Christmas Round-up

Since it's almost Christmas and I still haven't shared things like our mantel, I thought it was time for a Christmas Round Up! Yee-Haw!!!

So what's Christmas without a mantel? We went a little on the sparse side this Christmas, a simple ball garland with lots of sparkle!

Arthur (our artificial deer head) declares his love for Santa. And a little Amaryllis on a side table!

Last, we have our Christmas Coffee Table display. We had this old glass thing that I filled with Christmas Balls and quickly flipped over (so all the balls wouldn't fall out . . . Seriously you basically have to be a Ninja to make this work . . . lucky I AM a bit of a Ninja :p)

Our Christmas Tree,

Our Ornaments:

Our 3 wreath door, and Red Wrapping paper!

And my favorite from this year . . . Our Christmas Staircase!

And last . . . one of our Christmas card outtakes . . . at this point I had poked Lee in the head with the Christmas Ball wire and I was laughing . . . He's still posing although completely fed up with the entire situation :).

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Wishing you a cozy Christmas . . . filled with comfy Socks!



So Canadian Eh?

Recently I took part in Hodge Podge's interview series . . . So Canadian Eh?

Barbara has a beautiful blog, and is a DIY maniac like myself. She actually lives no more than 30 minutes away from us!!

I had the best time answering all Barbara's Questions we talked about:

• What made me decide to start blogging.
• What are our hopes and dreams are for the future
• How I would describe my design style
• If I was given the chance to meet anyone, who would I meet.

Thank you So much Barbara for having me on your wonderful blog today!! Go Canada Go ;)

If you have a quick second please check it out:
http://hodgepodge-babselou.blogspot.com/2011/12/so-canadian-eh-ashli-malinek.html

Merry Christmas from our Family to Yours

This year our Christmas Cards went Green! We mailed out around 100 Postcards (saving trees by not requiring Envelopes), and we printed them onto recycled paper!

The Card Image came from VOL 25.

So, from Our Family to Yours,

Merry Christmas!!

Back:

Max was suppose to be a part of our Christmas Card this year, but I found him napping in his favorite fuzzy blanket so we let him sleep instead!

Merry Christmas . . . Happy Holidays . . . Season's Greetings!!!

We LOVE you guys (although most of you are Girls so I should Write we LOVE you Girls, but I didn't want to exclude any of the guys so . . . )

WE LOVE Y'ALL (Texan style!)

Dining Room Finishing Touches

Our dining room is a major piece of the puzzle that is our house! It sits right in the middle of our main living area, and it's seen from almost every room on the main floor!
Our dining room is also a fairly bossy room. It almost demands that we have a round or square dining table, it would not fit a rectangle table. Because of our open concept, all of it's walls connect to other areas so there's no opportunity for an accent wall of paint or wallpaper. There are no windows to dress up with curtains. It has to be a show stopper but leaves us with NO opportunity to make it stand out!
So we had to work with what we've got and added our own show stopping touches . . . like the BARN DOOR!  And our new dining room artwork!

The art work was a very lucky craigslist find. I've gotten into the habit of typing my favorite stores into the search box on Craigslist and seeing what pops up. I'll type in everything from Pottery Barn to Restoration Hardware, these pieces of art were originally from Urban Barn (one of my favorite stores). I typed in Urban Barn one day and these guys popped up, the woman was moving and didn't have room for them (although I think they're so fabulous I would have made room) she wanted $100 for all three! I drove down there (40 min away) and picked them up I basically threw the money at her I was so excited. As I loaded them into the back of the car I noticed that they still had their price tags on the back at a whopping $179 each!!!
I LOVE them and I don't think that I could have found better suiting images for our dining room!

Since I'm on bit of an URBAN BARN love fest I wanted to show you my latest find, these Beautiful Crystal Candle holders. Urban Barn had a recent midnight madness sale 25% off accessories and I grabbed this set of three which came to around $35. I wasn't going to grab them because I already had some super cheap candle holders from Ikea but Lee saw them, and said he liked them too and for Lee to say that he "likes" crystal candle holders is BIG sign from above that I'm meant to have them . . . Lee doesn't like anything to do with candles unless they are in the shape of skulls . . . or motorcycles but I've never seen a candle in the shape of a motorcycle! My sister was happy to receive the old Ikea ones . . . it's win win!

The bowls are from Homesense, I love an angled bowl, for some reason they seem really Asian too me, so we usually have noodles in them, but they work really well for pasta too!
The napkins are just made from some leftover fabric I had lying around!

The plates under the bowls are from Target, I found a pack of 4 for . . . just over $4!

I threw them in the cart so fast I almost broke'em!

So there's our new dining room!!! I'm tempted to say 'completed dining room' but I have a feeling that one day (in the far far future) I'll be changing the simple pendant out for some thing with a bit more sparkle! Definitely not a traditional chandelier but just something with a bit more WOW!!
But that's in the FAR FAR future!!

p.s. Thank you for all the barn door love yesterday. . . and husband LOVE. He is pretty darn amazing, I agree!!!

Barn Door Done!!!!

September 27th, 2011 was our first post about wanting a barn door. December 12th, 2011 the barn door is officially DONE! I'm calling it my early Christmas Present, it's the coolest gift I've ever received!
I am head over heels in LOVE with this door, Lee did an amazing job and will definitely NOT be getting coal in his stocking!

Here she is, a lot of wood, a bit of metal, a couple coats of Oil Rubbed Bronze Spray Paint, Lee's Blood and sweat, and maybe tears (I don't know what goes on in that garage of ours).

And, Here she is in ACTION:

Lee made the door and track himself!

Here are some of the 'finer details'
The handle is from Lee Valley, it was originally brushed nickle and we sprayed it oil rubbed bronze to match the track.

As I mentioned before Lee made the track himself, we have a small welder in the garage and in a couple hours Lee came back in the house with a fully functional track.

He also welded up the bracket for the door, with a secret hidden safety feature,

This little tab will stop the door from hopping off the track if it gets bumped, safety first!!

and last we had to add a guide. Because the door is hanging when you opened and closed it, it tended to swing out a bit, so Lee welded up a guide and fastened it to the baseboard. He cut a channel into the bottom of the door and then we cap off the channel with two little metal plates and that stops the door from hitting the wall on one side or coming off the end of the track on the other end.

So there she is, all done!

Next step move the table back in and hang the art!!!

Dining Room Art: Sneek peek

The barn Door is almost finished!!! We're putting the finishing touches on it this weekend and will have a final reveal MONDAY!!! Fingers Crossed!

You've probably heard me talking about ripple effect decorating . . . in short it's one change leads to another. I think you know where I'm going with this.
With the barn door being done I thought that the dining room needed new artwork, our DIY artwork was lovely but more of a temporary fix . . . although it will definitely find it's way somewhere else in the house.

We're just deciding on what the best height for the new art is. I always find Dining Room art a weird thing to hang, because your sitting down when looking at it . . . but you'll also see it standing up.

Please excuse the poor picture quality this pic is from the craigslist listing!!

We're super excited about the new artwork! The dining room wall is seen from almost every room on our mainfloor so it had to be spectacular and we LOVE these prints!

Staircase Artwork: tweet tweet

You might have caught a glimpse of  our new staircase artwork yesterday.
I was shopping for powder room artwork at Michaels when I stumbled on to these little birdie prints. I fell in LOVE but I had no idea where to put them, so I may, or may not have, hidden them behind some posters of Justin Beiber  for a couple days until I could think of the perfect place for them.

Honestly two days later I still couldn't think of the perfect place to put them, but I did have a 40% off coupon so I took a leap of faith, knowing that something I loved that much would find a perfect spot in our home! They Did!!!

I LOVE the spot at the top of the steps.

Here's how the staircase looked before we moved in:

and After:

We painted the panels at the top of the stairs in the same trim color as the rest of the house (Martha Stewart's Heavy Cream), but I think that it's the bird prints that keeps me coming back for more.



Total Cost:

Pictures $30 for the set . . . - 40%   =  $18

Set of two black frames $10 . . .- 40%   =  $6

__________________________________

Total Cost                                        =  $24  I love Michaels Coupons . . .  and birdy prints!

Anyone else hidden anything in a store? . . . come on . . . you can tell me ;)

Christmas Staircase

Deck the halls with "Super Cheap Garland from Walmart" fa la la la la la . . . la la la la.

When we first saw this house all I saw was, a spot for a giant Christmas tree and staircase railings begging for garland.
I didn't have a very large budget for garland, I wanted to keep it around $20, so it was either buy one 7 foot section from Michaels, or outfit all of our railings from Walmart. For $2.50 you can buy a 9 foot long very scraggly string of garland. My solution was to take 2 strings of $2.50 garland and twist them together, which made for fuller string of garland for the low low price of $5 :)
It cost us $20 plus tax for all the garland on the staircase.

I used red ribbon and tied it in big bows to hold the garland to the railing, I really loved the look.

Garland and staircases were made for each other!
p.s. I also added a wreath to the window, with a matching red bow!

Powder Room Reveal

We've finially finished with our changes to the powder room, just in time for Christmas. I wanted to make sure this room had some wow to it. I figure almost everyone who visits our house will visit this room at some point so I wanted it to be pretty! I thought about a fabulous bold wallpaper, but Lee said . . . "absolutely not!" I have no idea what it is about men and hating wallpaper? But they all do!!
So we went with Martha Stewart's Rainwater.

We had a big blank wall right when you walk in so we needed some art work, but because it's a small room I didn't want to overwhelm it with a HUGE picture, I thought small 4 x 6 photos with HUGE white mats was the way to go.

I Love little pictures with HUGE mats (if your like us and don't have the budget for huge custom mats, use white poster board and cut it to size using an exacto knife, we matted all three for $3, compared to $33 each for custom mats).

Photos are little postcards from Ikea ($5).

We added a new light, not a  typical choice for a bathroom but we used a track light. I wanted something simple and modern,

and I loved the little shades!

Some special touches, the towel ring:

A towel bar (I like a great big towel in the powder room for guests to wipe their hands on, there's nothing worse then trying to dry your hands on a small damp hand towel at a house party).

And last, a pretty soap dispenser (from Target), I like to keep my soap pump on a little porcelain tray, so that any spilt soap gets caught in the tray and doesn't sit on our granite counters waiting to be absorbed.

There's our new little powder room.
Before:

After:

And because I've been trying to add some more perspective shots, here's a picture of how it looks from the hallway!

Flowers on Friday: Dec 2, 2011

It's been a while since we've posted a flowers on Friday. That Lee . . . slacker!! :)

I finally had to grab this little guy for myself . . . from the grocery store . . . oh, how the mighty have fallen! : P 

I love the little white flowers and how they cascade over the edges. You also might notice, our new coffee table basket (if you're wondering it's from Jysk). I've been trying to figure out a way to add some interest to the wide expanse of coffee table, and I think a basket tray fits perfectly, it's HUGE (more pictures of the basket tray to come next week).

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend!! Fingers crossed we FINALLY finish the barn door this weekend!!!

What's better than 1 Christmas Wreath ? ?

. . . 3 Christmas Wreaths!!!!

I wanted something different for our back door this year. So I decided to use 3 wreaths instead of the standard 1. Christmas is Crazy around here . . . it's a regular 3 ring circus  hahaha  Get it?? Three rings . . . three wreaths . . . clearly I am a comical mastermind . . . or not! Definitely Not!

Originally I thought I would tie them together with ribbon but, that did not work! Did not work at all, they kept flipping and flopping off the door every time you opened it!
So plan B hang each one individually, on a 3M hook, worked great! They stay put perfectly and that door gets opened and closed a lot!!!

I know the 3 wreath option isn't going to tickle every ones fancy, but I really like it! I also think it would be a nice spot to take a Christmas Photo beside!

Wreaths from Michaels, and ribbon from Nashville Wraps.

Does anyone else have any crazy holiday decorations???