Deck the Halls

We put up our decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving. It was a day full of unpacking and troubleshooting, as we don't have very many places to display all of the decorations and ornaments that we have collected.

Also, we had no way to keep our tree upright.

But that was remedied by a quick (read, 4 hours later) trip to the hardware store and the purchase of an umbrella stand to hold up our tree.

Our stockings hang on our entertainment center- the two middle ones are for the girls, but I will be getting the classic red and white ones from Pottery Barn as soon as the sales begin... Oddly enough, Grace hasn't even touched these- I wonder if she's even noticed them!

I completely forgot to get a picture of a tree, so this is as good as it will get, a picture looking from our family room into our dining room. Our tree is GORGEOUS and if anyone is in the market for an artificial tree on a budget, I would suggest going to Target on Christmas Eve or the day after and seeing if you can purchase a display tree- like we did. It was a steal!

Our dining room table- my tablescape needs some work, but this year, I just worked with what I had on hand. It's a little too wide, as we are constantly shifting everything around to sit and eat at the table.

Our nativity set, from my parents, sits displayed in our entryway. Grace hasn't tried to touch it either, but it might be just out of her line of sight also.

 We had a ton of leftover Christmas knick-knacks, which I was able to display on a ledge in my kitchen over the sink. It makes for some festive viewing while I scrub the dishes!

 This smaller tree was our tree in our old house, and it has found its way into our front room. It was decorated in a wintery theme, snowflakes, silver and blue. It was so beautiful! We found out that some friends of ours were without a tree though, so we loaded it up and surprised them with a tree, lights and ornaments and all! It blessed me so much to see their five year old daughter surprised with a "real, green tree!" and even more so to hear that she had just prayed, out loud with her Mom for a tree this Christmas. It might be my favorite memory from this Christmas!

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Deck the Halls

Home Tour: Living Room

We've been living in our house for over a month and a half now. We've been all unpacked since the end of week one, but I've been waiting to share pictures until we got all of the curtains up and bought a few pieces of furniture or appliances that were missing.

Our house is such a blessing to us. In fact, it's not just a house, it truly is home now. Our last apartment was never "home." It was a place that was picked out for us, with someone else's furniture, and a space that did not work right for us. We lived there for two years and made some great memories and tried to make it as "homey" as possible, but it just never happened.

This house fell into our laps, has great neighbors, is in a good location, and has my biggest prerequisite- LIGHT!

The other major feature of this house is the layout and size- it uses every square foot to its advantage and uses the windows and the tall ceilings (12-14 feet in most places,) to make the space feel HUGE.

It's so huge, that we aren't able to fully furnish this house. We are pretty positive that we will only be in this house for a year for a number of reasons, and we are okay with that. But, keeping that in mind, we don't want to invest the money for furnishings and decorations in two of the rooms that we are fairly certain we won't have in our next home.

And that brings you to the first room you see when you walk in our front door: The living room!

It's a circular room which we (dorkily) call "The Rotunda" or the front room. But really it's a formal living room space.

Or, honestly, it could be called the "orphaned furniture," room.

We weren't able to sell our couch and book shelf from our last apartment so it made the move with us. We weren't sure what we were going to do with them, but they fill the space nicely and give a little purpose to the room.

The four curtains cover three giant windows and help keep out alot of heat right now. They are usually all closed, for cooling purposes and for privacy purposes. Because honestly, our neighbor kids would be found with their faces pressed against the window watching what the "strange Americans," are doing, if we didn't have the windows covered. I'm hoping that we can start leaving them oopen more often because the sunlight is beautiful!

The far left corner of the curtain wire is broken but we have to borrow a ladder before we can fix it- until then it works just fine and Grace loves playing hide and seek in the curtains!

Our book case is my favorite piece in this room. I didn't really want it to sell and am glad it didn't! In this book case, I specifically put "conversation pieces." Our framed wedding invitation, travel books, photo albums, and souvenirs from our world travels. There is a framed picture of a beloved little boy, but I really want to use that frame with an antiqued map of the UAE (where we live now.)

Opposite of the couch is our staircase, leading up to the second floor (duh.) Underneath of the stair case is this amazing storage space. If I had the time and resources I would hang a fun, angled curtain and make it into a play area for Grace. Like I said, I don't think we'll still be in this house for her to fully enjoy it so it's not on the top of my to-do list right now, and instead holds some odd items that we are using alot as we move in, like tools and arts and crafts things. Those will all be moved to a closet within a month or two though. Grace's outside toys will be stored here, for easy access when we go outside.

That's it for this time. This room doesn't have alot in it but it actually gets used every day- Ian likes to nap on this couch and Grace likes to ride her little car in this room or play on the couch or in the curtains! I'm glad we didn't sink alot of money into this space but I'm also glad it's not sitting empty and unused!

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Home Tour: Living Room