2013 Christmas House Tour

Welcome! I am so excited to be a part of Jennifer Rizzo's Holiday House Walk again this year. If you are visiting here this morning this is going to be pretty much a pictures only post. I will be coming back on later today though to add in the text as long as my computer cooperates so bear with me.

*Update: I was able to come back on this morning and have now added in the text! 

If you haven't already done so make sure to head on over to Shabby Creek Cottage and check out Gina's beautiful and festive home!

Come on in! We moved this summer and started right to work updating our new home. We painted, painted, painted and painted some more and changed out toilets, removed cabinets and wallpaper and all sorts of things. Because we have been so busy doing that (and still have a few rooms left to tackle!) I didn't make any new Christmas projects this year and pretty much just used what we had from the last several years but seeing how it was a new space it was fun! Next year once all of the updating is done I can't wait to make some new things for Christmas. For this year though, here is what we have done so far:

Here is our kitchen. I actually have some other plans for in here but I haven't had time for them yet and am not sure I am going to get to it so instead we just added a few simple touches that included some branches from outdoors, paperwhites, and a gingerbread house that the girls and I made.

And here is a little shot of what our kitchen looked like when we moved in (as you can see although I didn't do anything too exciting for Christmas we have been working pretty hard in here):

And here is the family room which is on the other side of the kitchen:

And here are some more detailed shots of both the kitchen and family room:

I had grand plans of making a very detailed gingerbread house while the girls made their own fun one. Well, Lillie did spend five hours making hers which turned out adorable (in my opinion, anyway, although I suppose I am partial) =) but both girls hopped on and off my lap and "helped" me with mine so about five minutes in I realized although I might be able to keep all the candy off of it, it was still going to be very simple and quite messy - haha! Oh well. Maybe next year I'll do mine when they are in bed. =)

Here's Lillie's:

I added some garland that I've had for years to our chalkboard:

I played around with the mantel quite a bit. First I tried our download:

and then one of our Christmas canvases:

;

But in the end I went back to the mirror and simple greenery.

 

 

And here is our dining room. I will be doing a full post on the dining room in the next week or so that includes an updated source list.

 

We've done quite a bit of work in here and the last big project is to change out the lantern, which I am planning on doing in the next month or so! I can't wait to remove the old one and add that finishing touch. And we will add photos/art going up the stairs eventually too. 

I showed you our study a couple of week ago decorated in red. I tried it two different ways. First red:

I surprised myself and liked the red more than I thought but because I didn't have any red items to add to the tree in there or around the room and didn't have time to make anything new and didn't want to spend any money this year on buying any new things with so many renovation projects still on our list so I ended up going with a chocolate, gold and cream theme that I had used in our family room at our last house the last several years because I could use all things we already owned and just add in some greenery from our yard.

In our powder room I just added some paperwhite and a little tree that I got at IKEA a couple of years ago. I was too lazy to get my tripod out and there is not any natural light in this powder room so sorry for the crummy pictures.

You can see a better shot of the bathroom where I did use my tripod a month or two ago and also what it looked like before here. I still need to add some artwork to the walls.

And here is how the downstairs rooms look at night, which is my favorite:

I also just got Lillie and Lola's room photographed yesterday so here is one quick shot and I will share more later.

Update: I have added in some of the photos from their room now that they are edited. 

And here's a shot of our guest room. I am hoping to photograph this room and share the progress sometime this week!

 

Update: Here are some updated pictures of our new guest bedroom: 

I also started decorating the porch a little bit and added our newest chalkboard download, but honestly I am not sure I am going to finish it this year. I always enjoyed decorating our old porch but I may have to wait until next year to really play around with our new one.

And that's it for now!

You can

Click here for our 2012 Christmas tour!

Click here for our 2011 Christmas tour!

And for a recap of all of our before and afters so far of our new home  you can click here. 

And for a source list from each room you can click here.

Thank you all for taking the time to let me show you around our home. Now it's time to head over to Finding Home to check our Laura's beautiful display! 

And don't forget to see the tour from the beginning….

You can start here.

Have a wonderful day!