'm leaving the tarnish on - I like the color. Then I picked up an inexpensive picture that had a table set with food. I removed the string of stars with lights, but kept the gold metal crane and the clock.

Overall, much better and I probably spent about $50 for the two. A few more items checked off the list of getting this house 'staged'.

Labels: Creative License