the halls are decked. 2010 edition.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

if you've been to our place around christmas time you'd know we like to do a twist every year on what we've done before.  nothing too crazy....i mean we have yet to do a carmen-miranda-as-chiquita-banana-lady theme [let alone a katie perry as carmen miranda as chiquita banana lady theme] or anything like that....but we just like to rearrange things a bit each year without dropping more coin.  here's a shot of last year in case you were curious.

with all that preface i give you....christmas: version 12.10.

it was the hub's idea to set up the tree in the dining room this year.  last year, we enjoyed a sparkle bedecked window scape in the sunroom.  me likee the sparklee.

well this time around i have to give the hubs credit for creating some lovely ambiance as we arrive home at night in the dark....we get to see this number all lit up [in the non-wasted sense of the phrase] and charming.

as you can see we had to rearrange the furniture a tad to get our festive tree all cozied up to the window.   there's a touch of awkwardness to the layout [hello there, pendant hanging in front of the tree lighting up nothing in particular.  how are you?], but we think its pretty fun for the holiday season.

the little man certainly loves it.

we pushed the table up tight against the wall + removed three of the chairs so things would be a little less cluttery in that corner.  and i rummaged through the basement to find these beauteous mitsumata branches [crate + barrel a few years back] which i sprinkled with silver stars.  oh and the pine cones, you say?  i actually started spray painting them silver, got distracted by other things, went looking for them in the basement a few days later and decided i kinda liked the depth they have with the dark brown peeping out from their metallic silver coats.

here's a look at the chairs we pulled from the living room.  i grabbed a couple throw pillows from a closet + stole the silver stool from our bathroom. and it was good.

the console table [which usually sits beneath the dining room canvas] also needed to get a move on.  

off it went to the angled wall by the staircase, and i created a little neutral christmas decor look with some family photos in frames + mr. rhino.  

mr. rhino who was begging to get in on the fun.  who were we to deny him?

to polish off what we quickly monikered 'the christmas room', i added a dose of sparkle to the nearby foyer chandelier.  more re-mixing, as i merely took some silver sequined ornaments from the tree + strung them up with floss [yes, like there's a piece of spinach sunbathing on your front tooth, floss].  pretty AND minty fresh.

 

i hardly think i need mention how pretty it is at night with the lights sparkling off these silver snowdrops-raindrops-whatever you imagine these to be.

and in the kitchen + living room, its mainly just some silver sparkle + an added dash of color representing this fair season. we've had a lovely christmas enjoying all the sparkle + shine and more than anything else are so thankful for the greatest gift of all....JESUS CHRIST!

its tree time!

so we were definitely on the late side of things with our christmas tree this year.  as in, we waited until we had scarcely two weeks between us + christmas before scrambling out the door, bundled infant in tow, to do the only kind of outdoor hunting i'll ever do:  tree hunting!

we found the cutest little family-run farm out in the boondocks of rolling hilly farmland and cud-chewing cows and off we were. juuuust the three of us, we can make it if we try....juuuust the three of us, the hubs, babe + iiiiiii....

 

we managed to find a pint-sized tree for H, purely for photo op purposes....

and here's the whole fam jam in the midst of a group huddle....do we like this tree?  why yes, i think we do!  

one of our troupe was casting a suspicious eye on the whole affair....

but even he eventually came back around.

mmmm....zipperrrrrrr....

so with a few swift slashes of the saw, we laid that baby to rest + enjoyed a complimentary (read: extremely bumpy but incredibly memorable) hay ride back up the hill....partaking in some hot cocoa + christmas cookies while our tree was wrapped up.  

christmas traditions with a mini man....does it get any better?!

next up: decorations, 2010 edition!

master of the house

ok, so i give in.  i'm finally going to share some shots of our very unfinished master bedroom.  so you can see that just like you, i hit road blocks here + there with decor choices.  yes, even year-and-a-half long road blocks.

first of all, let's take a peek at two visions i had for the room.

idea a....my initial thought for the space.  hollywood regency....glamour....a scoshe [scosh?  scoach?  i love scotch.  scotchy scotch scotch.] kelly wearstler....lots of black + white + a bit of gold.

to the tune of this metro home bedroom....

 

[yeah and btdubs, that wall, its totally handpainted. amazing huh?!]

or this:

 via curbly

idea b....a softer look.  loads of whites....airy....fresh....eclectic.  perhaps some pink, some red, some pale gold, some gray.

via keeping it realtor

via windlost

and here's our room in its current condition:

our room has always been white, back from when i picked all the paint colors during the building process....i just knew from the start that i wanted a light + breezy cloudy cream puff of a boudoir.  to be honest, i would have done many more white walls in our house for a truly contemporary feel but i scared myself out of it from a practicality standpoint.  i figured our bedroom was the safest place to go wintery white since only the hubs + i would be in there [vs. the rest of the house being a kid zone eventually].

now you may recall the dresser reference from months past.  well that little diddy turned out quite well, if i do say so myself.  a dozen odd coats of spray paint is all it took.  [um, yes, that was sarcasm....spraypainting a single vase = fun.  spraypainting a six foot long dresser = not fun].  we picked up those fun futuristic knobs from menards, home of good deals and boy-part jokes aplenty.

all in all we've got some lovely components going on, i'd say.  but its pretty much been a frozen winterscape for a while now of dresser....bed....side tables....and yeah.  that's it.


anyone wanna unleash their inner sarah richardson + give me some feedback?  black + white hollywood glam, or ultra light ultra mod?  speak up, y'all!

goodbye green

so for a short intermission between fall + the christmas season that's already arrived but i'm ignoring until we have a tree up, i'm enjoying a little dash of blue + orange in the kitchen.  basically the other day i went on a spree through the house removing all things green because i was just so....over....it a la those hills we all know + miss like cray cray.  and yes i know, i'll have to succumb to green again shortly as our christmas tree will be, naturally, green.  but hey.  i thrive on variety! especially in my wardrobe + house decor!  no worries, hubs, not in my men.  [xoxo!]

 

once i pared things down to orange + blue in the kitchen, which was quick + easy, i moved to the back entryway and rearranged some things there on the fly, and for free, to suit my new distaste for that earthy color of yore.  i nabbed some random cards that i thought looked sweet + eclectic together, and that remind me of special people in our lives, and set those on the locker shelves.  i jumped the junk drawer like white on rice for some freebie pens + additional ephemera of the orange/aqua/blue/pink variety.  and i switched out our rug for a cheapie pier one number in tiffany blue, that i'd been storing away for a while.

 

then i hit the living room.  green throw pillows, be gone!  vases, best ye hide!  we are doing it simple and we are doing it yellow.  yellow + grey + black + white.  totally trendy but totally my favorite color palette of the moment.

 

tinsel time!  my only christmas-y decorations that have come out to play so far. 

  and for the new simplified color scheme, i opted for a b + w image of six-months-prego-moi shot by the hubs on vacation last january.

a photo i snapped on the same dominican republic vacation last winter, of a peeling but oh so colorful little shack.

another free kohl's pillow!  mmmmm pleatinggggggg.  nice work, wang!

so those are our tweener color schemes for the main living area, which tie in well to the sunroom, and i'm sure i'll be giving a christmas shakedown soon too.  shakedown as in lots of deets + pics of my 2010 decorations, not shakedown as in holding our tree over your head and dousing you with torrents of needles.  BECAUSE OUR TREE WILL BE REAL.  THAT YOU CAN COUNT ON.  sticky sap, pricked fingertips, and weeks of guilt over forgetting to water that 10" triangular thing in the corner.  yup.  the whole bit!