We absolutely love having a fireplace in our new home. Even during the summer, a fireplace undeniably makes a house seem inviting. Something was definitely missing from ours, though, and we had to do something about it.

Eventually, we hope to find a “perfect” piece of reclaimed wood to hang above the fireplace to serve as a mantle. We really dig the whole rustic-meets-modern style that has been cropping up recently, and reclaimed wood is a really great way to give a room character. And if we can find a piece of wood with a story — even better!  Regardless of what we want to do in the future, we needed something above the fireplace that would sort of “cozy up” the room a bit for now.

I purchased this oversized IKEA mirror for my college apartment. When we became Mr. & Mrs. we used the mirror in the master bedroom of our first place (take a tour here). When we moved our furniture into this house, we knew we wanted to keep it around and put it somewhere, but we weren’t sure how to use it. As it turns out, my parents mounted a mirror just like it horizontally above their buffet, and it looked great, so we took that idea and ran with it. With just a few heavy duty hooks, some help from my dad (the mirror is relatively heavy), and about 5 minutes, the mirror was in it’s new temporary home above the fireplace:

If you’re thinking it looks like it’s hung a little high, that’s because it is. We had to hang it a little higher than we wanted to because of the flue control knob. We also decided to drill the holes for the hooks in the mortar, rather than the bricks. This way, when we find the “perfect” mantle, we’ll only have to patch up the mortar and paint it.

You may have noticed, we also added a floor lamp next to the chair. With the combination of recessed lighting and natural light, the room has a pretty good amount of light. But the corner, left to the TV, always seemed kind of dark. Therefore, we decided to bring in the floor lamp from Greg’s office. The mirror also helps bounce around some extra natural light coming in from the windows across the room in the dining area.

It’s amazing how the addition of a mirror and a floor lamp can change a room. Nevertheless, we’re anxious to finish dressing the TV unit (more about those plans here) and adding some much-needed color. But for now, we’re very happy with the way things are coming along. We can’t get over how different it looks from the day we got the keys…

PS I just realized Bentley was hiding out in one of the photos. Can you find him?

One thing is for sure, each room will undergo a multitude of phases until we declare the room “finished”. Or “done done” as Greg says. Now that the holidays are wrapped up, we’ve been focusing on the living room. We unpacked some more accessories, replaced the Christmas tree with the chair in our bedroom, hung some wall art and reconfigured the furniture arrangement. Here is the way things are looking now:

Yeah, it still needs some work and we’re getting there. But we’re going to live with it like this for a few days to see how we like the set up.

One thing that is bugging me is the sofa table. It’s too short for the sofa. But since the jury is still out on the sofa and loveseat, we’re going to hold off on hunting for a longer sofa table for now. Other than that, we need to hang something over the fireplace. It is in dire need for a mirror or large piece of art.

Nevertheless, things are changing around here and resembling an actual lived-in house.