2014 Christmas Home Tour

I’m super excited to be a part of Lindsay’s Blogger Stylin’ Home Tour—Christmas Edition today! If you are just joining us on the tour you can start the entire thing from the beginning at her blog here! If you are joining from the fab blog Simple Stylings, welcome! I’ve got lots of goodies in store for you today! ‘Tis the season!!

While Christmas is always a special time of year, 2014 has been extra fun for us because it’s the first time in two years we have been able to really decorate for Christmas.

Since we’ve been remodeling for over two years now, the first year we “decorated” by having a working kitchen on Christmas Eve. I don’t know if any Christmas tree would ever be as beautiful as a working faucet and dishwasher after over four months without one. Then last year we were so focused on finishing bedrooms in our house that Christmas snuck up on us and we didn’t get to decorate very much.

With all that being said, the point of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, so all the fun lights and little Christmas touches are just icing on the cake for me. I’m so grateful for all the Lord has done in our lives this year!

As you can see, our floor plan in the main rooms is extremely open, which we love. It’s night-and-day difference from the tiny boxed in rooms we started with! Let’s start in the dining room!

We’ve been talking about getting a real tree since we got married over five years ago. And this year—we did it! It wasn’t from a tree farm out in the woods like I had imagined. In fact, ours is from a truck outside of Costco, but whatever. We had just gotten back from Europe and I needed a tree, stat. I love it. It also helps me remember to sweep our floor more often now that it’s shedding pines daily. 🙂

We went with a simple décor theme of gold and silver with white lights. Classic and pretty! I used fake snow for a tree skirt, and a dove ornament for a tree-topper. Pretend there is a pile of presents under the tree. 🙂

Our built-in bar that I worked on with Home Depot got holiday-ready by having the LED lights set to red and green. I found that banner from Target.

I also added a string of lights to our piano and my giant Pride & Prejudice art sign.

Our living room got some holiday spirit by adding a few pillows, and adding some Christmas stories to the coffee table. I always love the Nutcracker story and I also got that A Literary Christmas book in London at the British Library!

The mantle got simplified with nothing but a pre-lit garland and our stockings. Glitzen, the reindeer got a hat and a scarf to help keep him warm. 🙂 We also added a few Christmas touches on the bookshelves.

Scott put together the Christmas village on our media stand! 🙂 So cute. We’ve collected the pieces for several years.

In the kitchen, I added some décor to the workbench table we repurposed on our vintage scale. I got the deer from Michael’s last year (they are ornaments!) and I made the ombre brush bottle trees myself.

On our concrete counters I set out a tray with some of the fun goodies we got in London! We picked up tea, hot chocolate and spiced biscuits from both Harrods and Fortnum & Mason which are probably the most beautiful stores I have ever seen. The flowers were put together by my friend Kris who was doing a Makers Market at the West Elm in Dallas. Aren’t they gorgeous? If you remember, she gave us some great flower styling tips in this post here. Also- there’s the copper pot we brought home as our splurge from Paris! We got it from the same shop Julia Childs shopped at!

This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations I own. When Scott and I were dating he left notes for me in my apartment and sent me on a scavenger hunt that ended in the bushes outside my apartment complex. He had hidden this globe for me there. It was so sweet. I still feel giddy every time I look at it!

We also decorated our bedroom for Christmas! This is the tiny tree we got from Target for $20 last year like 2 days before Christmas. We put all of our special and favorite ornaments on this one.

Want to see my favorite ornaments of all time?  Can anyone guess who they are?? Hint- they are from London also! It’s Mr. Darcy and Jane Austen!!! How fun is that?

Check out this tree skirt. My mom made it for us last year! She is so talented. It’s so beautiful and festive. It’s also reversible!

We also draped a few strands of icicle lights above our bed. I may decide to leave these up forever. They are romantic and so pretty!

Thanks so much for coming to our house tour! Before you go though—you are officially invited to come back here on Monday and see all the pictures of our London trip. Trust me—EVERYTHING was gorgeous there. So excited to share our adventures! I’ll also be sharing about Paris next week, so you won’t want to miss out. 🙂

Now it’s time to head over to The Thriftress to check out her home tour! You’ll love it!