A Christmas Tree Blunder

Good Afternoon!

Have you felt like your Christmas was like one of those classic movies that everything was going wrong?

Well, that's what was going on here as we were preparing for the Holidays.  

The good thing was my husband came home from an extended business trip after being away for 

2  1/2 mnths.  We waited to get the Christmas tree until he arrived.

We picked out the best one (we thought)..but this tree tricked us.

But then after I get all the lights on the tree and break out in hives doing that...half the lights went out.  Yes, on brand new lights!

 So, we had to take those lights off and find the bulb to fix that.

Then we decided to all sleep in our family room and watch Christmas movies.  It seemed like a great idea until this happened..

At 2am the Christmas Tree fell on my daughter.. there was glass everywhere.  I am telling you I don't think this tree wanted to leave the tree farm.

I am happy to report that we fixed it and my daughter is doing fine.  There should be no long term trauma from this : )

Have you had anything out of the ordinary happen to you?

I will show you all our decorations and how we are spending our time together thus far : )

Wishing you all joy and happiness.  God bless.

My Family Room (Christmas Tour)

 Good Morning!

Have you seen the commercial by Hallmark of the little girl counting down to Christmas?  Just in case you haven't I just have to share with you : )

I love this time of year and I want to share with you how we have prepared our family room with a little mini tour...

This leads down to our basement area..

 View of the family room..

If you look closely you can see my husband grilling (making us breakfast)

Hope you enjoyed this mini tour of our family room.   Are you all done decorating your homes?

Can It Be: Living Room (and some cool news)

Hey Everyone!

The weather is beginning to change and my wood stove is working in full force in the evenings.  I wrote about ours here.  I love it and it saves us on our energy bills.

Let's do a recap of what has been accomplished so far..

Family Room (still a work in progress)..

(need new furniture..but my floors are done)

Hallway

Dining Room

Now we move onto our living room.

I wish I had the complete before pics but I don't.  All I can say is it had the same nasty, stained, beige carpet that was throughout the house.  Watercolored huge valance over the windows with the long 1980's blinds.  All the walls throughout the house were painted white except for the family room.

For those of you who have been around the blog for awhile you know what I asked for right away.. tear up that carpet and lets continue the hardwood floors.

We continued the hardwood floors from the family room..to the dining room and into the living room space.  We moved from a really small home and needed new furniture.  We got this at a steal from Slumberland.  The two white chairs are Natuzzi and they were a discontinued item that we got at an unbelievable price.  As you can see we continued the chocolate venetian plaster wall oppsite of the wall in the dining area.  I love the big windows!  I am the kind of person that has to have a lot of natural light in a space.

The floors came out beautiful and again my husband did a great job. 

Will let you know how this furniture arrangement faired.

SIDE NOTE:  

I wanted to share the announcement from Jane Tv from twitter

myjanetv Jane.tv

Att Chicago Area Janes! Keep an eye on www.jane.tv website for upcoming fun events in your area with your very own Chi Town girl @despar2

I will keep you posted on what this all entails..  Have a great week all!

Can It Be? : Dining Room

Hello everyone!  I hope your week has been a good one.  We have been busy here chopping up the tree in the backyard that fell and stacking it for this winter.  Two of my kids were sick so I had my other daughter help me stack wood and did we get a workout.  : )

I wanted to continue on our "Can It Be" series.  Just in case you are new here this series is all about what seemed to be rooms with no potential and if they can be beautiful again.  My husband and I bought a 1950's home that was a fixer upper and we are putting some love back into it.  Is it a tedious process?  Yes!  But anything that's worth something means you have to put your time into it to see it blossom.

Do you remember how we put hickory flooring in our family room?

There's my awesome husband!  He did it all himself..what a man : )

We ended up doing the same thing for our dining room.  It just made the spaces between the rooms flow instead of it being choppy.

We used Behr paint and a venetian plaster for the chocolate walls.  We wanted a cozy feel to the room.  I love the fact that you can separate the dining room off from the family room space for sound control but still keep an eye on the kids through the french doors.  

When we bought this home we only had enough furniture for our family room and 2 bedrooms.  So we had a lot of filling up to do.

Here is the table we bought that was custom made and dining chairs we bought from Slumberland.

I was trying out the dining room this way to see if I liked the use of space.  Hmm...not so sure.  Will keep you posted ; )

Have a great weekend all.

Can It Be: Family Room Video

Hello everyone!  I hope you all are having a great Monday.

  I promised a video about the family room and the progress thus far.  This gives you a chance to see this room live.  Thanks to my awesome daughter, who videotaped it for me.  After the video there are pictures of different angles of the room.

 

The family room has that outdoor cabin feel.  I really believe that your house needs to represent the people that live there..needs to have their voice.  If you look at your home as an organism - what should it be saying?

This room is my husband's favorite.  When I go in there it speaks, Corey, with elements of the rest of us.

 The coziness of the fire is me and the kids..we hate to be cold.

 The hardwood floors are all about one of my daughters who deal w/ some allergies.

 The furniture is our first set when we got married..which is why I want to keep them and have them reupholstered.  I am sentimental.  The rug is me..love old things that have a story.

Pictures, books, liberty bell (a trip I took the kids on to my home away from home), and the horse that one of my daughter's made.

This is like my husband and son going fishing.

There will be more to come as I share about our other projects.

Would love to hear how you're home speaks..