My New "Mantle"

So you can guess that in our completely concrete built apartment building over here, there are no chimneys and fireplaces, and therefore no mantles for decorating.

Our house in America has this woooonnndddeerrrrffuuullll real fireplace {that I would LOVE to warm my feet by right now}....

and a very nice mantle with which to decorate for Christmas.....

or baby showers that just happen to be right before Christmas. 

So all my wanderings in the blog world leaving me wishing I had a mantle to decorate here too. 

Clearly that's not gonna happen {like most things} through normal, conventional means SO I decided that a big shelf would work. I searched all over the EA-ian "ebay" {the greatest things ever for foreigners living here... found easy mac and cherry coke on there last week...} and found one that I really liked. I ordered it, and a week later it arrived on a motorcycle {that's how most things are delivered here}. 

My studly, brawny husband borrowed our friend's drill and installed it for me. 

Drilling into our concrete walls makes installing anything on the walls a little tricky, so I was very thankful at his eager willingness to serve his oh so appreciative wife in this way.

So maybe some shelves in America have this installation feature, but I've only seen it here with shelves from IKEA (so maybe Ikea shelves in America are the same... dunno). Anyway, it really is rather brilliant for shelf installation. I remember Adam trying to install our shelves in our living room in America with 4 hangers on the back that you have to line up perfectly..... which is next to impossible. The frustration level was through the roof.

But not with this one. You first install this bracket that has these 2 metal rods that stick out....

and you just slip the shelf right on. How easy is that?

Then just screw these 2 screws into the rods through the bottom of the shelf. Easy peasy. 

And now I have a new makeshift "mantle"!

..... just waiting to be decorated. 

I started last weekend with lots of homemade fall decor that I will share asap! 

Isn't the little piece of furniture underneath it fun? I really like it. 

Joyfully Decorating,