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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Our Holiday Entryway & Halls

For the entry hall table I kept it quite festive.. As it's the first thing you see when you walk in. I decorated with preserved boxwood topiaries, A 'Joy' banner, and a cute Wooden christmas sign from this Etsy shop.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Fav's Friday! Christmas Decor

So I've decided to start a weekly post on my fav. decor ideas, DIY's and rooms designs..basically anything that catches my eye!! all from blogland ;). Hopefully if you are following me and you LIKE my style.. you will like the Fav's I find and share here. Fridays will become your favourite day of the week for a whole new reason .. if it isn't already! ;)
 See my Fav. List this week Below...

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Holiday Peace Pillow & Garland

I made some simple changes to my Upper Hall Settee and thought I'd share.. 'PEACE' is the theme! The settee normally showcases my L&C burlap initial pillows from our wedding..they just seem to be something I always like to have on our bench... But I decided to switch it up a bit, and turn 2 of 3 the burlap pillows around to hide the lettering. Then I added a linen PEACE sign pillow that I made from scrap material. It's comfy and goes with our Christmas Peace banner perfectly.. 
 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Neutral Christmas Decor in our Family Room

Here is the Final reveal of our neutral French Country Inspired Family Room.. Natural materials like Burlap, jute and wood are used throughout our Home with touches of red and glittering accents. 
Our Tree is a mix of Handmade and Rustic store bought ornaments
Find out more info on Our Christmas Tree and Tree Skirt HERE
We kept our Holiday Mantel simple with Rustic touches.. The burlap stockings flow perfectly with the tree bases and our ornaments. The RH wooden rocking horse in front of the fireplace adds a touch of whimsy for the season...
Our white sectional features a mix of seasonal throw pillows
This is our simple Coffee table decor.. I added this glittery wooden star ornament inside the lantern.. We kept it very simple this year as our daughter is only 19mths and gets into everything!! Overall this faux book opens up and hides our remote and the lantern she doesn't seem to touch.. not sure why?? so that's why I've been really boring this last few months..
I made these ruffled, red and cream ticking stripe pillows myself to go with the S.Claus pillow cover I bought on this Etsy a few years ago. The Burlap Believe Pillow is available HERE.
I changed up the display on top of our antique radio to a vintage wooden toolbox full of candles and these silver and rope detailed ornaments...I fell in love with these ornaments as they reminded me of nautical glass fishing floats..I used a vintage barrel and filled it with birch branches that I bought from Homesense two Christmas's ago.
I wrapped the base of the banister with a faux garland that I basically stole at a garage sale this summer for $2!! And hung a believe sign that I made from Jute webbing underneath. 
I made these Burlap and metallic silver polka dot lumbar pillows from fabric that I picked up from Joann fabrics online. I also made one for our front hall and stencilled it with the word Believe.. I was going to stencil festive words on these one's too but decided against it.. This way I can use them for more than just Christmas. 
On my side table I displayed a glass cloche with a wooden star wrapped in starry lights from Restoration Hardware. The cloche looked lonely alone, so I styled it with this wooden reindeer... I just found the reindeer at a second hand shop close by my house for $1. I just love inexpensive Holiday finds!! Don't you?
This is the look with the starry lights all lit up.. It looks really pretty at night!
Here is the view of our Kitchen from our Family Room.. I have Christmas displays almost everywhere on our main floor.
Behind the couch I normally have a vintage telescope and a large vintage Map sketch. So I hid those in my storage area and hung up a large wooden sled instead.  I draped the sled in a Noel Burlap banner made by Mom's Etsy Shop
Behind the couch I have a sofa table that I refinished, you can see more on that makeover here. I used 2 galvanized lanterns from our front porch on either side. and used a silver and jute wrapped tray as a centrepiece. The tray holds a vintage wooden toolbox with a galvanized planter, also from our summer porch. 
I filled one side of the planter with fabric candy canes and the other with Natural cinnamon sticks... 
I just love the scent of Cinnamon!!
I placed my pillar candles in my galvanized lanterns but realized my candles seemed too short in comparison so I used these metal tart shells that I had and turned them upside down. It increased the height of the candle then I wrapped the base with 2 different colours of metallic beaded garland.
This is our media unit all jazzed up for winter. You can see the full Built-in unit Makeover HERE. Check out our Detailed Christmas Mantel HERE.
This is my view every morning as I walk down the stairs ;) It Makes me so happy.. For the first time I feel at home and don't have the desire to move!! Let me tell you.. That makes my hubby Happy! ;)
If this is your first time checking out my blog.. You can see how this Room looks on an everyday basis here ;)


Shared With:
Finding Silver Pennies - Sundays Link Party
Stone Gable Blog - THE SCOOP #147
French Country Cottage - Feathered Nest Friday
Cozy Little House - Tweak it Tuesday
Lil Mrs Tori - Do Tell Tuesday
Savvy Southern Style Wow us Wednesdays
Cherished Bliss - Moonlight & Mason Jars #85

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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Our French Country Christmas Tree

One more month 'til Christmas!!! So to mark the occasion I thought i'd share our neutral themed Christmas Tree!.. is a faux tree.. It sounds a lot nicer than Fake! I like the idea of a real one but hate the idea of lugging one home and pine needles.. so this faux one is just fine for now. Our understated tree features a wooden star vine garland, with a mix of new and homemade ornaments mostly made from natural materials like Burlap, wood and Jute, with touches of white.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Our Neutral Christmas Mantel

The Christmas Reveals continue.. Here is our Family Room Mantel. We kept it simple and a little Rustic thanks to the use of Burlap, Jute and Wood accents.
So our mantel is part of this built-in drywall media unit.. For one of our open displays I used wood planks with a  painted deer head, hand painted by moi.. we placed it over our wooden sailboat art. I added a Large wooden glittery star (Homesense) and a glass jar full of Metal Chain linked garland (Homesense)

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Drywall Media Built-Ins & Styling

Here is a more in depth look at the drywall built-in Media Niche.. Our Family room under went quite the makeover. We painted the dated built-in media unit BM Cloud White.. I know white sounds like it would stand out more.. But it actually looks wayyy better painted white! To make the mantel more of a focal point I added this white mantel above the fireplace. It was just that missing little detail! Once we installed it I couldn't wait to decorate it for the holidays.  Originally I thought we were going to have to paint the walls as they seemed to a little dark for my taste... BUT once we painted the wall unit, removed all the wood blinds and added our striped area rug with our white sectional.. Everything changed.. Finally our room seemed brighter, fresher and more 'US'!
We also painted out the gold metal on the fireplace with High Heat Matte Black Fireplace/BBQ Paint.
The right side of the unit used to be one large plain mirror.. Pretty but pointless?? So we added shelving to make it functional!! Now it can hold all my lovely eye candy.
Leaned against the shelving is my vintage ladder
 
The shelves kind of have a subtle nautical theme going on.. its a mix of Vintage books, wooden accents, and shells. I picked up this cool vintage wooden drawer at an antique market a few years ago.. It adds some vintage character to our new shelves.
We added Beadboard wallpaper as the back drop to each of the drywall cut-outs to lend to our French country vibe. See how our Kitchen Built-ins turned out HERE.
This is our Spring/ Summer Mantel Display.. I kept it simple with greenery in small galvanized tin pots which tied into the chrome studding around the mirror.
A Sailboat, Coral and Rope.. It can't get any more Nautical than that! Well maybe an anchor ;)
 I found these fabulous woven baskets that fit the boxes perfectly!!! They hold our daughters puzzles and her DVDs..
 

 We styled the upper part of the Media unit.. it was open to above.. so of course I had to decorate it! It's all neutral decor so that way it doesn't need to be changed up seasonally.. It's too hard, climbing and lugging items up a ladder!! Or at least thats what my hubby told me.. You should of seen my fabulous hubby displaying stuff for me, I'd pass things up to him, he would be struggling on the ladder, I would take steps back then say 'more to the left, a little more, ok back a touch to the right.' He was pretty good about it, but by the end of it I think he hated me! 
We used our antique window frame from our wedding table chart, wooden boxes that I painted in BM Alexandria Beige, Shutter from Homesense (that was red but only $19 so I decided the price was right I would just paint it!) With a really cool clock that was a house warming gift from my in-laws. 
Didn't he do a great job???  :)


Shared with:
Thoughts from Alice - Sundays at Home
Coastal Charm - Show & Tell No.238
Thrifty Decor Chick - December Before & After

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Saturday, November 22, 2014

Family room reveal

This is our Family room reveal..I thought i'd break up all the holiday reveals for a moment and share the most used room in our house!! Our family room is a very bright and open space, its open to the kitchen eating area, so it naturally becomes the space where everyone gathers when we have people over. I decided to include a mix of pictures from our Summer and Fall decorating.. The next few days will be all about our Family Room including our BIG Christmas Reveal.. So stay tuned... 
Thoughts from Alice
The previous owners had a lot of warm tones throughout.. So for me It was about making the house more neutral, softer and lighter... Think Pottery Barn-ish.. We kept the wall colour in here.. Mostly because of the cost to get a room with this kind of ceiling height painted is through the roof!! We removed all the wooden blinds.. which lightened the room automatically!! BUT IT GETS HOT NOW!! Don't get me wrong I love the way the windows look OPEN.. BUT for practicality as its a very bright room.. maybe we needed them?? Either way I couldn't live with colour of the wood blinds.. So instead we installed simple white curtains across the bottom windows and the Juliet Balcony Doors. It's a much softer look now.
Painting the Built in drywall Media unit made the biggest change. It completely brightened up the space. In a perfect world I wouldn't have kept this unit as I feel its dated and the unevenness at the top made me uneasy ;) Not really my style. But due to budget restraints.. we kept it. It has honestly grown on me... And I think when you see the changes we made to it, it will grow on you too!
 I will be sharing those in a separate post tomorrow as there is too many changes to list now.
Our house has a subtle french country nautical theme going on throughout. I've always been drawn to nautical decor, and with having a pool, I really played into the whole beachy coastal theme. The SWIM sign was a great find at Elizabeth Interiors years ago.. Even before we had a pool lol.. I know I am a geek.. But look I finally have a great place to display it.. pointing right at our pool ;)
This is our Family room in the fall.. I really should have changed out the Swim sign :(.. 
I will be making new seasonal wood signs for that spot from now on :)
The french door leads to my husbands separate office.. Which was a huge selling feature as our previous home didn't have one. Above the door we hung a vintage boat oar that I painted 'white' on these great boat cleats from this Etsy Shop... I can't say how much I love Etsy enough!!
You can really see our hardwood here. Under the open stair banister I have 2 accent chairs. It's great when we get a large crowd over.  The chairs were from Kijiji, I recovered them for the second time in this linen material, so that I could have more pillow material choices ;) 
This large Vintage 'Antiques' sign is my latest fabulous antique find.. It wasn't particularly a good deal in price, but it is unique in the sense of the letters being cut out! I loved that it was already distressed from age and the colouring was perfect.. white.. so I was sold!
Gosh I love wood signs.. Can you tell??
Another big change was the curtains!! We added these Ikea RITVA drapes.. They have some weight.. Plus they look like Linen but have a great price tag! They come in different lengths which worked out great for us, as we needed super long!!. I wanted white for a fresh look and so I could change up pillows etc whatever the theme/ season. We hung the curtains on a super long extension rod from Ikea as well.. It worked out great for this huge window..11ft of rod!! ;)
The white sectional is from our previous Living room, It's the classic Ikea Ektorp slipcovered sectional, The brown velvet tufted ottoman is from our previous family room. It was originally bought from Ethan Allen years ago. I made some money when we sold our first house and wanted to treat myself! 
  The extra large wicker and rope storage basket acts as a side table and provides all the storage to hide our daughters toys.. If we aren't having guest over.. Its pretty much OPEN all day long!!
 In the corner behind the sofa.. I have a Vintage telescope, weathered map sketch and our sofa table.
The only real purchase that we made for this room is this Dash and Albert striped indoor/outdoor rug.
This was a splurge item for us from Muskoka living Interiors. I absolutely LOVE this store!! For the most part its entirely out of our price range but it's fun to go there and dream.
If you liked this room you may like our FULL Living room Reveal here

See Our Christmas Decor in our Family Room HERE

Shared with:
House of Hipsters - Found & Foraged Linky Party
Finding Silver Pennies - Sundays Link Party - FEATURED!!
Thoughts from Alice - Sundays at Home -FEATURED!!

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