It's the MOST wonderful time of the year!

I've been enjoying every single little bit of eye candy I've been seeing everywhere, haven't you?  So many wonderful crafts to try, and gorgeous decorations for inspiration!  Because we're on an adventure remodeling a recently purchased home, it was with a mix of sadness and relief that I decided to forgo decorations this year.  I know, how can I live with myself?!  It wasn't an easy decision for sure!  Our new house is a demolition zone, and our current 'temporary' apartment is tiny and crammed full of moving boxes so I thought it was the most sane decision. 

 

One day in a bout of nostalgia, I found myself looking through pictures from Christmas Past and decided to share some of my favorites.

This little tree was in our game room.  I just love the card-themed ribbon I found in a little Christmas store in Midland.  I made bows with it, and wish I had bought more! 

 

 

 

My first time to do a brown tree, as I'm mostly a red, green, white, and silver kind of girl.  I really liked the way it turned out, with it's more understated feel.  This first picture shows the tree through an old mirror that used to belong to my grandmother.

 

 

 

This is my first flocked tree.  I'm so happy with it and can't wait to use it again.  It's my master bedroom tree and I used only reds last time.  I can picture all kinds of different things to do with it in the future.

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite Christmas crafts.  I made this using 2 glass blocks from Lowes.  We got a special drill bit for glass and drilled a hole in each glass block.  I then just put a small string of lights in each one and wrapped them up with sparkly ribbon.  They add just the right amount of bling to any corner!

 

 

 

This little tree in my antique trunk is my kitchen tree.  It holds some of the old ornaments from our kids childhood days. It's such a treat to get out the old handmade ornaments that the kids made in church or in school and relive the memories.

 

 

My Spode teapot was a gift from my dearest friend, and it was displayed just out of reach of the grandbabies precious little hands.  It will need to be placed a little bit higher next year:)

 

I made stockings for everyone, including the pups!  It's such a delight that almost as soon as they were hung, they were out of date.  We've had 2 new grandbabies in a little over a year!! 

 

 

 

 

 

A very simple mantle with just a bit of red and my favorite Santa.

 

Some of my other Santas adding some HoHoHo to the top of the refrigerator.

 

 

In honor of some old friends from Germany who visited just after Christmas, we were excited to find Gluhwine at our local HEB!  They taught us how to make a lovely warm drink.  Living in West Texas, I can only imagine that would be even more amazing if sipped with a couple of feet of snow outside!

 

And now, my 12 ft tree.  I love it!  I got it on sale after Christmas one year while shopping with my bff and fellow partner in crime.  She actually bargained with the owner of the shop to get me an even better discount!  I love the memory of snagging it as much as I love the tree!

 

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

 

I can see the light!

This remodel has been going on for 3 months now, and most of it has been tedious, dirty, and frustrating.  But I do believe we've turned a corner!  The back half is really coming along and I'm getting so excited!

Here's a reminder of the laundry/mud/craft room, when it was still the master and bath.

And now...just needs some paint and then we'll be ready for tile!  The vanities I ordered from Lowes are here and I can't wait to get them in place. 

 

 

This is the demolition of the old, homemade door to the backyard from the laundry room.  It was probably supposed to look like a french door, but the glass was 2 different sizes, and it was just a messy installation all the way around.

We also removed the little ramp outside the door.

 

 

 

 Here's the space ready for the new door.  (You can see the beginings of the dog shower on the right.)

 

 

 

And by the end of the day the new door is in!  This will be our preferred access to the pool (tile floor, bathroom access), so I think the sliding glass will be perfect.  Plus it will (eventually!) have a good view when I'm doing laundry and stuff.   

The great room has new sheetrock on the ceilings, with much improved support in the attic.  The tape and bed and texturing has been completed, and hopefully tomorrow we will get a coat of primer on everything!  Our son is happy to suit up and man the paint sprayer, which is a huge blessing.  I originally thought I would be happy to do it, but after watching him the first time I decided it would be a lot of work!  I'm happy to just do the prep work:)

This is looking toward the kitchen.  I'm super excited that the pantry shelves are cut and ready to paint.  I can't wait to get paint on the walls and install them.  It might just be our very first completed space in the house!

We added a new project today, because, well, we just didn't have enough to do already!  I knew I wanted new trim around all the doors, and new larger baseboards.  We planned for that.  But then I looked at these underwhelming dining room windows and decided that they need some help too.  I would love to do all the windows in the house, but we'll see how it goes.  Here they are, the shy little timid windows before....

 

 

And here they are in their new finery.  I can't wait to see them painted white with a nice warm color on the walls.

 

I've finally made some decisions on paint!!  I can't (won't!) tell you how many cans of Benjamin Moore samples I have.  Goodness!  It's been a process for sure.  I should have the hall bath painted tomorrow and will be calling the tile guy to see when he can get started!

 

Thanks for stopping by.  I'd be so honored if you would leave a comment letting me know you were here!

Much Better!

I'm totally out of my element when it comes to blogging, blog design, and most anything technological.  Logical?  Not to me!  In spite of this, I finally decided to tackle my blog layout.  Yay!  Isn't this cuter?  Now I just need to customize my snippet, configure my script tag parameters, and about a hundred other things that make absolutely no sense to me.  I'm pretty sure I was supposed to get this all figured out and in place before I ever made this public, but alas, it is what it is. Please bear with me as I stumble through this, and leave me a comment with any helpful hints you might be willing to share! And thank you for stopping by:)

Fifteen days until Christmas!