Hello friends! Welcome to our Christmas 2014 Home Tour. I'm joining The 2014 Holiday House Walk Link Party at Jennifer Rizzo's. Christmas and Home Tours are two of my favourite things. I loved visiting the homes in this year's tour and found the homes and bloggers to be very welcoming. There was so much inspiration that I know, just like in previous years, that I will be visiting the tours again and again.
I am so happy that you are visiting our home tour today. I welcome my regular readers and thank you for your friendship. If you are a new visitor, I am Elizabeth and I live with my husband Rob and our two teenage sons in our suburban home in southern Ontario, Canada. I will be sharing lots of photos, with links to detailed posts as they are available.
We will start the tour on the front porch on the first sunny day in weeks. It is cold here and we have had light snow a few times. I kept things really simple on the front porch this year.
We put the wicker chairs away for the winter and I placed a metal pail on a bench and filled it with fresh fir and pine clippings, cedar branches and a simple burlap bow.
I got a late start to my Christmas decorating this year because I just finished painting our main level. Lots of work putting everything back together but we love the fresh new colours. We have plans to make more updates., but I like the way that our home's style is evolving as time and money allows.
Our front entry hall is on the small side but has a coat closet, a half bath and just enough room for this black cabinet I painted. The cabinet holds baskets full of warm gloves, hats and scarves for our cold Canadian winters.
This rusty old honey pail makes a cute container for fresh greenery and fillers. I used burlap garland to fill the space between the water jar and the pail and made a bow out of burlap ribbon. Berry and apple picks, pinecones, and natural balls add some interest.
From the entry our home flows into the living room on the left, into the dining room past the stairs on the right and then back to our kitchen and family room. I love how the new lighter paint colours really help to brighten the darker rooms towards the front of our home.
I shared more of our Christmas living room in this post, and at night by Christmas lights in this post.
This year my vision for our Christmas decor was a cozy northern cabin with some added sparkle and I think it mixes well with our year round 'farmhouse at the lake' style.
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Our living room is light and bright with a neutral base of whites, grey, black and wood tones, with red and silver added for Christmas. The tables are found or garage sale pieces that I painted inexpensively to give a fresh new look.
The lanterns, vintage wooden Superior Skis and cozy throws add to the cabin feel. I love architectural salvage and it makes me think of the old farmhouse or cabin that it may have once been part of. I enjoy finding ways to display old chippy pieces. The repetition of greenery, pinecones, birch, stars, deer and moose remind me of times spent camping or at a northern cottage.
Pine cones, birch and greenery in this olive bucket add a touch of nature inexpensively. The knitting is an infinity scarf I am working on for my niece. The vintage dresser stores extra candles and keeps my knitting/crochet projects close at hand, both winter essentials for a relaxing evening at home.
I shared our night time living room by Christmas light in this post.
More greenery and pine cones fill this footed mercury glass bowl.
Our living room tree ribbon is a red and black buffalo check. I bought tons of the red wood berry garland more than 20 years ago and it is a part of our Christmas decorating every year.
Large snowy pinecones, glittery deer and snowflakes, felt moose, silver and brown jingle bells, white, silver and clear glass balls, wood candy canes, plaid mini boxes and white sweater trees fill the tree.
I painted the JOY and Canada flag pillows, and sewed the red and black check and moose/maple leaf pillows, last year. The coffee table tray is filled with pinecones, strings of red wood beads, large mercury glass balls and Christmas balls in various sizes. Isn't the white deer a cute piece? Hopefully he will remain safe from our chocolate lab's powerful tail lol.
Across from our living room is our dining room. It is not a large space but I really love how bright it is with the new Simply White paint colour.
I am searching for a low narrow buffet to paint but for now the pie safe and the bookcase, relocated to make room for the family room tree, balance out this side of the dining room. This past summer our boys stripped the popcorn ceiling from the family room, dining room and hallway and I still need to lower and center the chandy over the table.
Lately I am enjoying simple linen or natural bows on wreaths as seen here in the dining room window. The rough cut cedar plank on the dining room table is from when my father-in-law had a sawmill. On it I placed, no surprise here, more strands of red wood beads, white pillar candles wrapped in birch, white wooden stars and a pair of lanterns.
I use a mix of real and faux greenery and love to tuck fresh white pine and cedar in amongst the white dishes in the hutch. The white pitchers on the top of the hutch need to be raised higher. I have a few more of the cedar planks in the basement that will work.
Did I say how much I love the new paint colours? Revere Pewter and Simply White, with Snowfall White trim. Now we need to get busy in the New Year finishing the trim and mantel on the fireplace/TV wall that has been half completed for way too long. I don't have a mantel to decorate yet but in the meantime I hung our Christmas stockings from 3M Command hooks. Inspiration from Pinterest, five minutes and a chalk marker last night gave the chalkboard that I painted a new message for the season.
The end and fireplace wall are Revere Pewter and the wall behind the leather seating is Simply White. I'm so glad we switched the leather couch with the white slipcovered sofa in the living room. This is where our family hangs out. The heritage leather holds up really well to a bunch of 15-21 year old guys.
Our family tree is collected and colourful but I try to pull it all together with a pretty ribbon, some homemade deer tags and repeating the red wood berry garland used in other Christmas vignettes.
This is the first year for this tree to have white lights as the guys have always requested coloured lights. They agreed to get white lights next year too.
On the ottoman I filled a large black wood bowl with white pine, pinecones, burlap and vintage silver glass ornaments. The large etched and glittered glass balls were this week's thrift store score at 99 cents for 4. I was chanelling the gorgeous dough bowl full of vintage Shiny Brites image on Pinterest. My copy cat version was made with items on hand and less than $4.
I keep my collection of galvanized containers on top of the office armoire all year. The greenery and pine cones, plus galvanized JOY letters add some Christmas cabin charm.
I love that this natural vignette can be seen from both the kitchen and family room, with a peek at it from the front entry as well.
Our family room shares the cathedral ceiling end of our home with the eat in area of our kitchen. This Fall I scored a solid oak buffet and hutch from a neighbour doing a kitchen renovation, for free! You can probably guess that it will be painted after the holidays. I love wood tones mixed with painted pieces but prefer a darker stain.
Love love the stained wood kitchen shelves that I replaced last week. My collections of aqua Crown mason jars and pudding bowls give these shelves a more simple look than previous years.
A few cuttings of fresh pine added to the ironstone pudding bowls carry the greenery around the room without being too busy.
Another bucket of greenery and birch branches with a natural ribbon on top of the fridge.
I crafted a little chalkboard cutting board for the hot beverage station in a crate on the kitchen counter.
I still have a few more Christmas touches to add to other rooms but I am not going to stress about it and will focus on enjoying time with our family and friends.
Thank you so much for visiting. Our home is not perfect and is always a work in progress, much like ourselves, but we are very blessed to call it home. We wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas!
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