3 Tips for Decorating Fireplace Mantles

If you read the last post, then you’re already up to speed on the theme, and where to find the pieces I used to decorate my fireplace mantle. Now I’m getting into how I managed to style my fireplace mantle without making it look like a hot mess.

I’m not even going to lie, I had no idea what I was doing when I decided to decorate area of my home. After spending hours on Pinterest looking for home decor inspiration, all I could find were these unrelated bookshelf decorating tips. It actually turns out that bookshelf decorating tips work great on fireplace mantles too!

The first consistent trick to decorating bookshelves, has to do with alternating item heights. To mimic the idea using a fireplace mantle, I displayed items overlapping by varying heights from front to back and left to right. It looks too expected or choreographed to place items in constant descending or ascending height. When the height of the items alternate it appears messy but well put together. To make things easier, I suggest to start decorating by placing the larger objects in their designated spots first and work it out from there.

Bookshelves normally have some sort of color scheme, or cohesive pattern that echos throughout. I improvised & came up with a theme on the spot in the store. I had no idea it was going to turn out this nice though! Picking the right combination of floral arrangements was the easiest. However, finding a group of items with the same color wood finish and iron plating was a little tricky.

Every episode of Fixer Upper on HGTV ends with Chip & Joanna giving the household something meaningful to tie everything in. So, I decided to go tie that same theme idea into decorating my mantle. I mixed in a housewarming gift our realtor gave my fiance & I when we purchased our home last Spring. It doesn’t completely match, but it deserves a prime location. Plus, I refuse to move it off of the fireplace mantle. So, it’ll probably be in all of my future fireplace mantle looks too.

At the end of my decorating process, I always hope to achieve the ultimate home decorating goal of making things “appear” immaculate so you don’t notice how disorganized other areas of my home truly are. Everything looks calm and cool at first glance, but open any drawers and cabinets at your own risk.