Practical Ways to Decorate Your Fireplace Mantel

Okay, you’ve got this gorgeous fireplace mantel that’s everything you ever wanted a mantel to be. Now how do you plan to decorate it?

Style preferences aside, there is a formula professional decorators use for arranging items on a fireplace mantel that gets great results every time. Known to the trade as “three plus one” the formula calls for placing three related objects of similar size at one end of the mantelpiece.

These objects don’t have to be the exact same height, but shouldn’t be strikingly disparate in size, either. For example, using three silver candlesticks 10, 14 and 16 inches tall will look fine; using one 16-inch candlestick with two four-inch ones will not. Your three objects can vary more from each other in style, however a very ornate, Art Nouveau candlestick and a pair of more Spartan colonial-style ones may not play well together. Don’t line up your three objects in military-fashion, either. Placing them several inches away from the outer edge of the mantel and at angles to each other and to the room will give a much better appearance.

Now, find a single object you love that relates in some manner to the three items you’ve positioned at one end of your mantel. It doesn’t have to be an object of the same kind, but should have a color, feel, texture or shape that gives it something in common visually with the three pieces on the other end. Using the candlestick example above, you could choose a silver or China vase of the same period design as the candlesticks. Whatever object you choose should be about three times the visual mass of the three objects at the other end and about twice as tall. Place this object in a bit from the other edge of the mantel. If your single object is a vase, you can increase its visual mass with flowers.

Now that you’ve learned the art of placement for fireplace mantel décor, here are some suggestions for possible objects you may want to use:

* A silk topiary and three small floral pictures on easels

* A set of three unique finials in different sizes and styles, perhaps all painted a shabby chic off-white and sanded back to look worn and loved

* A set of three big fat red candles at Christmas and a tall glass jar filled with holly

* A tall brass and wood mantel clock and three small brass vases filled with flowers

* A dramatic bronze or iron sculpture and three china plates displayed on metal stands

Try using the “rule of three and one” with every object you own that you really love that will fit on your mantelpiece. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find how easy it is to achieve just the look you want!

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.