Christmas Home Tour

 

 

Brrrr!!   It’s so cold out there!  Stomp the snow off your feet, take off your jacket, and come on inside!

And welcome to my Christmas home tour…

When the cold, winter weather began settling in over the last few weeks, almost instinctually, I started switching things around to make our house feel warmer and cozier inside.  I switched out most of the bright colors for warm neutrals and brought in more soft textures and snuggly blankets.

This wreath is an Anthropologie  knock-off that I made a while back using this little tutorial.

 

 

 

Since a full size Christmas tree wouldn’t fit anywhere in the upstairs, we got a mini-tree for this room. I wanted to keep things somewhat simple, so I stuck the tree in an old bucket that I had wrapped in burlap and tied with a ribbon and then I made some finger garland and wrapped it around the tree like a warm scarf.  If I had a short strand of white lights, I would probably wrap the tree in lights too, but I don’t have one, so this will have to do for now. 

This year, I am drawn to natural décor, so I used some pinecones and a lot of greenery around my house.

 

 

My swinging chair got a soft, cushy bean bag seat, a new throw pillow, and a furry stool to prop my feet up on.  I think it’s pretty much perfect now.

 

And the faux mantle, got a simple little makeover…

 

 

 

Now we’ll head downstairs to the basement, which happens to be a little bit more fun and colorful than the upstairs. We put our main Christmas tree down here this year because, like I said, there was no place upstairs for it to go.  And since this is where our fireplace is, it works out well.  On Christmas morning, it will be fun to open presents by the fire.

Most mornings, I get up before the kids, tiptoe over the creaky wooden floors while I sneak past their bedrooms, make a  beeline straight to my Keurig, and then it’s down to the basement to start my day off with coffee and Jesus. I turn on the Christmas tree lights; and on some mornings, I even build a fire in the fireplace.  Then, while sitting on the couch, wrapped in a warm blanket and holding a hot cup of coffee in my hands, I enjoy the twinkly lights and the crackling, flickery fire while I read my Bible and talk to Jesus.  It’s so cozy and peaceful.  It’s my favorite way to start the day with Him.  And I’m pretty sure He likes it too!

Tim put a mantel up last week just in time for me to decorate it for Christmas. 

 

In the ten years that we’ve been married, this is the first year that I’ve ever had a real wood-burning fireplace with a mantel to hang stockings on and decorate for Christmas.  So I am happy, because it’s been on my wish list for a long time!  And I was so excited to get to make colorful felt wool ball garland to hang on the new mantle. Isn’t it fun?! 

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care…

 

Peace and joy… what amazing gifts!  They aren’t of this world and they can’t be found in this world. They are planted in our hearts by Jesus, gifts from Him.  I’m so thankful He came so that we could experience His unshakeable peace in a shaky world and in His presence we could find true eternal joy. 

 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

Vintage Rattan Hanging Chair

Last week, Tim screwed a giant bolt into a rafter in our ceiling so I could hang up my new-to-me Craigslisted rattan hanging chair.  And I LoVE it!

 

We had to scoot the fireplace over a tad to accommodate it, but I think it’s just perfect for that little corner.  It’s so fun!  And it has a peaceful little view into the woods behind our house, where this time of the year, the trees are especially pretty and colorful.

 

I’m on the hunt for a giant cushion to plop down in the bottom and a few pillows to toss in there (this one is borrowed from my couch), but don’t you just want to grab a good book and a cup of coffee and curl up for awhile?

I sure do!  In fact, I’m blogging from this chair right now.

It’s become the new favorite (and fought over) seat in the house.

 

The first day that we had it hanging up, the kids were spinning each other and getting a little bit crazy with it.  Several times I warned them to calm down. My warnings went unheeded and I think I was too busy with something else (I can’t remember what) to intervene immediately. Then all of a sudden, the knot I had tied came loose and Tyson and my chair went crashing to the floor.  Oops!  Thankfully no one was hurt and my chair survived the crash unharmed.  The kids all learned their lesson.  And I learned to tie and secure a better knot.  And so far, this one is still holding….

Home Made Lovely

 

Happy Friday!

Today I’m talking about creating a home that you love and doing a home tour over at Heather’s blog Life Made Lovely.  So come on over there and see me and then stay awhile and look at all the other amazing home tours in her Home Made Lovely series.  Her blog and the Home Made Lovely series is seriously one of my favorites. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kid’s Bathroom Makeover

A few months ago, we decided it was time to give the kid’s bathroom a makeover. 

When we moved in, it looked like this.

Nice, huh?  There is so much wrong with this bathroom, it’s not even funny.  Basically it could use a complete overhaul, but for the time being, we just wanted to do some modest updates to give it a new, fun look without breaking the bank.  The tile floors, tub, and toilet all had to stay.

Immediately upon moving in, we took off the sliding shower doors.  For us, that was a no-brainer.  Besides the fact that I hate cleaning those things, by removing them, it instantly opened up the space and also made it easier to bathe kids.  So not only was it more appealing to the eyes, but it was also more functional for us to have them gone.  Bye bye doors.

After that, the bathroom sat in it’s dismal brown state for several months while we worked on other things around the house.

When we finally got serious about the makeover, we came face to face with tearing down the wallpaper.  So. not. fun.  This stuff was a nightmare to get off.  And there was all kinds of extra glue underneath that had to be scraped and scraped off the walls.  It was miserable I tell ya.  I never want to see wallpaper again.

But then came the fun part of dreaming up what I wanted it to look like. Since there are no windows and absolutely no natural light in this bathroom, I wanted to make it as light, bright, and colorful as possible. I came up with this.

 

My father-in-law was in town at just the perfect time to help Tim remove the old vanity and install the new one.  He was also the brains behind putting on the new faucet and hooking up the plumbing. I’m not sure we could have done it without him.   

 

A peak at the faucet.

 

Tim did an amazing job of patching up the holes from the old medicine cabinet and light fixture and putting in the new ones.  It was no easy task. 

 

These colorful towels were the inspiration behind the new look.  Since the towels are so bold and colorful I decided to paint the walls a neutral color so they wouldn’t compete with each other. 

 

I also wanted a way to help the kids keep track of hanging up their own towel.  Alphabet hooks were the perfect answer.  I have warned all the kids that now I will know exactly who hasn’t hung up their towel just by glancing at the towel hooks.

 

 

I fell in love with this print the first time I saw it and knew I wanted it in the bathroom.  The rainbow of fun colors go perfectly with the towels. 

 

One last look at the before picture

 

And the after:

So there ya go. From drabby and depressing to bright and happy.

Resource List

Martha Stewart Vanity – Home Depot

Hotel Recessed Medicine Cabinet – Pottery Barn

Double Sconce – Restoration Hardware

Regatta Striped Towels – Garnet Hill

Rise & Shine Print – Jones Design Company

Kingston Brass Faucet – Amazon

Alphabet Hooks – Anthropologie

Shower Curtain – Urban Outfitters

 

The Basement

Part of me has put off sharing the basement tour because I still don’t feel like it’s completely finished. But it’s come such a long way over the last few months, that it’s still fun to share all the progress we’ve made. The basement room stood completely empty for the first few months of living here with the exception of a few random pieces of furniture that didn’t have a spot upstairs.  It’s been a slow, steady process of finding things we need and love and could afford to fill the space and make it more comfortable and useable.  There has also been some trial and error in figuring out the best way to arrange all the furniture in the basement.  It’s such a large open space, we hardly knew where to begin.  But for now, we have settled on a layout that seems to work for us. I love that our walk-out basement has so much light streaming in through the windows and sliding glass doors.  When we were house hunting, we looked at so many houses that had damp, dark, dungeon like basements and I knew I just couldn’t deal with that.  Plus, I knew our kids would never go down and play by themselves in a room like that, so it would end up being a pretty useless space for us. The great thing about this room is that it doesn’t feel like a basement at all.

We keep a lot of the kid’s toys down there, so they do end up spending a lot of time down there playing.  And the guest room is right off of this room, so it gives guests extra space to spread out in and relax. 

So with all that being said, welcome to our basement… 

 

The stairs before and after

        

The stair transformation is one of my absolute favorites ever.  If you missed my blog about the stairs, you can see it here.

I really wish I had taken a picture of the entire basement when we moved in, but I didn’t, so just picture it as one large empty room.  I did remember to snap a picture of the fireplace.

And now it looks like this…

You can find the fireplace transformation here.

The chairs are a Joss and Main find.  I wanted something wicker that would give the room a little bit of a beachy cottagey feel.  The little round banana fiber stools are from Ikea, as well as the curtains.

 

I’m not completely sure what kind of furniture this piece is.  I found it at a thrift store and knew I could paint it and it would be great for storage.  The top opens up with a shelf inside, so I think it’s some sort of antique victrola or something.  We use it to store the kids games and puzzles.  And the cubby shelf (from Home Goods) on top displays our growing nature collection.

 

The other side of the room…

The couches are Ikea Ektorp.  Tim hunted them down on Craigslist.  I did a lot of research on the practicality of white sofas and kids before we bought them.  I didn’t want to add any more unnecessary hassles to my life. But in the end, I felt like they would work out fine.  For one, our kids know not to get on them (or any furniture) if they are dirty.  And two, I can just throw the slipcovers in the wash when they do get dirty. It’s not been an issue for us.  I think I’ve washed them each once since getting them and that was mainly just because they had belonged to someone else before us.  They’re also really comfortable, so we’ve been quite happy with them.  I still want to get something on the wall above the loveseat.  I’m thinking I would like a large, colorful wall map of the world hanging up there. 

 

I made the “Happy” sign with some boards I had laying around.  It took me forever to figure out what I wanted to say on them. I wanted it to have some sort of meaning to us.  I finally settled on a line from the Sunshine song because we’ve been singing it to our kids since Tyson was born. 

 

And lastly, here’s a little peak into the guest room.