IGH Living Room Progress: Mantel going UP!

Happy Spring!

Details are coming together in an Inver Grove Heights living room I am updating.  Let's look!

In this corner, we added grommet style curtains using Robert Allen and Schumacher linen fabrics and a new olive green Hickory wing chair with nailheads. I love this Schumacher linen with the oversized paisleys but chose to use it only on the large floor to ceiling windows on either side of the fireplace so we could keep the focal point on that wall. I put Robert Allen linen solids on the patio door, but connected the draperies with the rust colored border at the top. Linen just hangs so beautifully, it's one of my favorite fabrics!

We added a new Charles Ray sofa, but I decided to keep the coffee table my client had inherited from his mother.  I just love the oversized feel of the piece, the carved details and those bulbous legs are so fabulous!  We highlighted the details with gold leaf and gold Rub n' Buff...thanks to Candice of Textural Hues!!  We're also adding cabinet doors to the bottom half of the built in bookcase behind the sofa.  There's one on either side of the dining room entry.  Now they'll look like built in cabinets instead of built in bookshelves. Still need to redo that piano seat...it's in progress!

And yet in another corner, you can see we've painted the rooms' walls and ceiling with new Ben Moore colors and added this luscious Hickory chaise in a soft grey/blue.  This fabric is soooo soft, you can snuggle right in and watch the wildlife right outside the window. The homeowner already owned the espresso colored faux fur throw, but I think it's perfect on the chaise and grounds the colors in this corner.

Back to the other corner, you can see the old mantel from a chunk of cedar and the graduating bricks holding it up.  I am not a fan of protruding bricks in fireplaces, and it truly doesn't work with our revamped style...too retro, too 50's/60's looking, so...

 ...we are going to cover them up. We could have possibly knocked them off, but we didn't want to risk weakening the entire fireplace structure. The above corbels are hollow, acting as caps, to go over the protruding bricks and hold up the new larger mantel which will wrap around and tie right into the window casing on either side of the fireplace.

Here's my fabulous woodworker, Walt from McHenry's Custom Furniture & Cabinets refining the fit on the new mantel.  Now to paint it to match the trim, and install.

Keep posted!!

Susan