I love the look of stone mantels, which evokes for me some romantic vision of reading a first-edition book on a rainy day in old-world Europe – which I haven’t done, but you get the vibe, right?

But, reno – it’s all about tradeoffs and balancing how you allocate your time and money. Knowing a real stone fireplace would break the budget, I set out to find some alternatives.

I stumbled on to some great moldings at Architectural Depot that I thought would be perfect to mimic the shape of the inspiration versions. Used in a lot of commercial applications, they are lightweight and can be manipulated similarly to wood (cut with a saw, nailed with a pneumatic nailer).

My first plan was to cover these with plaster or concrete to make them actually stone-like, but ultimately I decided to repeat the black-brown aged wood finish of the bookcase. We removed the granite and painted the bricks black for now just to give it some more texture, although we may update with tile down the road if we want a change or to glam it up.

The fireplace screen is Crate & Barrel, and I love it so much I’ve used it in two houses. It can read MCM, transitional, contemporary – goes with all styles, I think.

The mirror on top is a DIY from two houses ago where I aged the back of the mirror with acid and black paint, and then gilded the frame. My four year old is a bit bothered by it. “Mommy, you need to clean that mirror to make it more beautiful.” But I think the dark and moody vibe it’s giving is just perfect for a rainy day in old-world Europe …