The chimney breast in my front room has recently gone from hole…

…to fireplace!

(Please excuse the dodgy photos – my camera is currently charging!)

Obviously it needs sanding and painting. And the mirror needs moving up. Or round. Or somewhere else completely.

After a flue mishap that means we won’t be lighting any open fires just yet, what I am most excited about is the decorating possibilities a mantelpiece provides. To be honest, even if it had been working it may still have been.

What makes a good mantelpiece? I think the traditional recipe is a mirror or art, flowers and anything else you want to show off arranged symmetrically. A less traditional one would have the same type of objects arranged with larger objects balancing groups of smaller ones. Perhaps not, as my other mantelpiece currently houses, a thick pile of toddler art, three vases, a sand-filled dolphin and a small pot containing feathers, nuts and something that used to be a clay and twig bug sculpture.

Here’s my first and brief attempt at an autumn mantelpiece. I’m not a hundred per cent happy with it (fir cone?) but it is a start. I love the rosehips that I cut from our garden as they remind me of happy hours of writing and drinking rosehip tea. Plus they’re a great height and shape for adding interest here.