Christmas Tour of Homes

Today I'm participating in The Nester's and Kelly Korner's Christmas Tour of Homes!  Welcome to our home!

Our tree is in our entry! It's a 12' artificial tree and it's sooo much easier than putting lights on a real tree every year! And with our history of falling tree's this one makes me more confident to put our ornament's on it!

This table right next to our front doors is usually on the wall that borders where the tree is right now but it had to be moved up next to the door due to the size of the tree.  I like it there though! My Mom and I went to a paint-your-own-painting class last winter and painted the painting that's hanging.  It turned out pretty good and in a pretty frame it looks even better!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my dining room table this year! When Kelly and I went to Jackson for Mistletoe Marketplace I fell in love with the display's at Laurie Anna's Vintage Home.  I bought the pedastal's and bell jars there and filled in with some items from another store in Jackson and things I already had.  I love the contrast of hte burlap and the glitter, so pretty!

Moving into the ktichen/breakfast/keeping rooms.....

We have this cute Santa mini-ornament tree that used to be my Mom's.  I love it's festive charm and Charlotte loves having another Santa to point to!

This nativity is in the center of our kitchen table this year and it is so special because Jason and I bought it in Mexico on our honeymoon.  Such a special souvenier that reminds us of our honeymoon each and every Christmas!

Our cards are displayed in our keeping room on a Christmas tree display holder.  I've started keeping past Christmas cards and displaying them next to the current cards.  I think it's neat to be able to look through cards from year's past and see how families have progressed!

This shelf is also in our keeping room and is housing two nativity's -- one from a local store and Charlotte's Little People Nativity!

We also use this calender from Pottery Barn to count down the days until Christmas!

Our back porch got some sprucing up this year with holly berry wreaths and Christmas tree candle holders!

The burlap and silver look also came into our den and I really like it's look also!

I picked this painting up at Mistletoe Marketplace also from Prayers on the Side.  It is a beautiful piece of art of Mary holding baby Jesus.  This piece will be on my bedside table throughout the year but is making an appearance on the mantle this Christmas!

I love this Southern Living nativity and the wood trees!

I got these stockings from The Bobbins Nest on Etsy last Christmas but monogrammed them this year.  They fit right in with the new burlap theme!

And just for fun here's me taking the pictures in our new mirror in the den! :)

Upstairs Charlotte has a tree in her room too and this year it's added two new ornaments with Elmo and Priss! She LOVES her tree and always wants to be able to see her tree when she's in her room!

Hope you enjoyed the tour! To see how the house has changed since last year check out last year's Tour of Homes post!

Master Bedroom Redo - The Final Room

If you've missed the past two posts they've detailed the before pictures of our Master Bedroom and the plans for the design.

After getting Laura's beautiful design I was so excited to get started executing it.  Our first task was to find a bed.  We eventually decided on a custom bed from Lee Industries (ordered through a local store) because it was custom, was less expensive than the ones we found online, and we could touch and feel the fabric's in person.  So we picked that out and got it ordered and then started working on the other items in the room.

Because some items had gone into backorder between the time Laura had sent us her plans and when we were actually looking to buy we ended up using the plans more as a guide than something we had to stick to and follow 100%.  We found a beautiful Uttermost light fixture on One King's Lane that was a third of the regular price and ordered it.  We found a sideboard to use under the tv since we couldn't find an armoire that we just absolutely loved that was big enough for our tv.  Since the sideboard was a light color we decided that we should go with darker side tables for the bed instead of the light colored ones that Laura had shown us.  We also didn't want them to be matchy-matchy so we found an beautiful wood writing table and then a blanket chest to go on either side of the bed. 

We continued to find pieces here and there to complete the room and continued to order the pieces online that we knew we needed (like the curtains, bedding, bench, and mirror).  We ran into a snag when the chaise that we ordered kept being backordered longer and longer so we finally cancelled that order and found a place in town that would get one made for us in a similar shade in a few weeks as opposed to the four months that the one we had ordered would take.

We scheduled the painter to come and paint our room and bathroom and the difference just from the paint was huge!  Our bed arrived shortly after the paint was completed and it started to look like a new room!  Finally last week we had the sideboard set up as a tv console and our room is now complete except for a rug which we're going to wait some time on.  We love it and it is exactly what we wanted.  It's so nice to relax or work on the blog in there now and I love that I have a sitting area to do my Bible Study or put on my shoes. 

We are so thankful that Laura was willing to help us out with this project even though she's never stepped foot in our house in person!  It was so nice to be able to do the consulation and design virtually and then execute it ourselves.  That allowed us to tweak plans based on what we found.  I would highly recommend Laura if any of you are interested in this sort of work.  It was well worth the small amount of money that we spent to get her to give us her expert advice!

And now to the finished product.....

Details about the room:

Wall Color - Benjamin Moore Grant Beige (HC-83)

Ceiling Color - Benjamin Moore Woodlawn Blue (HC-147) cut by 50%

Trim - Benjamin Moore Linen White

Bedding - Restoration Hardware Vintage Washed Belgian Linen in Ivory and Prairie

Bench - Restoration Hardware Louis Bench in sand Belgian Linen

Blanket Chest - from At Home in Homewood

Writing table - local store

Drapes - Pottery Barn Peyton Drape in French Ivory

Drapery Hardware - Continental Window Fashions fluted rod in Off White

Chaise - local store

Side table - round metal table from local store

Lamp - Restoration Hardware Swing Arm Floor Lamp with Ivory shade

Sideboard - local store

Mirror - Restoration Hardware Venetian Beaded Leaner Mirror (I saw a similar mirror at At Home in Homewood in May)

Frames - Obrien Schridde Elegant frames in cream (I saw these at At Home in Homewood)

Light Fixture - Uttermost Audelia 6 light chandelier purchased from One King's Lane

Master Bedroom Redo - The Plans

If you missed the before pictures and the backstory check them out in the previous post.

So I sent Laura the pictures and dimensions of the room along with a long list of wants.  Things like
- I wanted a bench at the end of the bed so that Luca could jump up on the bed
- I would love a floor length mirror
- I really wanted a seating area, ideally with a chaise
- And that the tv was the only thing in the room that we wanted to stay.

Laura got to work and soon (really, really soon! sooner than I was expecting!) sent me a beautiful plan and instructions on how to execute.  I'd asked for a floorplan/general design idea but also where to find things because it's hard for me sometimes to actually execute an idea.  She delivered above and beyond what I expected and I was so excited to receive the following plans.

She also explained some items like that she suggested getting an upholstered headboard made (or making it ourselves -- she and John made one and she said she could tell me how!).

Final (or mostly final) room photo's coming up next!

Master Bedroom Redo - Before

When we moved into this house last August the entire house was the same shade of green.  Every wall was this army/khaki green color and every ceiling was a lighter hue of the same color.  And while this color is nice (I'm sure) in a room or two by itself, it gets pretty overpowering living in a house that is entirely made up of the same color.  We quickly painted Charlotte's room pink as soon as we moved in and we painted the kitchen/keeping room, den, and study shades of tan/caramel last fall.  Our bedroom was the next room that we planned to tackle and time finally rolled around in March.

If you're anything like us you can guess that our room was a hodge-podge of leftover furniture hand-me-downs from when we were growing up.  We had bought a decent bed when we bought our first house but everything else was just extras that we had replaced in other parts of the house.  Our room, with its green walls and leftover and mismatched furniture, was not exactly the room of peace and relaxation that I envisioned. 

Master Bedroom in our first home

So in March we finally set about to change that but I was really overwhelmed with how to "fix" it.  Our room at the old house had chocolate walls and blue bedding.  I love chocolate and blue (those were our wedding colors also) but I was thinking I might be tired of that color scheme and want to shake it up a little but without going really different.  I was stuck and the thought of picking out paint colors scared me to death. 

I looked online for some designers who do "virtual" designs.  A lot of the ones I found were either way more than what I wanted to spend or they had a waiting time of months before you could get an idea of what they were going to produce for you.  So I thought about it and I asked my friend Laura McFee who is a designer in Montgomery and a fellow Alpha Chi sister (Laura was actually the rush chair who pledged me so she has a VERY special place in my heart!).  So I emailed her out of the blue and asked her if she could look at some pictures and dimensions of our current bedroom and put together a plan for me.  She was excited to do it and said it would be a nice little side job for her.

So I sent her the dimensions, some of the following pictures, and a laundry list of wants and ideas.  I'm sure she second guessed taking this on once she saw everything I sent but she was a trooper and gave me exactly what I was wanting!  More on that later but here are the before pictures of our room.  And just so you know, it hurts to show you these pictures right now.  I can't believe we lived with it like this for so long! But in our defense these pictures were taken at night with the shutters closed whereas the "after" pictures that you'll see soon were seen in the morning with the shutters open.

The plans for the re-do coming soon!

Christmas Tour of Homes

Welcome!  If you are a regular reader or are stopping over from The Nester's Tour of Homes I am glad that you're here!  I want to show you my favorite decorations around our house.  Since I have an almost 7 month old didn't have time to go all out on decorations this year so I stuck with items that are special to me. 

We'll start first in our den with our mantle.

I went with a simpler mantle than last year mostly because of time but also because I didn't want garland leaves falling on the floor and Charlotte eating them!  I got the stockings from The Bobbins Nest on Etsy.  I'm planning on monnogramming them but haven't had time yet.

The nativity that I always center on our mantle is so special to us.  We bought it in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico on our honeymoon.  It is a beautiful pewter set that I absolutely adore.  It looks fantastic year after year and is timeless.  Plus it's so special because it was literally our first Christmas decoration for our new family that we purchased together.

This nativity is a new (old) addition this year.  My great-grandmother, Granny, painted this for me when I was a baby.  My Mom always displayed it at home and this year she decided to pass it down to Charlotte for her to enjoy.  One Christmas after we got our first dog, Peanut, he decided that one of the wise men looked tasty and so one wise man has a corner that's been nibbled on.  But, to me, that just makes it even more charming!

We have a lot of built in bookcases in the den and I love to display pictures and special memento's on their shelves.  That doesn't stop for Christmas! I simply moved a few items into cabinets for the holiday and display another nativity and other fun items like "chocolate" Santa's, our Elf on the Shelf, and these fun items.

These cute paintings were painted by Kim at Endless Possibilities.  She did this set last year as a limited edition.  Please excuse the coloring of the picture.  I was taking pictures last night and I couldn't get this one to come out right!

I love this Santa pillow.  I have a second one also in another bookshelf.  My grandmother, Gramme, cross stitched these for us and gave them to me at one of my wedding showers.  They are so special!  I don't display them on the couch or in a chair because one day I found Luca resting his head on one.  I don't want anything to happen to them so they are safe on the shelves!

This is our tree in the den.  I filled it with ornaments that Granny made.  I think they are beautiful!

This is our tree in our foyer.  If you read my blog regularly you'll know that this is the second tree that we put up this year due to the first one falling over.  You can read all about it here.  We ended up going and getting a 12 foot artificial tree and we will use this one at least for the foreseeable future.  This tree is decorated with special ornaments to us like our Christopher Radko collection and special family ornaments.  However, after winning a blog giveaway on Happily Ever After and receiving some advice from Stephanie to fill in the tree with a theme I filled in the tree with an assortment of red and green ornaments.

Each year we get our Christmas card picture put on an ornament and put the ornament on our tree.  I hope one day to have a whole tree full of Christmas card pictures!  This was the first ornament that Jason and Charlotte put on the original tree this year!  (Post updated to note that I order these from Exposures magazine)

I am so excited about this ornament! We took Charlotte to a paint your own pottery store the Saturday after Christmas and made this ornament with her handprint.  Although she screamed bloody murder while we were making the ornament, we definitely made memories and a keepsake that we can treasure!  I am looking forward to adding many more ornaments for Charlotte to our tree over the years!

Each year my Mom gives me and my brother (and now Jason) a Christpher Radko ornament that represents something important that happened this year.  This ornament is a church that Mom gave me the year that we got married.

Growing up we always had a pickle ornament on our tree.  So when we got married I looked and purchased a pickle for our tree.  Last year we hosted a Christmas party with our best friends and we had an ornament swap.  One of the ornaments that we brought was a pickle because it's such a long-standing tradition with our family that I assumed everyone knew about it.  Not so! We were actually the one people in the room to have ever heard about a Pickle ornament.  So today I googled it for y'all and it appears that it is a German tradition.  You can read more about it on Bronner's website along with see their pickle ornament selection!

In our family there was always a pickle present and whoever remembered the pickle first and found it got to open the present.  However, the pickle present was almost always something for the whole family.  Like the year that Santa brought our first computer (it was in probably 5 HUGE cow (Gateway) boxes! How long ago was that?!?!) the pickle present was a joystick for the computer.  Charlie and I always had friendly competition searching for the pickle.  I can't wait until Charlotte can look for the pickle on our tree!

Another special ornament is our "victory" ornament.  When we were little either Charlie or I made this stained glass elephant ornament.  In our family we determined that we would hang that little elephant on our tree every year that we beat Auburn.  Over the past ten years the little elephant has had to go back in his box more often than not but for the past two years our victory elephant (and our new victory ornament) have hung proudly in a place of honor on our tree! Roll Tide! :)

Thank you so much for visiting the tour of our home decorated for Christmas!  We wish you and your family a very merry Christmas!  One that is full of love, laughter, friends and family.  One where we stop and remember the baby in the manger and all that He has done for us!

Merry Christmas!

Curtains

I'm having a baby shower at my house in a few weeks and this prompted me to get into a sewing frenzy to try and finally make the curtains for my den that I've been wanting to make since March. Jason and I picked out some fabric that we loved that will tie the red in the dining room into the den. I really wanted to do pinch pleat drapes and I think they've turned out really good.






So now my big question is should I add two more panels. I had originally planned on making four panels so that they would completely close the window. We would then remove the blinds that are there so that when we do have kids they won't get their heads stuck in them or anything. BUT, I can't use my machine to sew the pleats at the top together and I've broken four needles trying to sew the pleats in place on these two panels. For those of you who do read this blog :) do you think I should leave them at one panel a piece and keep the blinds or add the other panels that I'd originally planned and loose the blinds? I'm just not sure I can be un-biased in this decision due to the pain my fingers and hands have endured sewing the existing panels pleats so I need some help! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think I should do!