Merry Christmas - The Shearers

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year from our family to yours! 

I so appreciate all of you for reading The Cow. It's one of my favorite creative outlets and it wouldn't be the same without your feedback and kind words. I wish I could send you all a Christmas Card, but since that seems complicated I thought this would be the next best thing.

The day before Halloween we had some family photos taken for the holidays. If you don't think my head was HUGE the next day due to the fact that for once in my life I was ahead of the game, then you are wrong. I could barely fit through doorways... :) We got the images back a week or so later and were so happy with the results. Time seems to be going by faster than ever so it's nice to capture these moments and seasons of life because before we know it things will change.

All photos by Morgan Blake. 

Holiday House Tour 2017

Merry Christmas Eve's Eve's Eve!

I can not believe we are only 3 days away from the big day! I've decided I'm all about Christmas falling on a Monday. I love that we can work a full week this week and still have two days to prep for festivities! Speaking of prep, I'm very excited to tell you all that I made dressing! ME! The girl who literally learned to boil water like 2 years ago made two big pans of dressing! I'm praying its good because if it is, my street cred in the cooking department is going to quadruple.

This has been a busy month, full of gatherings, shopping, wrapping, cooking, work and planning for 2018. Lucky for us we got started on our decorating right after Thanksgiving so we have been able to enjoy the happy scene all month long! I look forward to decorating for the holidays each year, especially now that I'm a mom. It's fun to transform the space you already deem as your "happy place" into a magical version of itself. Each year we tweak the decor we have and have fun planning out how to spruce up new areas in our house that have recently come to be. This year those areas include our brand new mudroom and our dining room!

Come on in, let me show you around...

As you know the mudroom is the newest space in our house and we are really enjoying it! The area oozes charm without even trying, so throw some plaid, a wreath and a little twinkly tree in the mix and POW. Happy city over here. 

Up next is the dining room which houses the antique mantle we revitalized earlier this year. I have been itching to throw some garland on this beast from day one.

Sigh....so beautiful right? 

This room has been totally transformed as we make way to host a Christmas dinner for 21 this year. 

We really loved the idea of having everyone at the same table so Brent and his brother Scott worked together to add plywood to some folding tables we already had, to act as an extension to our dining room table. Thanks to Brent's Dad for this awesome idea! We threw a table cloth over everything and now it's just one big, giant happy table. 

We've been doing a little bit each night to prepare and I'm happy to say we are in good shape. The goal this season has been to slow down and really enjoy the moment and that's just what we plan to do! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

All photos are my own. 

Bell Cabinetry & Design Holiday Tour

You know what goes realllllly well with custom cabinetry? HOLIDAY DECOR!!

This is our first holiday season in the new Bell Cabinetry & Design Buckhead Showroom and I'm slightly embarrassed to tell you I've been pumped to deck these halls since some of the designs were just ideas swirling around inside my head! One hood in particular was literally destined to sport a wreath. Luckily the showroom was also slotted to be the location of two holiday parties, which made getting the space holiday ready necessary not just fun. 

The Monday after Thanksgiving I enlisted the help/guidance of my mom, the Holiday Decor Whisperer, and fellow designer Addie Sandidge  and we got busy decking the halls! The showroom has 5 kitchens, 2 baths, a pantry, a closet and a mudroom, each with it's own style. The goal was for individual vignettes to feel cheerful and festive in a unique way while maintaining a cohesive feel for the showroom as a whole. No easy fete, but we were up for the challenge and ended up being pleased with the end results! Let me show you around.....

Here's a view of our front entry, note the Santa hat on our logo.

The first vignette as you enter the showroom showcases our Heritage Collection.

This display is classic, elegance so we wanted the décor to reflect this vibe. A beautiful magnolia wreath plus mercury glass Christmas trees and balls did the trick.

Next up is our Studio display AKA the kitchen with the hood made to play back drop to a wreath. 

And a boxwood wreath at that. Oooooh the charm. 

This kitchen is fresh, clean and happy with open shelving, a farm sink and a subway tile backsplash. We let the wreath on the hood be the "wow" and then just added hints of cheer here and there with pops of red and more boxwood clippings scattered about. 

Our back Milano Collection Kitchen sits right off the conference room with floor to ceiling steel windows and door. 

We kept the decor on the kitchen itself minimal and focused our attention on adding wreaths in a grid pattern to the conference room window wall! We loved the impactful, yet understated effect. 

Lastly, one of my favorite little spots in the showroom is our mudroom. 

A few mini Christmas trees, a festive scarf and tiny lumberjack kissing a red nutcracker make this spot cozy and bright!

Well, there you have it, a little peak at the holiday scene currently happening over at our new showroom. Each day we light our Fir & Firewood candle (best smell ever!!), turn on the Christmas Tree lights (we have 3, not pictured!!) and some days we even crank up the holiday tunes making this the hap hap happiest 3,000 square feet on the block!

All photos are my own. 

Our House - Year 2

It's hard to believe we are in the last month of 2017 already! This year has truly flown by, but before it's gone I want to take a minute and look back at all we've accomplished here on the home front. Back in October we celebrated our two year anniversary in this house and I'm happy to say we feel 100% more accomplished this year than we did after year one.

Our house is feeling more and more like a home and more excitedly our home with each project we complete. Some rooms are finished and some still have a ways to go, but a lot of them underwent some type of improvement this year.

Let's get the party started with The Living Room:

Earlier this year we added a chandelier, curtains and a coffee table to this space and man does it feel good in here. We definitely spend a lot of time in this room, so it's nice that it's one of the more completed areas in our house.

Up next...The Dining Room:

This room definitely saw a lot of action this year. We wrapped up our antique mantle restoration, figured out our chair situation around the dining table and added curtains. We also incorporated antique brackets to separate the dining room from the foyer which really elevated the whole space.

The last area we dug into this year was our mudroom. 

We touched every inch of this space and after adding planks, replacing our entry door, updating our laundry door and building out mudroom storage over the antique bench we reupholstered I would say we can officially consider this room D O N E.

And lastly, the never-ending project - The Outdoor Kitchen:

This is the most updated shot we have. It's from April and we haven't made much project since then. Next year is our year to finish this beast, I can feel it.

The process of updating, furnishing and decorating a house can feel overwhelming, exhausting and expensive. If you all are anything like me you know it can be hard to work through spaces, one at a time when what you really want to do is blink and it all be done. But in all honesty, I'm a sucker for the process too. Even if I had an unlimited budget and all the time in the world, I know I would still take forever because often times the best rooms are those that are collected and perfected over time. As we wrap up year two I'm feeling excited and proud that more rooms, especially on our first floor, feel like "us" as compared to the empty caves they were this time last year. So, cheers to progress and embracing the sloppy, tiring, expensive and rewarding journey!

All photos are my own.