(Jen & Omar‘s home on Design*Sponge)

Inspired by this video from Emily Henderson, I’ve been doing some thinking about how to style our mantel recently. If you’re lucky enough to have a fireplace (ours isn’t working but I love how it brings character to our living room), it’s a great opportunity to play around with styling and show some personality in your own home. As I looked at inspiration for this post, I started to realize that a fireplace mantel can really serve as an indicator of someone’s taste and style. We often display our favorite and most prized possessions on our fireplace mantels.

After we moved into our apartment, our mantel slowly became more and more cluttered. One day it dawned on me, and I’m now enjoying a much more minimalist mantel, which is a look I’m trying to achieve throughout our place, little by little. While I love some well-styled clutter, right now I think I’d rather rotate displaying some favorite pieces on the mantel at different times rather than display them all at once.

Below is some mantel inspiration and I love each in its own way…

(top: Rebekka Seale on Design*Sponge, photo by Melanie Watson; bottom: Liz Cook on Design*Sponge, photo by Erik Sanchez)

(top: Gwendolyn Mason of Dear Hancock on Design*Sponge; bottom: Caitlin Van Horn on Design*Sponge)

(top: Jane Cameron on Design*Sponge; bottom: Katie Quinn Davies on Design*Sponge)

(top: Paula Mills on Design*Sponge, photo by Tigs Macallan; bottom: R. Rolfe on Design*Sponge, photo by Jaclyn Campanaro)

Which one is your favorite?

If you have one, what does your mantel look like?

Have a wonderful Monday! xo

P.S. Here’s a snapshot of our mantel right now.

Monday, July 30th, 2012, 7:00 am   |   Interior Design  |  RSS feed |  Respond  |  Trackback