Cabinet to Mantle!

Hi bloggin friends!  I hope you are having a WONDERFUL week!  I am!  I and I am so so so looking forward to this weekend!  I am headed back to Michigan to spend some time with my best-est friend Becks (and her wonderful husband Nick).  So this will be the last you will hear from me until Monday.....

Butttt on the bright side, I am SUPER excited to show you my finally finished living room and my up-cycled cabinet turned mantle or fake mantle or FANTLE?!?!!!

 {Here we are, as of today...but let me show you how we got there!}

{Hubs picked our house out all on his own, I had never seen the place because I was living in Michigan and couldn't get away to come and tour it.  Soooo my tour was via pictures----here is what the living room looked like before we moved in.}

***I knew from the moment I saw the mantle-less fireplace, that would have to change!  Butt this house is a rental so I knew my mantle would have to be inexpensive and not permeant.***

***Enter creativity***

{My mother-in-law once again saved the day!  She had this red beauty outside and was thinking of getting rid of it in the near future....buttt when I saw it I just knew it was my mantle and she graciously donated it to the crazy list of amazing furniture she gave me}

***At this point, as tacky as it is in this picture, we were playing with the size and the height of my cabinet-fantle, we had already removed the doors (the are both sides of the cabinet)***

{Everytime I move into a place even if it issss just a rental, I feel compelled to make it HOME and paint ALWAYS helps soooo sooo much...so goodbye dark blue walls hello light grey/with cool light blue tones--ahhh starting to feel better already!!!}

{Next hubs and I removed the shelves and middle divider of the cabinet---looking like a mantle already right?!?  Then we dismantled the mantle (GET IT DIS-MANTLED hahahha).

We also chopped each of the "outter parts" of the cabinet in half so it would fit closer to the wall.  And then re-mantled the mantle and nailed it all back together (too much with the mantle jokes?!?).

{At this point we brought the fake-mantle back inside to check it out---see how it would fit and wow am I glad we did!  Do you notice that the fake-mantle is sitting higher than the fireplace?}

***Do you kind of like the red at this stage?  I did...I debated painting it at all....but it just looked unfinished.....ahhh the debating that goes along with up-cycling!!!***

{Soo we made a little list of areas the mantle needed boards added to look more "finished".  Know what the cool thing was?!?  We didn't have to buy a single board or nail for this project we literally re-used everything that was already part of the cabinet!  Sweet right?!?  Because like I said for a rental renovation it MUST be inexpensive!!!}

***Ohh and did you notice we kind of stripped the mantle of the red?  We left some red because I really wanted to be able to sand away some of the white paint I used and still get some peeks of red and boy I am glad we did---the little red makes me happy!***

{And then I added vinyl- because well I love quotes.  And I thought this quote was a good one because I can seasonally change out the "word" on the mantle ---and I love that!  (did you notice my summer word below the seashells that is there for right now?)}

{I painted all of the cabinet white except for the top which I painfully sanded down and then stained----I wanted it to kind of look like my dining room table}

{I decided to keep both of the doors from the cabinet and use them on both sides of the mantle because it just gives you a little larger and unique space to decorate!}

{What do you think?  I was going for a kind of beach-y cottage-y feel----how did I do?}

***Know what else is cool?!?  Everything I used for my beach cottage living room was either made by me OR found for not-a-lot at a garage sale!!!***

{Did I mention that I painted everything white and then distressed a TON with my little hand sander that I LOVE so very much!?!?}

What do you think?  Not bad for a fake mantle right?!?!?  Want to come hang out?

I am going to go hang out at some of these parties---come and visit them and be inspired!!!