Walking into your living room or your favorite parlor you admire your fireplace and beautiful mantle, but feel as if something is missing. You decide to make changes to your space. Perhaps reupholster some of your favorite pieces of furniture. Switch out the pieces that have seen better days. Bringing in a new wall color is another way to make small changes that have a big impact in your room.
One of the most underutilized places in a room with a fireplace is the space above the mantle. The mantle itself has its uses. You can place framed photographs or collections of figurines and vases in interesting arrangements. The space above the mantle is an excellent place for a mirror. Overmantle mirrors come in many different shapes and sizes with a wide variety of frames to augment your room’s design.
You can create interest by not using traditional shapes and sizes of wall mirrors over your fireplace. An attractive option to the standard rectangle is a diamond shape, circles, or ovals. These mirrors can be hung in becoming arrangements that catch the eye. Creating visual interest in a room will help keep the occupant’s eyes moving to different aspects of the design. Don’t discount the subject of the mirrors reflection. If your fireplace faces a wall then add an interesting piece of art that will be reflected in the mirror.
If you have characteristics of your room that are unattractive there are ways to deal with them using overmantle mirrors. For example, is your room usually dark because you don’t have a lot of natural light coming due to lack of windows or exposure? Placing a mirror or mirrors over your mantle will increased the amount of light refracted into your space. When the sun enters the room it will be reflected with the mirror and make the whole room seem brighter.
If the difficulty you face has to do with the size of your space overmantle mirrors are perfect for helping artificially change the dimensions of your room. Large overmantle mirrors that are a single piece allow an unbroken view of the other side of the room. This creates an illusion that tricks the eye into translating the view in your mind as additional space in the room. This pushes out the walls visually to make the room appear bigger solving your space problem at least temporarily.
Mirrors provide a solution to multiple challenges in the decoration of a room with a fireplace where light and space is an issue. The focal point of the fireplace will be improved with the addition of an overmantle mirror.