So often, clients get stumped when it comes to their mantel. It’s the anchor for the room and can seem so intimidating – and things are only made worse when the art you love and want to put above it are not the best proportion for the fireplace. What to do?!

Look at this fabulous before and after transformation from Living Room for the Arts. The owner of this wonderful room is also the talented artist who painted the landscape.

We love her work and knew we had to use it, but its scale was too slight for the space. The solution? An Asymmetrical mantel design!

In the case of this room, the mantle was wide and the space above it was not very high. Our solution? We leaned a mirror vertically to raise the eye and fill some square footage. Then we hung the narrow painting to the right and slightly higher than normal, and then filled the space beneath it with a still life of flowers. Now the art looks like the perfect size for the mantle and the room has a lovely twist!

The pair of floor lamps gives this side of the room necessary light and are a far better proportion than the small lamps on the mantle. The rooms feels chic, polished and balanced with just a few simple design tips. We hope you’ll want to try this out when faced with a similar problem!

To learn more of what we did in this room makeover, click here. You’ll find comprehensive Buying Guides of every item in the room as well as detailed Design Guides explaining how to recreate all of this in your own house.

Happy Shopping!

xoxo

Anne

ps If you just want to geek out to some mantle eye-candy from houses we have done virtually and for clients, you can visit our Instagram feed #annetolletthome – we just uploaded a ton of them. It’s a party in tiny lil’ squares! 😉