Styling a Christmas Mantel

Today I am sharing my Christmas mantel decor!

I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I signed up to share this spot in my home. This room is probably one of the most challenging rooms to decorate and the hardest one to photograph. I’m going to share with you some of the challenges I’ve faced while trying to decorate this room, and the progression I’ve made through the years.

Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom to check out everyone else’s truly beautiful, Christmas mantels!

A Look Back…

When we moved into this home 10 years ago, we started with brass fireplace doors, dark paneling, old carpet, red brick and a heavily varnished mantel. My first order of business was painting the paneling. I then moved on to paint the mantel, the doors, and eventually, I whitewashed the brick. This past year, the doors broke and I decided to leave the opening as-is.

Because there is only one window in this room, the lighting can be challenging and it has always felt a little dark. The light color on the walls and brick has helped with this, as well as the addition of several new light fixtures.

For some reason, I really struggled with decorating this spot, this year in particular. I just couldn’t get it “right” and it was really hard catching good light for taking pictures. Initially, I was so excited to use this garland and wreath from the Hearth and Hand line by Joanna Gaines. After playing around with it, I had to ditch the green and went with more frosted tones. I also decided to distress my mantel just a bit with some sandpaper.