anchoring a space {and how to build a mantel}

It’s been a few weeks since we were in Nashville for the fabulous La-Z-Boy room redo at their Ronald McDonald House… and as promised, we’re slowly but surely coming back with more of the fun details for what made the space one of a kind.

You remember this before in particular…

While that quilt and these other pieces went to a really great space elsewhere in the home, we were glad to get a bit of a fresh redo to work with the space in a sensible way with what we had. So, since it takes a village, we enlisted the help of some great people to help anchor the space. Before, the entire room felt a bit like it was floating, in a large space like this with no centermost point… sometimes that can be tricky. When we took the time to define this mantel, it made all the difference.

We think that anchoring a space is one of the most important things you can do. It’s all about establishing a focal point, and building on it from there.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of a focal point, it can make a huge difference in something like a second story space. In a large and in charge space like this one, things can easily get a little lost and confused, without something defined about it all. It’s a lot like establishing a heiarchy of sorts. You can do this in lots of different ways, and the solution will always be different depending on the space. But the possibilities are kind of endless. Two major things that helped ground it all for a nice solid foundation to build on, were the mantel treatments + the large and in charge rug we chose.

So we enlisted the help of Aspen construction, who truly knocked it out of the park with their execution of the paint choices to help the architecture work for us, and some board and batten all the way up the chimney area of the room. It helped give the room a place to gather around. It also helped warm the space with texture and interesting, subtle details.

We were also thrilled to enlist the help of Brad from Fix This Build That to help build this mantel we designed.

This hand crafted beauty brought an entirely new level of gawgeousness to the space. And we’re thrilled that today, Brad is sharing on his site exactly how he built this beautiful mantel… piece by piece.

So if you’re interested in a piece like this for your home, {we are totally adding one like this in our future house – it’s so well done by him!} be sure to check it all out with all the details on his site, here.

What’s something you’ve used to anchor your space? Any tricks you’ve found that work? We’d love to hear.

As always, let us know if you try the mantel tutorial by Brad. We’d love to hear/see the piece in your home!

And to see all of the initial reveal, check it out here – along with the detailed sources list here. 

Have an inspired day!