Anyone else LOVE shiplap? This girl sure does! A few months ago I finally talked Justin into putting (fake) shiplap above our fireplace and building a new mantel!
You may remember that one of our very first projects when we moved into our house was to put (fake) rock up on the fireplace and enclose a built in for a TV. However, it always felt like something was missing. The answer of course, was shiplap! After some research it seemed that people were using all kinds of different materials and widths. We brought in some different sizes of boards and decided that our shiplap would be 6 inches wide and would use one of the cheaper MDF boards. The paint color that was recommended by numerous people was Sherwin Williams Antique White, which was what we also chose. In addition, we used a penny to evenly space the boards apart so that there was a slight separation. One of the things that did seem pretty consistent across the blogs and pictures I looked at was framing out the shiplap along the sides and top.
Next came the new mantel, which was a very similar process as building the floating shelf in our bathroom. Basically, it is just a hollow box that fit over top of the old mantel and was secured. Of course, we used our favorite Dark Walnut stain by Rustoleum. (Here is great tutorial for this project)
Check out the changes that have been since we moved into this house:
November 2014
December 2014
January 2016
January 2017
Currently
This space is certainly the focal point of the room and I love the farmhouse feel. I had been looking for a tobacco basket for AGES when I stumbled across this fake one at Kirklands. It was a fraction of the cost of an antique one and readily available! The magnolia wreath, candles, and all of the lanterns are also from Kirklands (notice a theme here??).
As always, I am leaving you with a little inspiration of other beautiful shiplap fireplaces and living rooms.
