A new living room in a new house. This is the after image. I tried to live with a sophisticated lack of color trending at Pottery Barn and sometimes Houzz.  In some places it works great because there is a ton of window light and everything takes on this lovely glow, but when you are dealing with an average number of windows it just may not convey the same impact. Of course I love color as you might have guessed when looking at my other house. So after mulling this over for a few month, I thought what's to loose, I can always go back to boring. So I jumped into the pow look and went to Lowe's and simply picked my color. 
Yeah, it worked out and you can try it too!
From the nest,
​jina

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Before

The mantle was the usual wooden type that seem to come with many modern homes today. I took off the trim on the top and covered the fluted sides with wide pine boards. To create a modern looking  wooden beam,  I cut a 2x6x8 for the front of the mantle and screwed it into the existing shelf then stained it with my diy mixture. (light walnut)

After

Here is the end result.
I painted  3/4 of the wall to keep it interesting, lol, and of course the rest  of the mantle.
I added a touch of  glam (notice the fuzzy pillow) and my modern out - door chair and there you have it. 

Dollar Wise $80