christmas decorating - The Inspired Room

Christmas House Tour

Welcome to a tour of my home at Christmas!

I’m so glad you came by!

I don’t do a ton of Christmas themed decorating, but I do try to put a little touch of Christmas here and there to make things feel festive while maintaining the character and feel of my home! I thought I would start our little tour in the entry, since that is where you’d start if you were really coming over today!

So, welcome! Come on in!

I haven’t really talked about my entry much on the blog since there wasn’t much to say, but in the past few weeks we’ve been working on it and I owe you a progress post! We are actually at this very moment putting up that mantel you see leaning there on the left! I’ll show you that wall once we get it done. I’m super excited about how cozy our entry is turning out!

So for the season, we’ve hung fresh garland on the lower part of our stairs because I love the smell of real fresh greenery as I walk in the front door.

This is the antique Chinoiserie cabinet my grandparents brought back from Thailand many years ago (I adore the gold painted ships!!). My grandparents shipped it safely across the world to this country and I couldn’t move it from Oregon to Washington without misplacing a drawer. But, a book fills the hole nicely!

After having this cabinet in the living room for awhile, we’ve brought it back to the entry. Now that we have our striped wall painted (again, I have a before & after post on that wall in the near future!), I think the cabinet makes a great statement piece for our entryway.

A sprig of fresh evergreen in a pitcher, and a lantern filled with seashells from our trips to the coast and colorful ornaments bring just the right balance of Christmas and the coast — which of course I love. Christmas and the sea always go together for me. The roar of the waves and the howl of the wind outside while we are inside cozy by the fire and the sparkling lights of the tree? That is what Christmas feels like to me.

We had a few dead branches around our yard that we re-purposed to hang ornaments and snowflakes from in our front window. They kind of reminded me of crazy antlers once I hung them up.

A heavy old iron pot was used to hold a mini-Christmas tree, decorated with gold jewelry from my grandma and little jingle bells.

I took my white slipcover off after Jack barfed on it (oh the joys of a dog!) and haven’t put it back on yet. I’m kind of enjoying the Christmas-y cozy feel of the original upholstery right now anyway.

Under the stair wall on the living room side, I set up a cozy little reading nook. I love piles of books!

Pulling back you can see our little dining room just beyond the living room.

When I was little, we had a sailboat and we’d go on fun trips through the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound. And for the past 16 years or so we’ve spent Christmases and winter vacations at our family beach house. That is why the sea is where I feel the most at home. I have so many memories there. I try to infuse authenticity and meaning into my home all year round, so seeing that sailboat mixed with Christmas greenery makes me so happy!

My new red and white polka dot napkins make any table setting fun and festive!

These little antique Santa & Mrs. Claus salt & pepper shakers from my childhood bring together the past and present — they make me smile every time I see them!

My son and his gingerbread house! Both….adorable. And both make me smile!

Bowls of glass ornaments always look pretty. I have so many ornaments I don’t need on my tree so this is a good way to still use them.

Oh, I forgot to offer you some cookies when you came in! They are very tasty! Served with love, bought at Trader Joe’s. You cannot really go wrong at Trader Joe’s.

Winston, our nearly 17 year old Westie, is traipsing through the room to say hi to you. He is doing great! For being such an old man he still has a bit of a spring in his step. Every now and then.

Now we are in the kitchen, peeking through to the family room.

Here are those awesome jumbo handmade candy canes I found at Costco!

This is in the breakfast nook between the kitchen and family room, where Jack hangs out for his naps.

And, I shared this image last week, but here is the mantel in the family room! Complete with my adored book page wreath via my friend Kat’s etsy shop. On an unrelated note, did I mention the book pages in the wreath are from an old tattered Star Wars book? My husband was pleased to find that out.

The word JOY on the mantel means a lot to me.

I love the mossy plant and silver ornament.

Last year we didn’t get a big tree and my son was disappointed (oops!) so we went back to our tradition of cutting down our own tree. It made him SO HAPPY! No more messing with tradition. Plus, a fresh tree smells DIVINE and looks gorgeous!

Jack was not too thrilled with having to pose in front of the tree but he did want to say hello. Really, he wanted to turn around and eat more of the ornaments.

We use starfish, letters, snowflakes, crosses, white balls and a few other random items on our main tree. We let our kids each have a little tree for their rooms where they can put all the ornaments collected over the years if they want to. Or they can be creative. I let them decide how to decorate it!

Our stockings were hung on a jute string, with some clothes pins and cinnamon sticks just for fun. The string is hanging from Command hooks on either side of the fireplace. We use our fireplace all the time and we could easily remove the stockings when we have fires if we wanted to, but they don’t seem to be bothered or endangered by the fireplace being on.

We tried to get Jack to wear his reindeer ears for the party today, but again, he prefers to eat them.

And, here is another room that got a makeover this year and I have yet to show the after. I’ll do its’ reveal in January! Yeah, one year after the makeover began! But I love how it turned out! As with most every other room this time of year, it gets its own touch of Christmas.

I’d love to show you all the bedrooms but alas, not this tour. Maybe by next year I’ll be working on our bedrooms but for now, they are pretty boring. So, I’m keeping those bedroom doors closed for now.