Christmas Home Tour 2015

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a little look at some of the decorating I did this year.

You can see some more of the progress on our fixer upper in this post.

We've got it feeling nice and cozy for the holiday.

A manger under the tree to remember why we celebrate the day!

Lovingly made for me by my mom and dad - a gift from last year's Christmas.

The mirror above the church pew in our entry way.

I felt like such a good photographer getting the tree in it! ;) hehe

  

Hi there! 

This is our "just married" car ornament - LOVE IT. 

I put my favorite little nativity in an old crate with some white pine. 

This sweet little angel ornament sits on top.

Is she not the cutest!?

My $3 goodwill tree from last year now resides in the dining room.

All set up to have our friends over for a Christmas dinner.

I'm loving entertaining!

I really love this ornament so I wanted it to go somewhere that it could stand out.

Under my ugly, gold chandelier was the perfect spot!

The husband looking cute - as always.

My very simple $1 goodwill nativity... 

Our tree! Decked out in silver, gold, burlap, lace, white pom-poms... 

I love having a real "big" tree. Straight from my parent's woods. :)

Oh, there I am again.

These pictures are just too fun to take!

I have 2 favorite ornaments from my childhood.

This is my first Christmas ornament from my parents. 

You can see how tiny it is by the size of the light bulb! 

This is my other favorite - from my parents for my 3rd Christmas.

What can I say...I love a little sparkle! 

My version of "Elf on the Shelf" 

He sits above my stove in the kitchen and keeps my company while I cook.

The centerpiece!

The only thing that was actual "Christmas Decor" was the white pine.

I felt so resourceful.

We may or may not have gotten wax everywhere while trying to light them for the picture...

I love the warm glow of Christmas!

And I love a white Christmas! 

I was almost scared we wouldn't have one, because we are having a rare El nino winter here... 

but it decided to show up last night - the real heavy, packey kind that is great for snowman making.

This is the picture from our Christmas card - yes, I decided to embrace my overly teal door!

From our home to yours, we truly hope you have a beautiful, special, happy Christmas!

Celebrating the best and most precious gift of all - our Savior who brought us eternal life!

Blessings, 

Olivia

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Progress on the Home: A Few "Middle" Pictures

Good news friends! 

Almost all of these pictures were taken before we moved in!

Which means, I am just behind on my blogging as usual.

But it also means that there is even more done than what you are about to see in these pictures.

BUT, if you missed the first post of the house's "before tour"...please go back and look at that first!
Then you will be able to better understand exactly how much work has been done in these pictures alone. :) It's a lot!

No more nasty, stinky carpet!
Here we are putting down the flooring in the living room a couple weekends before we moved in.
I really did help in the living room! Then Matt did all the rest. :) 

I knew that redoing the flooring would make such a huge difference, and it has! We love it.

Also, you can see the new living room paint color - a lovely taupe. It is called "Tandem Bike", and I told Matt that it must be a sign, since I always talk about us getting one someday. 

Not the best picture, as far a lighting, but this was our first afternoon's progress - and we were so excited!

Here I am painting trim in the hallway like crazy - which we are now completely redoing.

But it's still temporarily better looking I suppose. 

This was the very first chunk of cabinets that got painted, and for some reason Matt was begging me to paint them. I was a little bit hesitant to let him - so of course he had to prove to me how nice of a job he could do. He only did the first coat, but I left him this little note on the back, since it really was a nice job! Especially for a guy that hasn't really painted much.

Also, this picture above shows the kitchen's paint color better than the pic below. It is Walmart's take on making "Palladian Blue" by Benjamin Moore. Because I'm too cheap to spend $40 on a gallon of paint. ;) I think it turned out to be quite similar.

Here is a bit of a messy kitchen. I believe this one was taken not long after we moved in. 

We got the upper cabinets put in place and most of the lower ones too before our move in date, which I was quite excited about. You can see by the bottom cabinets what they all used to look like. 

They are almost all white at this point! Such a huge difference. 

They went from looking like they came out of an old, dated cabin, to looking so cute and cottage-ey.  

Here I am, our first weekend in the new house! Stuff EVERYWHERE. 

We had to cram all of the furniture in the living room because the flooring in the dining area and kitchen wasn't done at this point. Don't worry, it looks a lot more open now. 

I am finally starting to feel organized.

Here is the husband grouting our bathroom floor that he tiled! This was done before the living room floor - none of these pictures are really in order. Anyways, it turned out fabulous, and I also have the vanity painted a light gray now too. And that is about all the work that has gotten done in the bathroom - oh, that and the fact that we no longer have a toilet that is cracked in half, and all of the plumbing now works! WOOHOO! But there is still quite a ways to go in this room.

I'm sure this picture really excites all of you. ;) it really is quite awesome though! Mom and i spent a whole afternoon discovering that there was about twice as much blacktop as we though. An invasive vine type of plant had taken over it the last couple of years.

 It was kind of like finding buried treasure!

Then, the next weekend I power washed it, and it's even more beautiful now!!

Just one of the many piles! I pulled about 7" of leaves out of the rock wall. 

And mom and I trimmed up this gigantic bush so it wasn't hanging all over the blacktop.

Here is Matt happily trying out his new chain saw we got him for his birthday. 

He cut down the two dead pine trees and trimmed up the middle one.

You can actually see that there is a house there now!

In action!

Oh, and then I went and painted the door THIS color. 

I had pictured a more deep, rich, peacock-ish teal.

Instead: neon-ish teal. I was so unhappy I took it back to the store. 

It really looked nothing like the swatch, but I am trying to embrace it.

It will probably get changed once the weather warms back up and we redo the siding and roof.

I found our mail box post snapped in half and the mail box hidden in the super tall grass. 

I then asked my very artistic sister if she could give it a little bit of beauty. 

She always delivers. Such a sweet housewarming gift. I'm sure it makes our mail lady happy too!

Okay...that's all i've got for now! 

Everyone else is posting their beautiful Christmas decor pictures and I'm over here posting pictures from September! Ahh...what can I say. Life as a homeowner to a fixer upper is quite busy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a blessed week.

~Olivia

Sharing at Sundays at Home