Holiday Home Tour

During this time of year, everyone seems to be posting their holiday home tours, so I figured I'd share mine with you. I normally do minimal decorating, as we usually leave town for Christmas. 

This year we have my family coming to us, to celebrate the holiday, and a "Christmas Craft Party" with my gals this weekend...so I had to do it right this year. 

This of course meant shopping, which I'm a big fan of. Believe it or not, I pre-planned for this! Yay me! I bought before Thanksgiving even...If you don't know me yet, that's a big deal. I don't like to mix my holidays. I even have my Christmas cards sent out already. Writing a blog helps keep me on track I think too, despite my complete lack of time. 

I love decorating for Christmas, I love pops of red, and greenery is the best decorating accessory. My house feels so warm and lived in this time of year, it's tempting to keep it up longer than I should. 

Although it doesn't get super cold here in south Texas, we do light up our fire a coupe times a week, for ambiance, and lately, warmth. 

So here it is, my home for the holidays. 

Every year, I'm tempted to buy pillows to change out during the season, and this year I finally did it. I found these super cute ones at Target, and the go perfectly with my color scheme. 

My small white bottle brush collection, works great with cute little Santa. The kids tell him what they want every couple of days, just in case he can hear them. All sit cozy, in my red tray from Target.

Our fireplace mantel is usually dolled up with stockings, and glittery trees. This year I opted for simple. I love all the greenery, and wanted that to be the main focus.

 I left our mirror, but added a couple of sprays of pine branches. Adding the chevron burlap ribbon, brings  in the more relaxed version, of the holidays I was going for this year. 

The red candle holders were a find at Ikea. I loved the lace pattern, they had several styles of these in whites and reds. 

We have a gas firplace, and have no need for wood, so i figured, we mind as well make the wood look good. I found a couple sets of these birch logs at Micheal's. I think it's something that can stay out most of the year.  

The crock was something I had been searching out. On a trip last spring, to Round Top with my parents, my mom spotted this beauty. 

Filling lanterns with pine cones, berry's, or garland, is a great way to bring the holidays in, with out changing out all the decor. And of course, add birds whenever possible :)

We still have our tree from our last house. We didn't have a large space to put one in our living room area there, and decided on a tall and skinny tree. While that worked great for that house, it doesn't for this one. It looked so sad and lonely last year, and we had planned on getting a new one. But space still seems to be an issue here, we didn't want something sticking out so far you couldn't get around it, and I didn't want it in another room where you couldn't enjoy it. I  love the look of this fake tree too, some of the branches look a little fuzzy and and have little pine cones tucked around. "Next year", I keep telling myself...we'll see? 

Our tree skirt is very special, my mom hand sewed this for us a couple of years ago. It is full of felt designs, of Santa, reindeer, presents, snowmen, angels, and all things Christmas. In the next week or so, it will be covered by mounds of presents, as the family's packages start rolling in.  

Decorating the tree in my family holds alot of tradition. Every year we would all get together to hang ornaments, and watch "White Christmas". We've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I think I know every word by heart now, and used to dance around with my sister singing all the songs. It was one of my parents favorite movies. 

I love that my daughter loves this tradition too. I'm glad she appreciates the old movies, the way we did. 

And any excuse for her to sing, she loves!

We never do a themed tree. We have such a conglomerate of ornaments, dating back from the years we were born. I love them all, we talk about where they came from, or whose they were, and the kids always pick out their favorites to hang. I couldn't even put them all on this year, which helps my case for getting a bigger tree for next year. 

This year, all the kids were old enough to get in on hanging ornaments. It took alot of patience, and a good bit of sorting

If she holds the tongue just right.... 

I love this picture of Kiera, she  was so enamored by the tree. 

 Next to the tree was a large open wall, in need of a way to hang Christmas cards. I have 4 old shutters a friend had given me, and I knew they were perfect for the job.

I attached eyelet screws to the tops, and bottoms, of both shutters. Using dry wall anchors, and screws, I mounted them to the wall.

Since this photo, I have hung Christmas cards in the rungs of the shutter. 

Make sure you hang the shutters, so the cards will slide in the right way.

Years ago, my aunt Leslie (check out her blog  here), sent me a great advent calendar to do with my eldest daughter. She included a Playmobil nativity scene, and different projects, and verses, to do with the kids, to learn about the real meaning of Christmas. 

When it was just Ashlyn, I had little goodies, and a fun project, in each of 25 days. 

As the family has grown, and time has become a commodity, I have downsized to 12 days. 

In each bag, I put pieces of the nativity scene, a bible verse, or something to talk about at dinner, and a candy cane, that they can share. On the weekends days, there are projects we can do together, like building a gingerbread house, making snowflakes, cookies, and popcorn garland. They don't take alot of time, but get the kids to understand what the season is really about.

This year when I brought out the nativity pieces, my son was so excited, "to do the God thing", he said. He remembered what it was for, and what it was about. They are all looking forward to starting it this Saturday.

 I spiced up my wood tray collection with little Christmas goodies.

 The kitchen, already has the pops of red, with the island and decor (see it all here), so it only needed a couple things.

Two burlap wrapped pine trees, sit on either side of the window, along with a couple of may favorite, vintage glittered ornaments. 

The shade I made over the summer, needed some sprucing up. I love the burlap ribbon, and used that to draw up the shade. I plan on keeping this up after Christmas. 

I added a couple pine cones to the bottom of each side.

Kitchen table decor is hard to do at my house, the kids love to touch everything. 

So I had to keep it small this time, away from meddling hands.  I found this fabulous little guy, while visiting my sister, at Legacy Home Accents in Fredericksburg VA. 

 I put him on a cake plate with some branches, pine cones and berries. 

Since the dining room will be where we spend most of our meals at, this holiday, I kept it simple. 

The dining room had a book theme, with the walls being plastered with book pages ( the how-to, coming in January) , so I tried to keep the vintage books in the room. I used them to display my Creche. I mentioned before, how this was a pre-molded set, that my grandmother, and great-grandmother hand painted. I love all the detail put into these pieces. This was my part of Christmas to set up, when we were kids. 

My grandmother Tutu, passed away this past January, but having this in the center of the table, will keep her with us this holiday.

Christmas Poppers, another yearly tradition. They have silly toys, jokes and paper hats in them. We open them before Christmas dinner, and wear the hats all meal long. 

I kept all the decor from the room, and stacked it in the corner, adding some greenery to the lanterns. 

As children, me and my sister were given pieces to a holiday scene every  year. I have tons of houses, and lots of pieces to go with it. I don't have the room to display the whole thing, but I put out what I could,  on the entryway table. The kids love playing with the snow, and checking out the whole scene. 

Well that's all for my house, I don't have the patience to take the decorations up stairs, just one more thing I'll have to clean up.  

I hope you get to spend time with family, and loved ones this holiday season. 

We will be missing my sister, her husband, and their sweet new baby this year. My other grandmother, Nana, who has spent every Christmas with us since I was a young girl, will sadly not be joining us this year either. But I am thankful for those who will be here, and feel so blessed by those in my life! 

Thanks to C & C Paperie for making my cute card! 

Reserve At Old Fredericksburg Model Part 2

Hi all, hope everyone had a wonderful, and restful Thanksgiving with your families. Ours was quite, well nothing with two small children is ever really quite, but it was nice!

Lots of food, and lots of clean up!

Here is part 2, of the Reserve at Old Fredericksburg model home.....The rest of the first floor.
If you missed the first part of this model, decorated by Dy Lynne Decor, you can see it here.

The kitchen, living, and breakfast area in this house, are all open to each other, I love the flow of this. It makes a great space for entertaining, everyone can just gather.

In the living room space, there is a beautifully aged leather sofa, an armless chair, and two small bench seats.  The leather sofa, it's such a timeless piece, this piece will be in style for years. A simple leather sofa, can tend to look a little masculine, the tufting here, helps tone that down.  

An armless chair is a great way to add more seating, without taking up alot of floor space. This chair is slip-covered, so it looks simple and effortless. 

The pillow even matches the wallpaper from the entryway (see here).

I love the wall art set up here, it doesn't have to be predictable. You can create a gallery wall with what ever you have. The golden animal bust, is the perfect topper to balance out the color on this side of the room, and brings in another material and texture. Adding objects that are three dimensional, helps add interest to a grouping like this as well.

Here is the dresser piece before, unfinished wood.

 If I can get my hands on an unfinished piece, that is ideal, but you could paint a similar treatment on a salvaged piece of furniture. Changing out hardware, will update a piece as well. Here, an aged brass cup pull was used, but an oil rubbed bronze would work well too.

The rug is wool, and the heavy pattern really weighs the room down. If you start with a heavy busy pattern here, you can bring in all sorts of patterns around the area, and make it look cohesive. This also gives you a larger color pallet to work with. 

The small bench seats could be used to kick your feet up, or as additional seating. These are covered in an animal hide.  

Dy Lynne did such a great job in here, mixing all sorts of texture and materials. If you have to much of one in any area, the room starts to look heavy, and unfinished, this room has a great balance. 

The pillows on the couch mix in more textures, and great patterns. 

In this beautiful kitchen, the cabinets were painted in a deep gray tone. The stainless steal, brick walls, and wood floors all balance this room out. Grey can tend to be a heavy dark color for cabinets, and the counters are very rich in here too. But with the right lighting, adding glass front cabinets, and mixing the elements, this kitchen feels very open and fresh, and has a style that isn't easily dated. You can add pops of color inside the cabinets with dishes, or in the decor on the counter tops. 

Te large island is the perfect spot for the kids to eat breakfast, and great when having a party, using it as a buffet. The stools bring in the bit of the industrial feel to the mix. 

The breakfast area is just off to the side of the kitchen. A four top table is used here, but there is plenty of room for a bigger table, for a growing family. 

The light fixture here, is so unique. It was picked up at an antique show, where it was custom made. I love the mixture of the metals, with the heavy, thick rope.

This cute little decorative crown, doubles as a napkin holder.

Just to the side of the kitchen is a special little area. 

This room could have so many uses. 

For this house, they used it as a sitting room, perfect for grabbing a cup of coffee, and reading a good book by the fire. 

There are four small leather chairs, gathered around a custom coffee table. 

I'm not sure what this piece was in a former life, except yummy vintagey goodness! It has such great character, and a gorgeous coat of cream chippy paint. 

There is another custom piece of lightning hanging in here. Very unique, and it brings the industrial feel to the mix, in this room.

On each side of the fireplace, is a deep niche with built in cabinets, and shelves.

On the back wall of these spaces, I used a special paint treatment. See the how-to HERE.

The pattern has little birds, and you know how I love my birds! 

My cute little kids made it into a frame here. 

On the back side of the sitting room, is the mud room and the entrance from the main garage.

Laundry rooms tend to be boring, and since its's a space your in alot, why not make it look nice. Over the washer and dryer, a counter was installed. Its the perfect spot for folding and storing laundry supplies. I think this space gets overlooked so easily. Even a piece of butcher block across the top of the two, can unify the space. 

On the wall I painted a simple quote, in a charcoal grey, just in case you kids need reminding.

Next to the washer and dryer, is a built in work area. The door to the driveway, and detached garage is right here, so it makes it a great spot for items you need to grab when your on the go. This one was turned into a wrapping station. If you have it fully stocked, you'll always be ready. 

A shelf held up with old corbels is a good place to display useful items, it doesn't always have be a decorative piece for it to be beautiful. Use ribbon, twine, bags, scissors in a jar, and a tubs of paper, as pieces of art.  

Here is the view form the back of the house. There is a very large deck up stairs, and a covered area with a full kitchen downstairs. 

I love how they kept all the oaks in the backyard. It creates the perfect entertaining area. There is a flagstone patio, and a fire pit in the center.  

So that's it for the first floor.
Check out part 1 of the model, if you missed it, HERE, the rest of the first floor.
Next I will show you the upstairs, including the kids rooms, and an awesome loft area.

Dy Lynne, with Dy Lynne Decor, and her amazing team, pulled this amazing model off in just days!
Check out some of her other work here, and see her on Facebook here.

See some of the other models I have work on with these ladies, here, and under the models tab at the top. Lots of inspiration!

I know this is a model home, and it's perfect, but I think you can implement so much of this in your own home, and in your spaces. From the mixing of materials, to the placement of furniture.  Try working with what you have, but using it in new ways!!