Faux Mantle

We have really tall ceilings in our living room. On the main wall, where you would think a fireplace would be, there isn't one. If we had found our house before they had finished building it, I would have seriously considered paying an upgrade fee to have a fireplace added. But since it was complete when we found it, that wasn't an option! 

Anyway, so we are settling for a faux mantle. We had our tv on a tv stand that was low to the ground. So the wall looked very empty and unfilled! At our last house, our tv was mounted above the fireplace and that is what I was missing. I also wanted somewhere to hang our stockings and decorate for the different seasons! 

Here is the wall before:

For some reason, we didn't even have it centered on the wall... as you can see. 

It just looks so empty! Here are some pictures of the mantle in progress. 

As you can see, the cords are in the center... this proved to be a challenge later on... because we had to find a removable solution to cover the inside part with. Just in case we needed access to the outlet. 

Here it is before we did anything to the center. 

Then we had this first plan of using a thin piece of plywood, painted black in the middle. And I was going to tile the outside. However, the thin piece of plywood warped and we decided that the tile would be really heavy and probably make the warping worse. 

So this is how it stayed for about a week. Until we came up with another plan. We needed something lightweight and removable. Here's what we came up with. 

A faux brick panel painted black. Lightweight and removable! I'm so excited about how it turned out. The project really turned out to be a pain, with little mishaps along the way. But ultimately it looks so much better than the empty wall! 

BEFORE: 

AFTER: