Hello, friend. Welcome to my Merry & Bright Home Tour (Part 1). There are eight other fabulous bloggers sharing there holiday decor along with me... this is gonna be fun! Be sure to check out the rest of the home tours (direct links listed at the end of this post) for some great holiday decorating inspiration.
If this is your first time stopping by I want to tell you that I'm so happy you're here! Hopefully you'll be able to tell from my tour that I absolutely love to decorate! I like to say my style is "Farmhouse Chic". This tour features my kitchen and family room which is more "Farmhouse-ish".
I hope you'll enjoy the first part of my tour and that you'll come back and see me again. I host a weekly link up party called Flaunt it Friday and I would love to have you join me. This week we'll be linking up on... you guessed it, Friday. ;)
Anyway, let's get started with my tour!
This is my family room, it's right off the kitchen and has a TV in it, we do most our hanging out in here. Not to be confused with
my living room, which is a little bit fancier according to my kiddos, or "chic" as I like to say. :) And, we don't really hang out in there as much. But you know what that means, it stays clean! Plus, it's right by my front door so when people come over unexpectedly I can step in there and fool them into thinking I have a clean house!
HA! Yeah, right.This year I went with a pretty rustic mantel. I'm an Interior Decorator (and blogger obviously) and My hubs (Mr.Chic) is a corporate guy. We have a side gig called Chic Wood Creations and we (mostly he) builds custom furniture and decor out of reclaimed wood. Most of the stuff on the mantel is stuff we made: Pallet Christmas trees, wooden snowflakes, and the vintage truck painting (I made that one!) ;)
The hubs also made the look-alike vintage tool box on the coffee table per my request after I saw one on Joanna Gaines' kitchen table. Don't you just love her show, Fixer Upper?! The best!! New series started last night and it's on my DVR, can't wait!! They are the nicest people too... I digress.
Anyway, there is a little jute deer in the middle of the wreath over the fireplace. He is so cute but is hard to photograph. I got him at the grocery store of all places!
I like to use my basket next to the fireplace for birch logs (that I'll never burn, gas fireplace, Ha!) and some greens. The greens have lights but they photograph better when off, they look super cozy though when they're on and I'll show you below.
Here is a view of the room with the Christmas lights on, it's a little tricky to photograph but I think it shows the warmth and coziness I was trying to achieve with my decor. At least I hope it does.
This year I decided to add some plaid to my Christmas decor. I added a little pillow you can see below and I changed out some red chevron ribbon on my tree for plaid and I really like it. I had wanted to use black and red buffalo check ribbon but it just was too dark and blended into the tree. You could not even see it! Waaaa Waaaaaaa (that is my sad trombone sound, if you start reading my blog, which I certainly hope you will, you will need this translation) :)
You can see the plaid ribbon on the tree below although I feel the tree looks a little sad with it's lights off. Christmas lights are just so hard to photograph!
The hubs made this little barn door with the wreath on it and the beautiful nativity scene was given to us by my in-laws. Each year I let my boys set up the nativity. I had to do a little rearranging before I took the pic as everyone was stuck in the stable, even a shepard, extra angel, drummer boy, and a camel, none of which made the picture. Shhhhh, don't tell them I moved it around.
Here's my chalkboard art, nothing too fancy but I do them myself and I don't have time for stencils and elaborate stuff. Especially since I'm going to erase it in less than a month, this season is just too darn short!
Anywho, I made this chalkboard out of a garage sale mirror and some paint. It is very large and only cost me around $12 including paint! Did I mention I love to DIY?! Plus, I love a good deal.
Moving over to the kitchen. I used some red and black buffalo check (OBSESSED) in here since it didn't work very well in the family room.
I love this genuine vintage reproduction Santa ;), he is super cute! I love that he is holding a bottle brush tree. (another seasonal obsession this year) I have lots more in my fancy room on the next tour so be sure you come back for that on the 9th. I stuck this Santa in a dome and then he was big enough to hold his own as my kitchen island centerpiece.
Here's a view of our kitchen table eating area. Mr. Chic is making me a farmhouse table for Christmas... I can hardly wait!!
I love this FREE printable (did someone say buffalo check?) that I found online, I am looking for the link and will share it soon when I find it. This picture doesn't really do it justice because of the glare on the glass.
Here's another view of my kitchen sideboard. I'm not sure why but the wreath on the mirror just looks like a big green blob, it was having a bad hair day I guess. In real life it looks pretty, I promise.
I made sure that this table pictured above said Merry Christmas twice with the free printable and my reclaimed wood sign I painted. There will be no doubt in my kitchen that I want all to have a Merry Christmas! :)
Thank you so much for taking my home tour. Please come back and see me again on the 9th for The Merry & Bright Holiday Home Tour Part 2 and I hope you'll come back even sooner.
Here are the links to the entire Merry & Bright Holiday Tours, click the name to go to the blog:
