It’s fantel time again folks!
What’s a fantel you ask? It’s just my little table that I use as a fake mantel until we get a real-live, grown-up mantel of our own some day. Chris made it for me last year out of some barn wood (off the barn out back) and some old two by fours that he took out of one of our walls. I still can’t get enough of it!
This year for decor, I did bright, happy, kid-friendly stuff in the living room and more subdued stuff in the hall and dining room. I tried to make this fantel bridge the two styles.
I filled in the space above with some burlap and a little design that looks a bit like a Christmas tree. Or at least it’s supposed to!
The horizontal surface got a whole bunch of greens and twigs from outside, a rock (for some reason), a brick with chippy white paint, and just a little bit of candle light.
The same chevron ribbon from the kitchen and the mudroom. See? I’m tying things together with other rooms in the house. Get it? “Tying”? Ha!
Anyway.
Just look at this amazing barn wood. Here’s why I love this fantel so much.
The bottom was filled in with some shutter pieces and this big galvanized bucket with more greens.
If you look at the ground, you can see one of these types of branches is not holding up so well. In fact, if you so much as look at them, about 267 needles fall straight the ground instantly.
Lucky for me, there’s plenty more where that came from!
So that’s the story on my fantel for this Christmas. Hope ya liked it!
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.