Our Christmas Living Room

Well, I have finally done a little bit of decorating in our home for Christmas!

 

I know a lot of the blog world is already decorated, but we traditionally start putting up decorations a couple weeks before Christmas and finally get the house completely decorated (well, at least as decorated as it is going to get!) a couple days before Christmas.  Then we leave it all up for at least a few weeks after Christmas. 

This year since the music room has french doors I am toying with the idea of making that our “Christmas room” and perhaps even cover the panes in the doors and open them dramatically Christmas morning for the children to rush in and see their presents under the tree.  Hmm…I don’t know if I could be that disciplined however!!  It would be a magical memory-maker for the kids though…can you just imagine the anticipation???  Ahh, to see Christmas through the eyes of a child again!

 

Back to our living room—since our new jute rug arrived on Monday I was able to deep clean the room before putting it in there, and then today did a little more to Christmas-ify it.  I generally stick to simple because I am lazy BUSY and after Christmas I don’t really enjoy taking everything back down again.  I went out in our yard and snipped some free greenery (which is so exciting to me because this is the first time we’ve had evergreens in our yard!!) and spread it around a little until it looked pretty.  : )

 

(This dresser was actually the first piece of furniture I ever re-finished!  My mom bought it when I was a teenager at an auction (I think??) and I stripped it and re-finished it again back then.  My mom had it in their farmhouse bathroom until this year when they gave it to me for my birthday!!)

 

My husband and his dad cut some slices of wood a few weeks ago when they were clearing out some brush on our property…I love the natural elements!  I thought they looked vaguely like a tree when I stacked them so I deemed it appropriate for the holiday.  ; ) 

 

 

Our oldest and I cut some paper snowflakes and strung them along with some ornaments on good old acrylic yarn and I looped it over the curtain rods for a little extra something. 

 

 

The whole room…

 

 

The star is from Ikea and it is one of my favorite decorations (besides the sentimental ones).  It lights up and is especially pretty at night!

 

 

Oh…and here is the new rug in it’s natural element.  I’m still really liking it!

 

 

Now that I’ve got the ball rolling hopefully I’ll start on the rest of the house.  : )

A New Rug

I am just a leeeetle bit excited today!!  This morning my husband showed me a tall rounded package leaning up against the sidelight on our door (basically covering it).  Not only was I glad that the UPS man arrived and left without getting stuck in our driveway (we have a good sheet of ice and snow on our sloping driveway!) but also because that package was our NEW RUG!!!!!
(Just indulge me for a moment.  I have never bought a big huge new rug before!!)

I got it in one of the Black Friday sales that was happening around the internet.  It is from RugsUSA and though I am a little leery of them due to some sketchy pricing practices (Sheena alerted me to this and yep, it is true!!  I checked and rechecked for a few months on the prices for this very rug just to see!) it was the best deal I could find on a rug like this.  I looked in brick and mortar stores and around the web and it was definitely a good deal.  Most of the rugs were way out of our budget or too small for the space I want to put it in.  It came with no problems at all and I reeeaaaallly really like it so we’ll see how it holds up to three little kids!! 
This little guy was only too happy to try the rug out…

It is BIG.  At least to me…it is 8’X10.5’ I think.  The natural jute is gorgeous and it is actually soft!  I was pretty worried that it would be rough and scratchy but it isn’t at all.  I anticipate some shedding both on clothes and on the floor but to me it is no biggie.  I’m excited to add this to our living room!

(Speaking of which, I’d better get cleaning in there so I can put the rug down!)  : )

Picking a Good Gray

If you look around the internet you’ll find loads of blog posts about picking the perfect gray.  I know, I’ve been scouring the internet for the “perfect gray” for the past couple of months!  I’m finally nearing the stage of painting the big room that houses our kitchen and dining area…plus the hallway that goes into our laundry/garage entry door.  I knew I wanted something different than the pastel purple that it was painted when we bought the house:

This color may have gone great with the grape vine curtains, but a huge area painted this color is just overwhelming!!  The color does nothing for the cabinets and floor either. 
The past couple of weeks now I’ve been looking at paint samples and a within the last week I’ve been painting samples all over the walls in here.  After painting a foam board in Benjamin Moore’s Moonshine, I quickly learned that the lighting in here tends to make that particular gray look very blueish.  And while I like the color, it just made the floor and cabinets look even more orange/red than they are. 
I didn’t want white as I’d like some white shelves and my white hutch to “pop” in here, and I didn’t want anything too dark as this side of the house doesn’t get a huge amount of sunlight. 
So, I went and got some paint chips and then samples in these Benjamin Moore colors:  Balboa Mist, Collingwood, and Silver Satin. 
Here they are on the wall:

They all look veeerrrry similar in this picture, but in real life Balboa Mist and Collingwood are pretty similar and Silver Satin is a lot lighter/whiter than the others. 
Here they are on another wall (the lighting here is terrible…but then again these colors will have to look good in any lighting situation so I suppose this is a good test!):

Again, in real life Silver Satin is much lighter than the others, but you get the idea.  Oh, and you can probably see what I’m talking about when it comes to Moonshine…a pretty color but in here much too blue-ish.   
I was going to show one more wall but they just looked all the same in that picture…I guess that’s what happens when the colors you choose are so similar! 
And the winner is…
Collingwood!!  It is a nice soft gray-meets-white-meets-a tiny bit of beige (notice I’m not calling it greige here!!!  for some reason that word gives me the heeby-jeebies…I’m weird I know :).  I felt the white of the frame just blended right into Silver Satin and Balboa Mist wasn’t much of a contrast either. 
I guess the moral of the story is…always always buy tester sizes for your paint, especially gray colors!!  It can read so very differently in each particular lighting situation.  I thought that Balboa Mist would be the winner…and I really love the pictures I’ve seen of it…but in this room I really felt Collingwood was more ‘right’. 
Now off to the paint store…
:)

TV Corner Gallery Wall

I (finally) took pictures of the gallery wall I just finished in our living room.  This is how it originally looked in its boring past:

And here is how it looks now. 

Certainly still no bombshell with the pale purplish wall color, old TV, and orange-ish trim--but an improvement, no? 
I ditched the aquarium stand that the TV was originally standing on in favor of a white cabinet I had down in the basement that was serving no particular purpose.  My thrifted (but brand new) Ikea storage boxes fit perfectly in the bottom which I took as a sign that this was meant to be.  :)  Don’t you think the outlets/light switch/thermostat blend in so much better now??  I do!
I’d still like to hide the tv in a cabinet or something, but until I find one that is petite (a huge one would dwarf this space) this will have to do. 
The gallery wall is mostly a mixture of free printable art and family photos.  I found soooo many wonderful sites with free art!  (If you’d like me to share where, let me know!)
Here is a local antique map (found free on the internet!)—I just love the colors!  (Why aren’t maps so pretty anymore??)

And I just love this painting of a little girl in winter:

A little mushroom art is always appropriate…  (I can’t really read French but I think it says they are edible mushrooms)

And this free printable from the Pleated Poppy is just lovely…and great for November (or a good reminder for anytime of the year)! 

It is just so hard to get a good representation of the wall color.  This is the color that the living room was painted when we moved into our home a few months ago so most likely I will be painting it another color.  I don’t hate it, but it’s just a bit…purple or pink or something for me. 

Yes.  Definitely a bit too something.  :)
Here you can see the layout of the room a bit more, looking on the right into the entry and music room and on the left into the dining room/kitchen:

And this is one of the other sides of the room (with my DIY stenciled curtains)

I don’t have the other side of the room arranged in a way I like yet, but here’s a sneak peek:

So, there you have it folks!  Our corner gallery wall (TV included!)

Linking up to That DIY Party (DIY Showoff), Remodelaholic’s Anonymous Party, Show Me What Ya Got Party (Not Just a Housewife)

Stalled

I’ve been working slowly on the living room corner gallery wall.  SLOWLY!  Like maybe one picture every week  :)  It has been fun though to find a variety of things to incorporate, both personally meaningful and inexpensive.  There are still a few spots I need to fill and a couple frames that need photos or artwork, but I’m getting there.  Oh, and it has gotten quite cold here so I’m waiting for one last warmer day to spray paint a few frames! 
Here’s a very little sneak peek…the mirror may be changing though—I like it but maybe not in this space. 

I have found an amazing amount of nice free artwork from the internet.  So fun!  Still, this is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.  :)  I should know by now to think of a reasonable time frame and then multiply that by 10 for the real time it will take me. 
I also found a couple of pieces of artwork at Goodwill today that will go well in this room (hopefully!  It is still in the bag so I’ll have to try it and see later…)
In other news…I have been working like crazy on our Christmas photo card, so fun!  Hopefully I will get it done early this year and not at the last minute like other years. 

Enough Time

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I don’t have it. 
Do you?? 
I bet not.  Few if any of us do. 
Time to do all our daily tasks and then what feeds our souls and minds as well?  Forget about it.  It is a constant battle for me, both externally and internally.  With three kids I’m split multiple times a day between this child and that child, this task and that child, this task and that task.  I think I must look like a crazed mother hen running all over the house yet getting very little done.  But, the crying child must be comforted.  Those dishes, they aren’t going to wash themselves.  That Mount Doom of laundry??  It will not get miraculously clean and back in dressers without me. 
I’m sure it’s even more difficult for those who work outside the home too. 
Then there is the internal struggle.  When, at the end of the day, I have a few minutes of peace to myself…what should I do??  Oh yes, I really should read that book I started a while back for my book club.  But I’m feeling a bit frazzled and I just need something light and oh look, one of my favorite bloggers has just put up a new post!!  Down the rabbit hole of blogs I go.  (It is a fun rabbit hole!) 
Or, maybe I’ve been thinking all day that I’d love to work on a project but by the time those free moments come I’ve lost my inspiration and creativity for the day.  There is a pile of (clean) laundry on my coffee table and I could fold it while watching some Netflix or perhaps even a movie with the husband if I’m lucky.  I can’t face tomorrow with those clothes on the table.  The toddler will certainly only pull them off and scatter them about the floor if I leave them.  (Don’t tell me mine is the only toddler with this obsession!)  I’ve been wondering what is going to happen to Miss Stewart in this episode of Foyle’s War anyway. 
Anddd…I really should spend some time in prayer or start reading that mother’s devotional book again.  But once again I’m hopping into bed and only  have a few moments to say a few quick prayers and a quick “sorry God for anything I haven’t done my best today” before falling asleep the second my head hits the pillow.  Because in a few short hours a toddler will awake waaaay too early and not want to go back to bed. 

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My internal struggles with time often crop up during the day too when I have just a few minutes here and there to do something that fuels that creative outlet.  (For me it is generally house beautifying creativity, but I’m sure you could fill the blank with your own version of creativity or relaxation—writing, reading, knitting, cleaning (I’ve heard there are some people out there who see cleaning as relaxing!!  Who knew!!), etc.  I get wrapped up in my ideas for this and that (or perhaps even a small project or part of a project) but am snapped back to reality by cries of hunger for a snack.  It gets discouraging time and time again to start something and have to put it away again and again especially if you need lots of tools or supplies for it. 
Why am I writing this?  Oh, I don’t know.  Perhaps you’ve had a day like this and you need to know that someone else has days like this all the time.  Not bad days…just days that there isn’t enough time to “do it all”.  My mind is bursting with ideas for this and that and wow, that pinterest recipe looks really really good…but that’s not happening today.  I’m a work in progress on being contented with the amount of time I have to get things done every day.  I love making our house a home and reading how others do so and seeing their projects and I like to share my little victories too.  Keeping up with other bloggers isn’t my job…being a wife and mother and making a home is. 
And sometimes I need to shout, shout, let it all out and realize I have enough time for what I need to do and not necessarily what I want  to do.  :)

 

(All the octopus clock pictures are dedicated to my husband, who wants a playful octopus clock more of like this except with waving tentacles in our bedroom:)

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