Faux Fireplace Mantles

Beach homes generally come with at least one beautiful fireplace for families to cozy up to on those chilly breezy days on the coast. But I'm not on the coast, I'm in Indiana. We have a retention pond a few streets away, and that doesn't count.
I'm working towards transforming my ugly house into a (beachy) lovely home. I'm not diving in with most of my projects already completed, I'm starting fresh (notice my nautical humor there? hardy har har!). Going one project at a time. This is probably why my blog isn't taking off quite as quickly as some blogs I've seen at this stage in their infancy.

There's one thing my house is missing, structurally, architecturally, what-have-you. A fireplace. A real one.

When we closed on our newly-built home my mother-in-law purchased a heater for us as a housewarming gift. One that is essentially a faux fireplace (I think the term is ahem, "electric fireplace"). I've always wanted more than one, and since five hundred dollars is not in the budget to be spending on frugal things such as faux fireplace heaters, I'm going to plan B.

That's right folks. A non-heating faux fireplace for the master suite. Why the master suite? I've always wanted a fireplace in our bedroom. I've even had our heater/fireplace in there for a time, but it was needed more in the living spaces than in the bedroom, so downstairs it went.

Ever since, I've been trying to figure out if I could have a faux fireplace on the super cheap without looking super cheap.

Enter my inspiration pieces.

My biggest inspiration comes from Michelle at Emerald Cove. She created a faux fireplace mantle in her bedroom between two windows. What do you know? That's exactly where I plan to put mine!

That mantle is GORG!

In my tremendous search I stumbled on Jaime Scott's blog Caught in Grace. She too made herself a nice faux fireplace mantle.

First of all, when she put up her brand new faux fireplace, it was missing something (the chalkboard portion wasn't there originally) so she pondered for a bit and then found the perfect solution. So even though she can't have a real fire, she can sure cozy up a room with a chalkboard fire!

This next one comes from Junk Fest, which subsequently reminds me SO much of Donna's Funky Junk Interiors Blog!

This faux fireplace mantle was made entirely out of "junk" pieces of wood. I could do this too, except maybe put a piece of coral or a big shell on the face instead of a fleur de lis.

My biggest issue with this whole project I'm itchin' to accomplish is that the ONLY scrap pieces of wood we have are leftover from the construction of our deck. According to Hubs, you can't use pressure treated wood indoors, even if you paint/seal it. And in light of the major overhaul of the downstairs we are doing (more on that in a bit), the budget isn't allowing for ANY projects that require purchasing items for a little while. Everything has to be already available or free.

Sigh. One day faux fireplace. One day, you'll be mine.

Stay tuned, our downstairs is getting a MAJOR facelift with paint! It is about 90% done, and I can't wait to share it with you!