Our fireplace has always been a little bit of a conundrum for me. Since the day we first looked at the house and it was in it’s original 1988 form to just a few weeks ago, I’ve always been unsure of what to do with it.
Let’s go back a minute. When we first bought our house, I had a vision for the fireplace where we’d drywall from the mantle up to the ceiling with some extra detailing – a wainscoting of sorts. And Eric was pretty steadfast in the idea of just painting it and keeping it as is, with adding the new knotty elder wood mantle and shelves. So we compromised – we would have it painted and see how it looked and if we really thought it looked unfinished, we’d go ahead and do the dry-walling vision I had.
Well, once it was painted, I could actually notice the detailing in the brick that I hadn’t noticed before. There was some kind of small detail on every brick that had some whimsy to it. I couldn’t believe I’d missed it before. And then, to my surprise, I realized that the same detail on the brick was on the outside of the house (which we’d also painted). So, I changed my tune and ended up loving the painted brick and was so happy that we’d decided to wait on doing the drywall option. Part of the fun of having an older home and rehabbing it is keeping some of the unique details to the original home, and this is one of those amazing details we are happy to have.
And when we sit in our living room, I look at these details and the details that we added ourselves and am so happy with how it turned out. And then immediately think, there’s just SOMEthing missing.
I can’t help it 😆. It’s how my brain works and how I visualize things. I usually can figure out what’s missing, but from time to time, it just takes a while for it to come to me. I take photos of our kids in front of the fireplace, or take a photo of my decorations or whatever, and think, “WHAT IS MISSING?!!”. (ha!) Not to mention we’ve been in baby gate world for a year and a half now, so it’s been extra confounding!
So one day it finally dawned on me. I was perusing the ole internet and saw some lanterns that looked kind of intriguing. Then I saw the price tag and was like, “mmmkay thanks but no thanks.” I decided to get on Walmart.com to order some groceries, and it dawned on me that maybe that carried something in their home section that would fit what I had in mind, because so far, I’ve been so thrilled with the home items I’ve bought from there.
You guyssss. I found THE BEST deal ever in their home section on lanterns. And they’re modern, quality, and just overall aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I ended up getting 4 of them – two of the large size and two of the small size. I was so happy with how Walmart shipped them too – they were carefully packaged so the glass wouldn’t break and the lanterns wouldn’t get scratched up/dinged, etc.
Oh! And guess what else I ordered from Walmart when I was looking for candles to go into the lanterns… THESE bad boys. So yes, these flameless candles were a bit of a splurge – but they have a remote, you guys. And they look so real! Even my husband’s mind was blown when we got them all set up. They’re battery operated and add that extra little ambiance we like to have in the evenings when we’re hanging out in the living room. Here’s a video of the candles in action!
I finally feel like my fireplace setup is complete!!! And it’s done in an affordable, convenient way. I added to cart and those beauties showed up just a few days later and made our hearth complete!
Check them out below in the pics!
*Thank you to Walmart for sponsoring this post. As always, the opinions and thoughts shared are all my own.*
