Welcome, welcome! I see you made it here from Songbird’s beautiful home. If you are coming here first, be sure to check out Marianne’s home:
I can not tell you how excited I am to have you in for the tour. Last Christmas we were living in a demolition zone. So, it feels wonderful to have our kitchen complete and be able to focus on decorating for the holidays.
I’m also enjoying low fuss decorating. Like this fake wreath that looks fabulous when you tuck some live greenery inside (thanks for the idea Colleen.)
Another lazy decorating trick is to wrap garlands around the chandelier.
And the centerpiece is as easy as setting a tiered tray inside a store bought wreath. The runner was a drop cloth that I stenciled last year.
I’m also on a frugal kick this Christmas. Who wants to pay for greenery when you can steal salvage trimmings from a landscape company and make your own garlands.
My pen and ink sketched plates were a little lonely on the wall, so I pulled a few plates from storage and the rest I bought at a thrift store.
The rosemary star wreath was plucked from the garden for a total cost of $0! I created a temporary valance with a tension rod and some fabric.
By far my favorite spot to decorate this year is the two open shelves in our kitchen. I literally hung them last week. They were the final item on the “to do” list to complete our kitchen.
Those gorgeous corbels are from Southern Accents Architectural Salvage in Cullman, AL. They have an online shop where you can find the most amazing salvage finds! Or they can produce something custom, like my corbels. If you like them, you should contact Garlan and tell him you want my corbels!
Speaking of antiques, do you see that washboard in the background?
That washboard hung in our kitchen growing up. My Mom recently gave it to me because it was made in Raleigh, NC (where we call home.) It is wonderful having a piece of my childhood here in my kitchen. I added some Christmas and winter themed post cards to it.
Our kitchen desk is decorated with a few candles, and other holiday décor.
I had fun building this rustic chalkboard to display a holiday message this year.
Our tree has actually been decorated a while, thanks to Michaels who challenged me to decorate a Dream tree.
I made a lot of the ornaments from cheap $1 finds at Michaels.
This year I wanted to indulge the kids’ desire to decorate and continue to encourage their creative play with their stuffed animals. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw our bursting population of stuffed animals. My boys are IN LOVE with all of them. So much so that they wanted to make gifts and stockings for each animal. I set up a little tree and ladder in the corner of our dining room. My oldest decorated the tree himself. And the clutter at the bottom of the tree are the gifts the boys have been making for the animals. So cute!
I realized early on that our schedule was a bit too busy to visit Santa at the mall this year. I decorated an old metal tin to act as our North Pole mail correspondence with Santa. House of Smiths has a whole line of polka dots that you can use to decorate gifts, objects or your home! Check out the falling snow kit!
Each December the kids leap out of bed every morning to open their advent calendars. I was seriously thinking I might have to keep them up year round because it helps so much with the morning wake up.
Speaking of sleeping, I’m a bit worn out. I hope you enjoyed the tour of my home.
It was such a pleasure to have you here today. I hope you’ll come back soon. And now, hurry along because Traci is waiting for you at Beneath My Heart:
Have you been following the Christmas Home Tour all week? You can catch up here:
Blogger Christmas Tour of Homes
Monday
- I Heart Organizing
- My Blessed Life
- Emily A. Clark
- Not Just a Housewife
- Remodelaholic
Happy Holidays, y’all!
Very pretty Brittany! I love how you used all the different types of simple garlands around the chandeliers! Very smart. Merry Christmas my friend!
Kim, thank you so much for your compliment. I like easy and simple ;-).
Great post Brittany! This looks amazing. I love how simple and elegant all of these decorations look with little effort.
Arturo,
Thank you so much. And I do love low effort ;-).
Stunning! I love all the red. It is seriously beautiful!
Thank you Stacy. I appreciate your sweet comment.
What a fun surprise! I’m so glad you liked that simple wreath. Love the holly in yours, although I didn’t enjoy working with it and all the prickly points.
Your home is just beautiful, as I knew it would be. Just goes to show how stunning “simple” can be!
Colleen, I was seriously in love with your dollar store simple wreath! I am amazed how easy and simple it was to make! Thanks for your nice comment.
The home looks great and reminds me a lot of how my home growing up looked. Funny how that happens every now and then. Have a great holidays
Mark, that is funny, it is amazing how many homes have this layout. Thanks and hope you have a great holiday too!
Love the red beads/garland on wire wrapped around chandelier in the room with washboard. Where did they come from?
Thanks Michele! I’ve had them forever, I honestly can’t remember where I got them from. What you see is actually two different strands combined. Try googling red beaded garland. Here’s a site that has several: http://www.uscandleco.com/candle/beaded-garland.html
So pretty Brittany! I am loving that little wagon display, my favorite 🙂
Thanks Jessica. The kids like it too. We have yet to use it for mailing our letters to Santa, but will this weekend!
Love the banners you have on the shutters and the valance above your sink, all in all a beautiful hometour.
Thank you Rondell. They were both easy to make ;).
Loved this post, Brittany, the house looks beautiful. And, I loved spotting my postcard 😉
Anne, LOL. Yes, I love that postcard! It just had to be on display.
Everything is just lovely, Brittany! Those corbels are insane!!!
Gwen, thanks! I am in love with the corbels too! Check out http://sa1969.com/ to score your own ;-).
This girl is more than pretty handy. The decorations are brilliant! I’d love to have half the creativity and talent. Merry Christmas. Thanks for your blog. It is always good.
Loretta, you are sooooo kind. And I am sooo blushing ;-).
LOVE….so pretty and cozy. I need to come over for a cup of hot cocoa and just take in your kitchen. 🙂
Oh Claire, it’s all thanks to you. Your ideas for our kitchen were a winner! Thanks and you are welcome anytime.
It’s beautiful, Brittany. I know you must be so thrilled to have the kitchen DONE! We didn’t have the mess you did, but we’ve been redoing ours one project at a time. We have the countertop, faucet and sink left. Congrats on the great job!
Marty, thank you. Renovating a kitchen is a tough job no matter how much of a mess you start with. I hope you’ll enjoy your new kitchen in 2014 ;-).
Your home is an incredible labor of not only love but a real showpiece to be proud of! Bravo Brittany! You certainly should be tuckered out & a long winter’s nap is due for you! Merry Christmas!
Colleen,
Thanks for your kind comment. I am planning on taking a little time off. Maybe a day or two ;-). But, my son wants me to work on his room and he’s my cutest client, so I don’t want him to have to wait too long.
You did a great job with you home and thank you for sharing it with us. Enjoy your holidays!
Lovely! Please tell me, how on earth did you hang your plates (so invisibly) on the wall?
Kattrinka, you can see how I did it here: http://www.prettyhandygirl.com/2013/11/pen-ink-sketch-decorative-plates-silhouette-portrait-giveaway.html
(I cheated ;-).)
LOVE your front double doors! Your home looks like it gets a lot of warm, natural light. I expected as much of a beautiful home from you. 🙂
I love your clean, simple, classic Christmas décor. It’s lovely!
Beautiful! So fun looking through them, thank you for sharing.
You impressed me from the moment I jumped over from Pinterest to check out your “change your own outlets” post. When I got to the ceiling fan post (which I pinned to my DIY & Dumpster Diving board, you pretty much blew my mind. PERFEÇT amount of detail.
But NOW that I know that you are as much a fan of Christmas decorating as I am, I think I’m developing a serious girl-crush. Watch for pings from ADD-and-So-Much-MORE in December. I’m sure you’ll be posting some things I know I’m going to want to share.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
– ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder –
“It takes a village to educate a world!”
Thanks Madelyn. Nice to virtually meet you. Hope you’ll stick around for more DIY tutorials 😉
Brittany – love corbel shelves! What type of wood are the shelves made of and where did you get them? Thx!
Chris, they are pine and were originally old rafters. I bought them from the ReUse Warehouse in Durham, NC. They have loads of reclaimed lumber.