Shabby Chic

. . . at least, I think it might qualify as shabby chic. It's still a work-in-progress.

About 50 years ago, someone gave my father a mantle from a house that was being demolished in Old Southwest in Roanoke. He stored it in the cabin on the farm. Even though it was oak, it was in pretty sad shape.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I loaded it into my truck. . .

. . . and brought it home where I cleaned it up a bit.

I'd planned to refinish it, but I couldn't get all the white paint off.

I worked on it off and on the past couple of years, but mostly the old mantle lingered in my, uh, project pile on the patio.

Lately, I started imagining what the old mantle might become, so I started working on it again. I sanded it some more and painted it off-white.

However, I have no place to put this mantle anywhere in the house. Then it occurred to me that maybe I could fix up a little area of the patio to incorporate it as a design element. So I got to work. After the paint was dry, I added a wallpaper border. I imagined how it would look with some furniture around it to encourage folks—or more likely my cats and I—to sit a spell.

I have a lot of old furniture—like a little rocker my great-great grandfather made.

I have a lot of plants on the patio, some of which—like a fern that I found last fall at the dumpster—might look pretty good with the old mantle. I started experimenting.

I'm not done yet. It's still a work-in-progress. 

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