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. 

Holiday House Tour 2015

Merry Christmas Week everyone!!

I am so excited I actually have a house decorated for Christmas to show you this year! With us moving in the middle of October and my due date quickly approaching (tomorrow!!) I honestly didn't know what we would be able to pull off in the holiday decor department this year. BUT thankfully, my mom is half Christmas Elf slash the Christmas decorating Queen (she typically has 8 trees of her own!) and swooped in to town to help us get our Christmas life together.

This is our third married Christmas and as you all know we decorated our house last year and the year before, so we really tried to use a lot of the decor we already had and then added to it as necessary.

Front view:

From the side:

I really love the  magnolia + the green & red on the wreaths... isn't it so southern and festive?

The formal living room:

We have the prettiest bay window just begging for a tree, so we bought a pretty flocked tree for this space and I love it. Snowy branches, red balls and a fuzzy skirt.....so happy. 

The foyer:

Brenta the horse head is holding down the fort alone in here right now, but I love how even the back sides of the wreaths bring a little Christmas cheer to this space.

The den:

And one more shot of the outside at night....

Christmas is going to be very interesting this year. I will have either just had the baby or be waiting for the baby to come at any minute, so needless to say we can't travel. Instead, Christmas is going to be AT OUR HOUSE! That's right,  our house is command central for Christmas, which is just SO exciting!! Now in all reality our entire family may be spending Christmas at the hospital as December 25th is a full moon. The first full moon on Christmas since like Jesus I'm pretty sure....lucky us...oyyy ;)

All photos are my own. 

Holiday House Tour 2014 + a NEW RUG!

Never do houses look more charming and alive than during the holiday season. I love pulling onto our street after work each night to see house after house twinkling and festive.

This is our second Christmas at our house, but in a year's time a giant part of our Christmas decor was removed....THE CHRISTMAS TREE.

I'm not gonna lie, there was a part of us that was a teeny, tiny, wayyyy in the back of our minds worried that without the big, giant, decorated Christmas tree our house would loose some of it's charm. There was also another part of us that was a little bummed we had spent money on big ornaments that we no longer had a tree for.

First world problems, right?

Regardless, we were excited to deck our halls, so we jumped right on it the weekend after Thanksgiving. With only 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, we wanted as much time to enjoy as possible.

Welcome to Our-House-Decorated-For-Christmas-Tour -2014

What tree, right?  I can tell you the right side of our house, namely the kitchen window is ecstatic to finally be seen! We ended up repurposing the giant ornaments we bought for the tree last year by placing them on our garland across the white picket fence which worked out pretty nicely.

Inside, some mini nutcracker soldiers joined Brenta the horse head to add some holiday pizazz to our dining table.

And the most adorable black and gold reindeer salt and pepper shakers bring some Christmas cheer to the kitchen.

In the Living Room, Luke likes to sit under his stocking waiting for Santa to pop out of the fireplace. 

You may also notice the tree isn't the only thing warming up our living room....Christmas came early and we finally got a new rug!

We had been quietly looking for a rug for the Living Room since we moved in, but we were bound and determined not to rush into anything. The rug needed to be pretty big, because the room is so long and big rugs = more $$, plus any color/pattern used would really set the tone for the whole space. A few months ago we came across this rug, and BAM we knew it was right. Around the same time Rug Pad USA had reached out asking if I would be interested in reviewing one of their rug pads on my blog. Perfect timing.....I was interested indeed! 

I'd never purchased or picked out a rug pad before so I sat down to peruse their site to figure out which rug pad I wanted. As soon as I hit the homepage I realized there is a lot more to a rug pad than one might think. The choices are endless, not only does Rug Pad USA have a large offering of sizes that can suit any surface (carpet, hardwoods, outdoor, tile, etc..), but there are all kinds of different features to consider pertaining to non-slip, eco-friendly, low profile, cushioned, etc..I read through the different options and ended up selecting the Eco-Cushion. This rug pad is 1/4" thick with an open weave for extra cushion, plus it is made with plant based oils as opposed to petrochemical oils used in a lot of rug pads. The rug pad comes with a 20 year warranty and is made right here in America. Comfortable, affordable, eco-friendly and American made, does it get any better?

After living with the new rug/rug pad set up for a few weeks I'm happy to report we couldn't be happier.  The pad really does add some nice cushion to the rug and I love how everything stays in place, even with Luke rolling around on it. Because the rug is in a heavy traffic area of the house this non-slip feature was a must. I also love the added texture the rug itself adds to the room, it's like instant warmth! But I think the biggest fan of all is Luke, he loves the new rug and pretty much thinks it is his new, giant, soft bed. 

Well, this bring us to the end of our tour. I hope you enjoyed it! From the Cows that hang in our tree, to yours....MOOry Christmas!

All photos are my own.