The Halls are Decked

Over Thanksgiving, I purchased a new pre-lit tree, which we of course had to set up immediately upon getting home on that Sunday. But, since I had to head back to Buffalo during the week, the real decorating had to wait until this past weekend. Bright and early Saturday morning, Greg headed into the attic to pull out my our many boxes of Christmas decor. I am so excited with the way the house came together this year. Take a look...


Here's the living room.

I bought this purple frame awhile ago thinking it was perfect for this room. But, I haven't yet found the time time fill it with an actual photo. So, as a place holder, I cut a piece of this wrapping paper I found, which is so perfect for our house, I can hardly stand it!

I also used the wrapping paper in the glass door to our cabinet. I've been experimenting with a way to make the glass translucent so we can have some hidden storage, but I haven't found something that I'm happy with yet. This is a great place holder which picks up the green from the coffee table and the teal from the walls. Last year, I bought the green picture frame below, and a can of green spray paint which I used on the mitten frame above, and the tree on the shelf below. I thought, why not try to repurpose some of our more traditionally colored accessories to match my color scheme. I happen to love when a Christmas color scheme complements the colors that are already happening in a room.

Here's the dining room.

I went a little snowflake crazy in here. All 6 pointed of course!

Every year, I love to fill a vase with bulbs. This year, I added some other items like the crystals and ribbons to bring in my green accent. 

One of the last things I did was to take more of my favorite wrapping paper (I need to get back to Target and buy another roll!) and create some place mats by laminating the paper between two layers of contact paper (on hand from the glass door experiment)

Don't they look look so fun with my new bowl and tray? (also from Target, they have a whole set of plates which I am restraining myself against...)

Just a little behind the scenes, here's how it all looked when it came out of the attic. I wonder how long it will take us to get it back into this state come January??

Fire and Entertainment

Sometime toward the end of the summer, Greg installed the final pieces of out entertainment wall, the component rack and shelves to the right of the fireplace. It's taken me awhile to fill up the shelves. As you can see from my last post, my little collection of Halloween items has helped to fill some voids. After that, the Christmas stuff will take over. So, I guess I don't have to worry too much about styling the shelves for awhile. And, it should be an evolution anyway, right? I do need to take some time to update and fill up some of the picture frames though! That large purple one was a recent TJ Max find for $7.99. I think it's perfect for this room. 

You can also see that Greg got his speakers up on the wall next to the TV. We're still working on the cable management. We have some ideas. Just need the time to implement. He has the surround sound speakers on the wall now too, but hasn't had a chance to wire them.

We loved this wall mounted component from IKEA because it allowed us to get up over the baseboard heat, and it left room for Greg's new sub woofer (which I have additional plans to hide even better in a different corner of the living room). Greg did a little hack job to add some drawer glides to make it easier to access the back of the receiver. 

Another project that is in the works here, is figuring out a way to screen the glass in the left most shelf. Our old coffee table had a lot of storage. The new one has none. Now, all the unattractive stuff is behind the glass door and I don't want to see it. I am experimenting with different contact paper stripes, etc. to create a frosted look. More on that when I finalize the plan.

This Sunday, we also had our very first fire in the our fireplace, which was made possible by our conversion from oil to gas heat. I have yet to write about that process! And yes, it's Sunday, so Greg was watching football. 

Now, we need to work on getting a screen that isn't brass!