My Christmas House

Hi girls! (and guys, I know at least one guy has admitted to reading this). Oh, ever have one of those days? Sheesh, I do. I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say I am in need of a personal assistant to keep from losing my own head sometimes.

I sure wish I could just invite you all over, but I did try my best to get some new photos of my house today so you can feel like we had a little get together. Unfortunately someone has borrowed the tri-pod and I couldn’t for the life of me get my camera to hold still. Lots of my photos looked like I took them from a moving train! So, I have a few shots that are OK but you’ll have to use your imagination on most of them. I also have a really hard time taking photos in a couple of rooms in my house that are naturally very dark. While they look cozy in real life, in a photo it is hard for me to capture a good photo. Guess I need special lighting for those rooms. That is why you will probably get sick of seeing photos in my kitchen on this blog, the only room where light isn’t a real issue.

Do you ever take pictures around your house and then suddenly see a problem with your decor? With a 1930s fixer upper, unfinished rooms are the norm in my house!

The photo above is one of the only ones I have today from a small corner of my dark living room. It is a very large room, paneled on several walls in mahogany. The rest of the walls are heavy combed plaster, original to the house from the 1930s. The room feels a bit like an old English library or a lodge. It has a large stone fireplace, which adds to the cozy feel. It is a beautiful room but hard to photograph! This photo (above) is looking from the room up the stairs into our entry. While you go downstairs from the entry to get to the room, the room is actually level to the backyard.

I try to make the stairway as dramatic as I can with garland, lights and ribbon so it gives a grand feeling as you enter the room! We have our tree in this room, it is a 9 foot tall noble, I’d say about 8 feet across! SUPER chubby! It was challenging to get down the staircase! I will try to take a photo of it that would be worth looking at later. I couldn’t get it all in the shot without a tri-pod.

This is a boat on top of a bookshelf in that same room. I stuck some branches, pinecones and lights in it to make it feel dressed up for the holidays.

As you enter the front door, you can look to the left and see the dining room. You can see a bit of the garland on the railing there. That is bordering the stairway down to the living room. Again, sorry it is so dark!

This is as you walk into the dining room from the entry. This room also has heavy combed plaster walls with antique white wainscoting. It is another large room but we keep our table small and intimate now for game playing. My daughter plays the baby grand, and it is also a player piano so we can turn it on to play Christmas carols for us during a party. Very fun and gives a real festive mood to an event! For the party Saturday my table was much more festive, we had cake plates and a tablecloth. This is where we served desserts.

Now we are coming around the table to our cozy bench and going to look at the room from the swinging door to the kitchen, looking back at the entryway.

These wise men are in my entry. The other one is just out of the picture.

 

This is back in my kitchen. Notice the stubby candles, evidence of our party the other night! Some of the rest of these you may have seen.

The next two photos are from my kids’ rooms. I try to add little holiday touches to their rooms for fun too. They are pretty bad shots but I thought you’d be happy to see the giraffe is feeling much better after the episode in my hallway just before Thanksgiving. The second photo is my middle daughter’s room, we added some sparkling garland to a mirror to reflect light to a dark corner.

And finally, my bedroom. I will try to give a bit more tour later, once I have a tri-pod and more daylight! Off to a school concert, I am still looking forward to catching up with you all this week!