Something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile was update our built-in shelves in the living room. I have always wanted a big chunky mantle above my fireplace, but I knew if I did that I would need to update the surrounding built-ins around it. I also was never a fan of the off-centered tv on one side of the built-ins and always wanted to move that above the fireplace….but I knew I would never know how to style such a big opening if we did that. This project solved all those problems.
Here’s our before:
I had an idea of how I wanted to create these shelves (similar to my DIY floating shelf but on a larger scale), but we needed to see how these were originally built. David helped me pry off the existing shelf and we were able to see the construction of it underneath. (Side note: I’m not sure why, but doing this made me nervous! Even though I had a plan, once we demoed this, I knew there was no turning back).
We ended up creating a casing around the frame that was already there.
We moved our tv to above the fireplace (any guesses as to how long it took David to say we need a larger tv now? I kind of agree… 😉), and then I framed out the new shelf for where the tv used to sit.
Next I went to my Dad’s one day and we created my mantle! I love how chunky this guy is, and really love how this transformed our living room.
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