Holiday Home Tour 2014

December 1, 2014 /

I am so excited for this day! This is literally a “blog dream” come true for me! I am revealing my holiday home tour for you as part of Jennifer Rizzo’s Holiday Housewalk. If this is your first visit to my blog, I am beyond thrilled that you are here today! Please make yourself right at home 🙂 If you are a regular…I treasure your visits to this little blog of mine.

I am stop six on the tour…and there are a ton more so you are in for some real holiday eye candy!

The stop right before me is French Country Cottage so head her way if you haven’t yet. If you are coming from there, thank you for stopping in!
French Country Cottage
And if you haven’t started the tour yet, you can head to Jen’s blog, start with her house, and go in order to see all of the inspiring house tours! Your brains will be swirly from the crazy good inspiration!

I have picture overload for you today, so grab some coffee, tea or hot chocolate and let’s get started! My husband, Joshua, and I live in a very small town outside of Rochester, NY where the winter’s are long and cold. But it almost always guarantees a white Christmas, which I love. We have two small kids, Hazel and Owen, and a curious Cairn terrier named, Renoir.

First we will head on up to my front porch decorated in a simple, rustic style.

The Front Porch

We live in an older home (details about it here) and haven’t done much work to the porch or exterior yet, but I still love to decorate it.

This season is all about plaid, faux fur, antlers and rustic and bohemian styles for me, so you will find elements of those throughout our home. I am calling my home’s style this holiday…”eclectic boho glam cabin” 🙂

I used an old piece of wood to draw a Christmas chalkboard message on (which of course will disappear with the next rain or snowfall).
We pulled the tree stumps up from the backyard, and I added a patio chair, some vintage skates, and wreath of rusty bells.

I added some other natural touches, like pinecones, greenery and real, found antlers.

Well now that we are all shivering, let’s head inside to the living room where it is cozy and warm.

The Living Room

If you visited my fall home tour, you will notice some changes since then. I love changing things out every season. I went pretty rustic lodge/cabin in this room with lots of woodland touches.
The beautiful deer pillow is by Lucy of Craftberry Bush who is also a participant in this week’s housewalk. You can find it available here. It was the perfect touch in our living room!
I made the mustard yellow pouf from a thrift store sweater and shared a tutorial a couple of months ago. Since people always ask, our wall paint is Benjamin Moore’s Revere Pewter and the rug is from Rugs USA. 
I made all of the other throw pillow covers in this room including faux fur, a couple of plaid and two from thrift store sweaters. I shared how I made the beaded one during my Holiday Thrift Store Challenge.
And now for the highlight of our living room…the Christmas tree! We decided to go artificial this year with Balsam Hill’s Frosted Fraser Fir. This tree is so real looking, I have literally forgotten that it wasn’t (other than being so thankful that I don’t have to water it every day!) 
I wanted the tree to have a bohemian glam look without spending much money on new decorations. I made a garland of my vintage necklaces strung together and threw some fringe in. It is covered in vintage and a few new ornaments like the globes from Christmas Tree Shops. I also filled the tree with feathers and a few birds. I made the star topper from vintage sheet music, a straw ornament and an old clip-on earring.
I also added my rustic twig arrow ornaments and some salvaged finds.
And surprise, surprise…I had to have a faux fur tree skirt! I simply draped fabric that I purchased at Jo-Ann’s around it. And of course, only kid friendly ornaments at the bottom since we have a two and a three year old running around this place.
I put on one of my favorite Christmas movies for you while you visit :). It’s always hard decorating around a giant TV, isn’t it? So, I did my best. We have nowhere else to put this massive thing and this is the room where we cuddle and watch our favorite shows and movies, so I just wanted it to feel cozy.
My three year old, Hazel, found the burlap reindeer while we were shopping at Jo-Ann’s. She decided her and her brother, Owen, needed them really bad. We added the scarves at home.
And because I may be just a tad crazy… last week, I decided that we really “needed” some faux moose antlers to go above the TV. Thankfully, after 9 years of being together, my husband understands these whims of mine and helped me in the making of these. I needed his help attaching them to the wood mount and getting them up on the wall.
Now we will go around the corner and head into the dining room…which is my favorite room for the season (although least favorite to photograph in since the lighting is terrible. Especially on a gray day).
The Dining Room
I definitely wanted to glam it up in here but keep the rustic and bohemian vibe. I am a big believer in using what I have on hand (or borrowing from my mom who has lots of treasures, like all of the brass candlesticks on the table). You honestly don’t have to spend a lot money to have pretty holiday decor. 
I decorated the table as I would for a holiday dinner party. Most of these items are from flea markets and thrift stores.
The napkin rings were actually ones my mom had put out for a yard sale but they didn’t sell…so I gave them a second look and decided a little “bling” was all they needed. I glued vintage brooches to them, cut some “fancy” fabric that I had in my stash and folded them in like bow ties. Tada! Instant glam that didn’t cost me a thing.
I added a faux fur fabric scrap for a table runner, over some wool plaid that I picked up at the Salvation Army. The only newly purchased items for the table were the copper toned chargers that I got at Target, two small mercury glass votives from Jo-Ann’s, and the artichokes, of course!
The rest of the items, I had stock piled in my hoarding room basement, or borrowed from my mother who is an antiques dealer and crafter herself. 
I shared my printable Christmas village and mantel details previously, as well as my book page “tree” as a guest post on Jennifer Rizzo’s blog. 
The only thing that I have changed about the mantel since then, is to replace the folding ruler star with a $3 flea market tapestry (oh and my kids took the garland off the book tree…figures 😉
It is definitely romantic in here in the evenings. We enjoyed dinner here as a family last night and both kids thought it was very fancy. I love sharing magical times with them like that.
Behind the table, I added another artificial Christmas tree that we were given for free and filled it with white and colored lights and lots of ornaments that my children would love. We put it in an old bucket that my mom gave me. Next to the tree is a cozy chair, with another of my thrift store sweater pillows.
We have an antique bible open to my favorite version of the Jesus’ birth found in Luke.
Well, if you haven’t tired out yet, we will now head straight into the kitchen. I have a confession…I hardly ever share my kitchen on my blog because it is a work in progress. But we have made some major improvements, so I thought I would share a glimpse (of one side anways!).
The Kitchen
I had my kids in mind when I decorated this space. I wanted to keep it whimsical and fun for when we are baking and spending time in here. 
On our island table, we have a little hot chocolate bar. I had found four vintage Santa mugs at a charity sale in the fall and knew they would be perfect for this. 
We have painted the majority of our cabinets, but still need to remove the ones in the corner and build our open shelving. We also still hope to add a tile backsplash and new countertops as time (and money!) allows. 
We did change out our old yucky faucet for a brand new industrial style one from Build.com. I will be sharing more about it in the next couple of weeks! 
Okay, well now it is time to head back out and go to one more tiny corner of the playroom (the clean corner…).
The Playroom
The playroom is honestly in quite a state right now, but I am hoping to get it cleaned up to do a little more decorating for the kids. In the meantime, we carved out this little corner for Jennifer Rizzo’s very own Boy Meets Girl Reindeer Wall Decals.
I knew my kids would love them the minute I saw them. And they do! Lots of fun rearranging all of the pieces. They name everything after themselves, so of course, this is Hazel Reindeer and Owen Reindeer. Hazel wanted them to be tied together 😉
Well, if you can believe it, I took a lot more photos from around the house and will be sharing them in two more holiday tours this month. Be sure to stop back for more! Thank you so much for stopping by!
Now, it is time to head to the next inspiring house which you can find over at Paige Knudsen!
Paige Knudsen
You can also head over and check out my Holiday Home Tour Part II!
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Till next time…
~Alice W.
You might also enjoy:
Holiday Home Tour 2013
Christmas at the Cabin Inspiration
DIY Printable Christmas Village

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