Merry Christmas!

It has been awhile since I have posted... this semester of teaching has been the craziest one so far! However now that we are on break I get to take some time to slow down, decorate, eat, drink, and be otherwise merry. This is my third year in a row hosting Christmas since my parents moved away and I think I am finally getting it down! Here is a house tour of the decor this time around- traditionally I go with a silver, blue. and white theme. This year I wanted to try something more elaborate and vintage. So the color scheme is red, gold, white, and silver. Hope you like it!

Here's the full tour:

The exterior and front porch decorations: 

 

 

  

 

 The interior is looking pretty festive with plenty of wreaths and garland, deck the halls they say:

I even wanted to make the guest rooms feel fancy and festive!

The kitchen has its own set of garland and mom has been busy at work making my favorite part of the holiday meal... stuffing!

Carlyle and I were setting up the Christmas table with our new vintage place settings. 

And then we dressed him up like Santa... hehe. Sebastian looks like an elf but he wasn't as excited to have his photo taken. Weird.

 

Merry Christmas from my family to yours! I hope that it is bright and merry and will perhaps have snow... unlike us. Even though we're in Colorado. Boo.

Getting Handled

Finally starting the kitchen project (aside from the appliances I told you about yesterday). I'm so excited! The first thing that I needed to do was take down all of the decorations, which I did last week. My kitchen is basically bear of all things pretty right now. I also had to take the hardware down because the dirty and ugly bronzed gold looking stuff was not working for me in the kitchen anymore.

Remember the before?

(I'm not going to paint these little knobs, I'm investing in some cuter pulls.)

 Here's the cabinets unadorned! Crazy looking right?

And the heap of 80s gold on my dusty rose countertops. Ahhh 1988... you weird colored animal!

My new BFF aka Oil-Rubbed Bronze spray paint by Rustoleum!

I took one of the cardboard boxes that I had in my room from one of my many boot purchases this winter. I'm up to about 12 pair of boots of all flavors and styles. hehe. Everyone has their vice! I lined up all the knobs in the box and went outside to do the spraying. This way the spray is contained and I can do all of the knobs at once instead of dragging it out.

Have I ever mentioned just how much I love spray paint? It is such good stuff! Not even the same handles anymore!

Here's a better shot of the handles. They are dark and beautiful! Usually I do everything in nickel but I thought that this would be a good variety for the kitchen, plus they're darker which means they won't show as much as far as fingerprints go. Total investment in these new handles? $0.00 


Sweet right?? I obviously already had the handles and the spray paint is one from my arsenal.

Someone asked me the other day what my color scheme was for the kitchen. Here's the basic color set up! White, oil-rubbed bronze tones, and yellow accents! I haven't officially decided on the wall color but I do have some ideas. My Dad is even excited about the kitchen upgrades! I think he's finally come around to the whole idea of redecorating!

Hi Dad!

Here's a final view of the "Before" kitchen!

Next step? PAINTING! Yay! I have just the outfit for it! lol! Just kidding.....

maybe!

A Little Christmas in the Trailerhood

After our delicious English Major Thanksgiving it is now time to decorate for the next holiday. CHRISTMAS!

Yay!  I love Christmas. But before I do that check out how my first Thanksgiving hosting looks...

This was our little "buffet" area. I used a vintage tablecloth to hide my uglios countertops.

The table also looked super pretty, if I do say so myself. I used my extra pillows for the chairs which made them very comfortable. 

Flameless candles are my new favorite thing for tables.

Thanksgiving was definitely a lot of fun but! The next thing was some Christmas awesome-ness! 

Here's a few of the boxes that I have for Christmas stuff.

Lucy of course finds the entire process fun and adventurous.

I love putting up the Christmas tree, I always use white, silver, and blues. I just think it looks so pretty! This year my roommate Jamie helped me decorate which made it a lot easier and way more fun. 

Here is our finished product! Looks pretty don't you think?? I can't wait til I have a bigger house so I can put the tree in front of a window or something. But it works well in the corner. Though the cats like to climb up and down it. Don't worry, all the ornaments are shatter proof plastic.

Oh! And I forgot to mention we have a new addition to our family. Meet Jamie's cat Sunny. She's from Nebraska too! She and Lucy get along great. Probably because they are both menaces. 

This is our makeshift mantel area since we don't have a real one we just hang up our stockings right here. I'm sure Santa will figure it out! The garland up top looks really pretty when it's all lite up, it won't be there for too long since I will be painting the cabinets soon but it does look really pretty.

I hide all the pretty glass ornaments in this pretty bowl on top of the fridge. Probably one of the safest places for them!

Hope everyone is enjoying the start of their holiday season! I really need to get to work on my Christmas shopping. Total slacker here!