Spring Mantel Refresh + Secondhand Finds

Today I’m sharing a spring mantel refresh with some surprise secondhand finds! We had a beautiful weekend a week ago so my husband and I ventured out for some vitamin sea and D and returned with pheasants! Ha! You never know what you might decorate with when you don’t start out with a plan. After visiting a local garden nursery we had time to spare so we went over to La Conner, which is a cute seaside town. That is where we came across these pretty brass birds in a thrift store!

At the end of this post you’ll find a “get the look” round up of items from this room and similar, as well as some vintage pheasants I found on Etsy!

Since we both loved the detailing on them, we decided to bring them both home with us as a souvenir of the sunny day adventure. I’ll share some more close ups in this post so you can see.

We love living in a vacation destination with so many fun coastal towns and places to visit nearby and then returning from adventures to our own cozy home. It’s like a staycation! And even better, you don’t have to stuff your souvenirs in a suitcase.

The pheasants had such long feathers we knew they’d need to have just the right spot to sit together. The fireplace mantel made sense for their first nest here. I often use these vintage books and candlesticks on my mantel, but I swapped out the candles for a mix of blue and green. Then I filled our blue and white pots with a couple of new plants. Now the mantel is ready for early spring! And the birds feel right at home!

I love to collect unique or quirky little things we find along the way because they tell a story. The wicker ship basket in our window sill was another vintage item I got last year. We discovered the beautiful original vintage painting above our fireplace in the 1935 English Tudor we were buying from an estate many years ago. This painting wasn’t even for sale, it was tucked away in a safe room when we found it. We loved it so much we offered to buy it from the owner’s son.

You never know where you might find a real treasure, if you keep your eyes open!

Lately I’ve been starting to think about the furniture I want for our home. After years of downsizing and giving away so much of what I had so we could get settled, it’s fun to be at the point where I am enjoying finding things we really love again.

It is tricky in a small home, though, we have very limited space and I have more furniture than we need :). It’ll take awhile to figure it all out! It’s an experiment to figure out what stays and goes, but I do think that’s the fun of home-creating.

Later this spring I’m looking forward to picking up my mom’s rattan cart she’s had for years (it’s currently in storage). It might go in the left corner for plants, or maybe on other side of the fireplace.

Last week I found a unique vintage marble topped table on Facebook marketplace, which is currently to the right of the fireplace but I haven’t had a chance to take a photo yet so stay tuned for that one (and I’ll share a darling chair I found, too!).

With a collected style, you never know how a room will come together! Does that seem fun or scary to you? It’s not for everyone. I guess that’s one reason they call second hand finds the thrill of the hunt. It’s not only a thrill to find things, but a thrill to see where those treasures will end up!

As I taught my HGP community in our weekly design lesson, a collected style sometimes feels like you’re “playing it by ear” rather than by playing by the rules, however it’s not just randomly throwing things together!

There are some very specific and thoughtful design guidelines I use to decide what stays and what goes and ways I make sense of a collected room.

I think the difference between a hodge podge of stuff and a collected style is the intention of the styling and paring of items. There is a method to the madness :).

It might seem like you’re just “winging it” when you decorate over time, but there can be just as much intention behind each design decision as there is with any other style. The results are just not always quite as predictable in advance. But that’s what I love about decorating over time, you’re telling a unique story and every chapter is an adventure!

Just like I found a spot for my new birds (and their wings), you can make room for the things you love.

Why not surround yourself with things that make you smile or that will remind you of happy memories?

Click the thumbnails below for details