Saturday, December 6, 2008

A Christmas Walk of My Own Home - Day One

Welcome to the first day of a 'Christmas Walk of My Home'. A few days ago I posted pictures of other peoples homes decorated for Christmas and now I will post pictures of my own home decorated for Christmas. First of all, I should say, I am a Christmas Decorating Fanatic! I love Christmas and all the 'bling' that goes with it, so I go all out and decorate EVERY ROOM in my home, but in ELEGANT way. My home is very large (3000 square feet) so I have decided to post pictures of one room per day, that way I can include a lot of detail shots. So hopefully, I'll have every room posted before Christmas is over! LOL! I will also try to describe the renovation of the home/rooms as I go through the tour.

Now, the first thing I want you to know is I AM NOT RICH! We bought this house, which was built in the late 1800's, for---hold onto your hats--$65,000 in 1998. I know, most of you in other states can't even buy a GARAGE for that little bit of money. But the house was a DUMP when we bought it, and my husband and I spent TEN LONG YEARS renovating it, and its STILL not done, and probably never will be. We did all the work ourselves except for the heating. All the furniture, and decorations are either hand-me downs, garage sale finds, auctions, or Michaels, Menards, Kirklands, and Ashley Furniture. I am someone that can take a piece of junk someone left at a curbside and turn it into something beautiful. It was important for me to share all this, because I wanted everyone to know that is possible to have a beautiful home on a budget.
Now, onto the tour. The Dining Room is the first room I will show you because its the first room guests see when they walk into the front door of the house. Not the best layout I know, but when you have a house that is over 100 years old, you work with what you have. These two pictures are detail shots of some of the Christmas Decorations in the room. I cover all the doorways with some type of garland. Because the room is red, all my decorations are red and gold. Almost all my decorations have been purchased at Michaels, about one month AFTER Christmas when everything is 70 to 90% off. Now I know your thinking, there is NOTHING left but meager pickings a month after Christmas, and your right! BUT, if you buy things in the same 'color range' everything matches. Almost all the decorations in my home are either, white, gold, red, blue or silver, so I just look for ANYTHING in that color and buy it.





Here is a picture of the chandelier which was purchased at Menards for less than $100 because it was a sample display and the last one left. I strung red berries up the wire and each white 'cup' has greenery and berries on it. Did you notice the ceiling? Believe it or not, its not tin. It was way too expensive to put in a real tin ceiling, so my husband and I made panels that look like tin, but its really wallpaper and wood. It was quite the adventure for the two of us to get that wallpaper up there and it really tested our marriage in the process! LOL!



Across every wall in the dining room is a plate rail where I can display antique dinner plates. At Christmas time I change some of the regular plates out and replace them with Christmas themed plates. I only have two Christmas plates so far, and I'm on the look-out for more, but they are hard to find and I'm limited to a certain color and style to match my room too, but someday I hope to have a room full of Christmas plates.





Here is a candle display that sits atop an antique dinner hutch that actually holds our stereo and not china. This hutch has been in my family for three generations and my aunt is furious at me to this day because I have it. My grandmother gave it to my mother and my mother gave it to me, but for some reason my aunt thought that when my mom died, the hutch should have been given to her. I don't understand her reasoning, but the hutch is staying with me! And when I die, it will go to my daughter.





Here is a display on our piano. Our piano we did buy, but it is also an antique. It is one of the greatest investments we have ever made. Both our children are very musical and play the piano for hours a day. The large antique picture on the piano is from my good friend Sandy. She is always so thoughtful and is picking up things she thinks I might like and giving them to me. Thank you Sandy! The old photographs on the piano are not relatives. Everyone always thinks they are, but they are not, I just like to collect old photographs.




















Here is a picture of the entire dining room as seen if you were standing in my living room. The table was purchased from Ashley Furniture. We used to have a large, rectangular table in this room, but it really took up a lot of space and affected the traffic flow, so we replaced it with this small round table. When we have large dinner parties we eat in the sun room (which will be pictured another day). The grandfather clock was purchased shortly after my father's death in honor of his memory. It has a plaque on it that reads 'In Loving Memory of....' with the dates of his birth and death. We received very little of my father's things after his death and we wanted something physical to remember him buy, so we purchased this clock and had a plaque made.


Here is a detail shot of the garland above the doorway to the living room.













Here is a close up of the centerpiece on the dining room table. Its just a simple gold wire bowl filled with greenery and glittered/jeweled fruit. I like to keep my centerpieces simple so there is plenty of room for FOOD, the most important part. LOL!






Here is a view of the dining room if you were standing in the office. You can see the kitchen through the doorway, and the leaded front door to our house. In the corner is another dining hutch that holds my formal dinnerware. I bought this hutch at Goodwill for $20.00 and the dinnerware I bought at Target for 75% off after Christmas. The floor is a laminate cherry wood. The white panels were made by my husband. This entire room actually came right out of a page in a magazine. I saw this beautiful picture of a dining room in a magazine with the white paneled walls and plate railing and said 'HONEY, can you make our dining room look JUST LIKE THIS?' And he DID! WHAT A MAN! LOL!
I hope you enjoyed the tour of my dining room. I'll show you another room tomorrow. And for those of you not interested in seeing any pictures of my house at all, don't worry, I'll still be posting pictures of cards and other paper crafts too, so I will be having more than one post a day for this month. I hope I don't start to annoy you all.
God's blessings to you all.










2 comments:

  1. This is stunning!! I am only a couple years into having my own house, so I don't have enough to go around the whole house...but I am working on it, LOL!!

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  2. WOW ... this was FABULOUS ... can't wait to see more!!!
    LOVE how you decorated the candelier, the top of the piano, the plate rail is AWESOME ... everything! Love the overall look of your diningroom ... JUST MY STYLE! (my daughter is going to be SO jeaslous) Awesome tour ... looking forward to tomorrow!

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