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And just like that, sunnier days are here! It's still a bit chilly here in Toronto, but I'm all for embracing the summer season and decorating my home with summer decor that feels fresh, breezy, and light.

Today I'm joining Krista of The Happy Housie and my talented blogging friends to share some gorgeous summer mantel ideas. It doesn't take much to create a beautiful summer mantel. With subtle changes, natural elements, and pops of color, you can create a welcoming look for this time of year.

I've shared many different fireplace mantel ideas over the year and I've found there are a few great ideas that always seem to work. Whether you're transitioning your spring mantel or decorating a summer fireplace mantel decor for the first time, here's 5 tried and true summer mantel decor ideas.

Summer Fireplace Mantel Decor

1. Define Your Color Palette

What's your look? Do you embrace farmhouse style with a lot of whites and a rustic mantel? Or is a vintage mantel more your speed with vintage books and vases from the thrift store? Perhaps a quintessential beachy mantel with a straw hat, blue bottles and washed wood tones feels just right.

No matter your personal style, start by defining your color palette. You can decorate with a single color for a monochromatic look or add one or two accent colors for a fireplace mantle that feels interesting and layered.

Here, I've gone with a weathered coastal kind of feel for my simple summer living room. The deep blues in the ship painting, accent chair and little vase add a watery feel. The amber glass and dark wood frame remind me of boat hulls and bits and pieces of wood that wash ashore.

When you're in need of decorating inspiration, picking bright colors that resonate with you is a great place to start. Start with a clean slate and gather your favorite pieces in colors that you're drawn to and see if you can pull together a pleasing look.

2. Add Fresh Greenery

Added greenery is a must-have in my favorite summer mantels. You can use real or faux greenery but in the summer months, why not opt for the fresh flowers and plants that are in season?

My hydrangeas haven't bloomed yet so I've used faux stems in this arrangement. I've also added my (thriving!) rubber tree plant to the base of the fireplace surround. It not only hides the brassy fireplace screen but the moody green leaves also pair beautifully with the dark blue and amber hues in the rest of my summer décor.

To keep things light, I've placed the plant in a water hyacinth basket which adds texture and brightness. You can use your plant vessels to bring out your color scheme and enhance the theme of the rest of the decor. For instance, with a farmhouse decor mantel, I'd opt to place my greenery in blue mason jars or wooden crates. Creative plant pots are a great way to add personality to your summer fireplace mantel decor.

3. Create A Focal Point

Your fireplace will naturally command attention in your family room or living room, but to really create a strong focal point, place a single large object at the center of your fireplace decor. This can be a large mirror or oversized art. Vintage treasures like an old window or wheel can work too.

My shield mirror never fails to be the star of the show. It's unexpected yet simple shape draws your eye in. I'm a fan of symmetry so I arrange the rest of the decor on each side of the mantel for a pleasing, balanced look.

4. Mix Textures

What's my favorite way to make your mantle decor look appealing? By bringing in different textures. Shiny and matte. Smooth and textured. Soft and hard. Think of using different textures in your summer vignette ideas. In my display, I have a shiny glazed pitcher, vintage mini crocks and glass candle jars. I've paired this with the faux textured rattan plant pot, wicker basket, and woven throw on the chair.

There's variety in the greenery as well. The soft fluffy petals of the hydrangea stems contrast with the spiky, free flowing leaves of the faux fern. There's much inspiration to be found in mixing and matching your plants and flowers.

5. Use Different Shapes and Heights

It's easy to get in a rut when you're decorating and use too much of the same thing. Lots of vases. Lots of candles. Too many small things and too few large things. Keep your finished product looking cohesive by mixing shapes and heights.

If you have too many round vases or candles, bring in something rectangular like photo frames or decorative boxes. Balance tall candle lanterns with smaller objects. Conversely, if you need to add height, placing an item on stacks of books is a perfect way to to do that.

Creating a bright simple summer mantel doesn't take too much effort. Take a step back and really look at your summer fireplace mantel decor. Is there a gap? Is your eye distracted by an item, or perhaps nothing catches your eye? Does it feel boring and lifeless?

With these mantel decor ideas you can tweak your design and end up with a finished product you love. I hope you've enjoyed this closer look at my mantel decor. Now hop on over and visit my blogging friends for more summer decor ideas.

Today kicks off the Seasonal Simplicity Summer Series! For the next several weeks we will all be sharing some fun summer DIY and decor ideas with you. You can visit all of these great summer Mantel decorating ideas by clicking on the links below the images.

The Happy Housie

My Sweet Savannah

Joanna Anastasia

Willow Street Interiors

Zevy Joy

summer fireplace mantel decorating ideas

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And work on the laundry room continues. But unlike previous weeks where all I had to show you was drywall, this week is very exciting as we have some cabinetry installed!

Catch up on the first eight weeks of our One Room Challenge laundry room renovation here.

laundry room cabinetry, laundry room storage

It came as no surprise, but this part of the renovation is progressing rather quickly. The assembled cabinets we're using, the Hampton Bay line in Edson Grey from The Home Depot Canada, are made for projects just like this.

Let's revisit the 3D rendering of the cabinetry layout:

Laundry Room Cabinetry

I've devoted one side of the laundry room to cabinetry and maximized the layout in a small footprint. Here's what I needed to store in this area:

washer and dryer machines
a sink cabinet
open space for the rolling laundry cart
shelving to store our two laundry baskets
a hanging rod
upper cabinets

In addition to those functional needs, the cabinetry layout had to take into account:

three different ceiling heights
a pillar in the corner
a laundry chute in the ceiling

Figuring this out was no easy feat. First, I took the measurements of the stock cabinetry and figured out the maximum sizes of cabinets I could use in the space. I ended up with:

2 - 27x30" upper cabinets

1 - 21x30" upper cabinet

1 - 30" wide sink cabinet

2 - 15x30" upper cabinets stacked to form a tall cabinet

To create the remaining cabinetry (gables to hold up the countertops, the open space for the rolling cart, and the basket shelves), we will use a mix of factory finished panels cut down to size, and DIY panels and gables made to fit. The DIY panels will be made using 5/8" melamine panels, melamine veneer edging, and paint matched to the cabinets.

We've never used melamine veneer before so I hope it takes paint well! Ideally, the panels will blend right in with the cabinetry.

We've got the assembled cabinets installed and they are looking fantastic. Did you notice the filler panels at the ends of the upper cabinets? We create DIY filler panels for all our cabinets to give them a high end, built-in look.

This area, however, will require a bit more effort. We've still got to:

build in cleats to hold up the countertop
add a second shelf
add a hanging rod
install a gable on the other side of the cabinets
create a filler for the top of the cabinets
decide if we want to back this with shiplap or a mirror

It's a tight fit, but I think it's looking great so far!

And here's one little surprise we added: a TV! We won't have cable in this room so I chose a smart TV that we can stream our devices to. It'll be perfect for watching TV while running on the treadmill or while we're folding piles of laundry.

I went with the Hisense 32" Smart Full Array LED Roku TV. We have this same TV in a larger size in our basement and just love it. This isn't our first TV in a laundry room. We had one in our old house too and it was a feature that we wanted to repeat here.

Laundry room in our previous house

The room is taking shape and can't wait to have the cabinetry finished in the next few days. Come back next week to see how it all looks!

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It's Week 8 of the One Room Challenge and all around the world, DIYers are revealing their beautiful, finished rooms. Everyone except us, that is.

If you're new to Rambling Renovators, welcome! My name is Jennifer. I help people create functional and beautiful homes, I help brands create digital content strategies, and I've been writing this blog since 2007. I live with my husband and daughter in Toronto, Canada in a centre-plan, colonial style house that we've infused with the fresh traditional style we love. We DIY all our renovations and have a fondness for architectural details, built-ins, and classic decor. See our home renovations here.

This weekly post is a few days late and it should be no surprise, but we didn't finish our laundry room renovation on time. Correction - our laundry room BUILD and RENOVATION. Because we built a friggin' room, people! From scratch. From cement levelling to framing to drywall to painting to flooring.

Sean and I have never built a room before but I honestly thought "No problem. We can finish that in eight weeks". I seriously underestimated the millions of steps it would take. Construction professionals make it all look so easy, don't they? Having been through the hard part now, I give carpenters and drywallers the utmost respect. None of it was easy.

Building A Laundry Room

So before I show you where we are, let's revisit where we started. Here's the view of the large laundry space. It had a utility area at one end and a laundry and exercise space at the other.

The room had size going for it but little else. The ceiling was a mishmash of drywall and particleboard, ductwork and exposed joists. The walls were textured, stained, and featured exposed plumbing and electrical work.

laundry room before, basement laundry room, laundry room renovation

basement laundry room remodel, laundry room renovation, diy laundry room remodel

And this is the much cleaner but smaller laundry room now. Essentially, we've built a room within a room. We added new framing to three of the four walls so this new laundry room is compact in size, about 11'x10'.

The white wall will be covered in the same peel and stick wallpaper we have on the left wall. The wall on the right will be clad in cabinetry and shiplap. For this reason, we used drywall and OSB panels as our substrate.

The OSB acts as blocking and provides a solid surface for the cabinetry to screw into. The drywall won't be visible behind the shiplap and washer and dryer so we didn't waste any money or effort to finish it with mudding and taping.

Peel and Stick Wallpaper

The GlucksteinElements peel and stick wallpaper went on like a dream. I prefer the texture of traditional wallpaper (paste the wall wallpaper is the easiest kind to work with) but for a quick, easy, and budget friendly solution, you can't beat peel and stick wallpaper.

We've installed lots of wallpaper and each kind has its pros and cons. I'd use peel and stick wallpaper:

when you need fast installation
when you need just a basic pattern
when installing in a wet or moist area
when installing in a high traffic zone and need a washable wallpaper

My most important tip - when installing any kind of wallpaper - is to have two people do the install. One person can be measuring and cutting lengths of wallpaper while the other person is pasting and adhering the paper to the wall.

For peel and stick in particular, it also helps to have a second pair of hands to hold the bottom of the paper so that it doesn't accidentally adhere to itself.

Basement Laminate Flooring

Can we show a moment of appreciation for these laminate floors? We first installed this flooring back in 2018 when we renovated our craft room. At the time, the flooring was kindly gifted by Beaulieu Canada and they provided us enough to do our future basement living room as well. We had used Beaulieu Canada's laminate in our previous home and loved it and I knew I wanted it in this basement.

But life gets in the way and so we didn't finish the rest of the basement until 2020. The laminate sat in a closet for two years until we had time to create our coastal chic basement.

Which brings us to 2022. When we were planning this laundry room, we discovered that we had five full boxes of flooring left which is about three boxes short of what we needed. We also discovered that the flooring pattern had been discontinued!

I didn't let that deter me though and was able to track down the last three boxes of this flooring in existence! Installation went easily (see my tips for installing laminate flooring here) and it thrills me to see consistent flooring throughout our entire basement.

Laundry Room Layout

Let's swing around and look at the other side of the room. Here's how it was at the beginning. Along one side, we had ample room for the washing machines, a folding table, and even shelving to store our paint. We used the other side for our treadmill and mini freezer.

You'll notice how much of a disaster the ceiling was. The air ducts and hanging lines for the air conditioner created an overhead jumble. We even had a laundry chute duct in the ceiling to contend with. Additionally, the dryer vent, plumbing stack in the corner, and a vertical duct on the wall really gave this room a confusing shape.

But look at it now... everything has been hidden away behind clean drywall on the ceiling and walls. I don't want to tell you how much time we spent figuring out angles, heights, intersections and how to actually build this ceiling. It was A LOT.

Though we have a slightly lower ceiling with three different ceiling heights, it feels much better. Not bad for our first time framing a ceiling and doing drywall!

So what's next? We'll finish the last of the wallpapering and move onto cabinetry. Cabinetry and shiplap will cover both of the remaining two walls.

The assembled cabinetry (Hampton Bay from The Home Depot Canada in Edson Grey) is on site and ready to go. Since the cabinets are assembled and finished on all sides, installation will be as easy as putting them in place and screwing them to the OSB. It should be done fairly quickly and will be a big factor in finally making this space look like a laundry room.

The list of To Do's is getting shorter and shorter. Yay!

Now hop over to the One Room Challenge blog and see all of the amazing finished projects.

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sạt nghiệp vì cờ bạc online

Pages

Summer Fireplace Mantel Decor

1. Define Your Color Palette

2. Add Fresh Greenery

3. Create A Focal Point

4. Mix Textures

5. Use Different Shapes and Heights

Laundry Room Cabinetry

Building A Laundry Room

Peel and Stick Wallpaper

Basement Laminate Flooring

Laundry Room Layout

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