Show Us Your Bar Cart || and meet my Christmas tree ||

As Chelsea shared last week, the whole family shlepped out to a local tree farm to chop down our own Christmas trees.  Now, there's something more... intimate... about going the cut-your-own route for the holidays.  Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute of the process.  But let's just say, "organic trees" do not go quietly...

First we scourged an entire forest for our perfect candidate.  He's big, and rugged, and an all-around beast.  So we battled with the branches just to get our saw some bark to bite.  Then we [and by we I mean the fella's] applied some major elbow grease to get that bad boy to part from it's stump.  Now the candidate is officially a conquest and we have to drag it through the woods back to check-out so it can get prepped and wrapped for transport - a process which involved at least 5 men to shove our lush fur through the netting hoop.  After we strapped it to the car [or in our case, threw it in the truck] we hauled it home and wrestled it into it's prominent place only to find it had a diameter of like 5ft AKA half our new living room.  So we resorted to drastic measures and gave it's back branches a quick haircut [think an angled bob...] just so we could shove it deeper into the corner.  After the first round of needle-vacuuming, we were ready to decorate.  But our beast was not interested in getting gussied up: his razor like needles bit everytime I came at him with a bauble.  I eventually started throwing ornaments on from a safe distance, hoping they'll catch...  It's no wonder, after all that, your cut-your-own tree becomes a reluctant member of the family [meet Chelsea's tree Paul Pfeiffer].  We affectionately nicknamed ours...

The Beast [see the resemblance?]

He's ruing the day he met us I just know it.

We are still moving in to our new place so there's not much more to see just yet, but I do have one other holiday stop on the tour before you go: our pop-up holiday bar cart!

Caleb and I are not mixologists by any means so we rarely have anything "fun" in steady supply.  But when you hit the season of holiday hosting, it can be fun to have a pop-up bar for all your festivities!  So I put our suitcase table to good use with the help of a small vanity mirror, a strand of lights, a strand of garland, and some tree trimmings [from the Beast's haircut to be exact].  Viola!  A festive impromptu drink station.

So just to recap, my holiday recipe for an easy pop-up bar cart is simple:

1 Folding Tray Table
1 Suitcase
1 Mirror

And dear DIY friend Brandi over at Don't Disturb this Groove has kindly organized a whole slue of holiday bar cart inspiration for your perusing pleasure.  Be sure to browse the tag #ShowUsYourBarCart on Instagram at 10am EST to check out the other savvy ideas from some fellow fabulously festive creatives.

I promise to give you a formal tour of our new apartment in the new year dear friends!  I just need to survive the holiday's first ;)

Chelsea's Scandinavian Holiday Home Tour

For more Christmas home tours, click the button! Courtesy of Jennifer Rizzo.

Our Christmas home tour starts with a tall, skinny, (somewhat) sparse tree. {Here are all our lumberjacks - I see one lost his shoe!}

I'm calling this years' tree 'Paul Pfeiffer' since he reminds me of Kevin Arnold's pal from the Wonder Years. See the resemblance? Both a little awkward but they mean well. :)

As with all of my styling projects I took a cue from the main focus, (in this case, the tree), and let that dictate the rest of the holiday decorating. Our tree is really simple this year, and simple is just what my soul needed. So I looked around at some Scandinavian inspiration and went forward!

Scandinavian style defined: A mixture of the the right amount of light and color.  It is the convergence of functionality and shape.  It often intermixes old and new with a little bit of irony. (source)

This is my home base - As much as I love and am influenced by so many different styles, (bohemian and mid-century, especially), I tend to blend styles together in a very Scandinavian inspired way. So while I was decorating our home for this Christmas season, it was my intention to keep things as simple and cozy as possible, but also special at the same time. Let's look around!

Front Entrance

I shared the easy deets on this faux succulent wreath a couple weeks ago, and you might recognize these rustic homemade pillar candle holders from this post!

Living Room

This little musical train going around was a gift from my grandparents years ago and has entranced the kids every year since they could stand up to watch it!

The little wooden O-J-Y train was a Christmas craft fair purchase before our first married Christmas together almost 10 years ago. I had prayed we'd have little ones to enjoy it one day, and now they sure do. :)

Paul Pheiffer, in all his glory.

One tree. With all our old, collected, and homemade ornaments. That's all I need.

Copper and wood trees from our friends at Axel Co, and last years' geo painted coasters; how-to here.

Dining Room

This is the first time I'm sharing our 'new' table here! I sanded down our dark stained World Market Garner Extension table in good faith that the natural wood underneath would be 10 times better for our space! It's such a fun contrast to our pipe shelves, (I can't believe we just built those exactly a year ago! Feels like they've been there forever).

You'd better watch where you stand around here or you might get a smooch!

A few pheasant feathers from A.C. Moore add a little more dimension and 'bulk' to our boxwood garland.

Simple centerpiece with a festive surprise inside.

I didn't use a lot of red this year, but these berries peeking out are one of my favorite things in the whole room!

Kitchen

This isn't a huge kitchen and quickly gets overwhelmed with dinner prep and dishes. The whispy wreath that echos a few feathers from the dining room garland and the simple green plaid dishtowel are the sweetest little whispers of Christmas without over-filling the space.

Master Bedroom

While I don't add much, I do enjoy bringing a little Christmas to the bedrooms. These trees add a healthy dose of holiday cheer given their small size!

This room got a fun makeover right at the beginning of this year, after I had packed up all the holiday decor from Christmas 2014! The Cutting Edge Stencil's 'FUJI' stencil has been on the wall almost one year and still makes this room feel so fresh and fun! Details on stenciling this wall here.

One of my favorite decorating tricks that I just discovered this year, (from our pals Cassie and Sarah at Sweet Clover Barn), is covering accent chair seats with small rugs - especially ones with fringe on the end!

Colin and Mason's Room
(ages 6 and 4)
More of their room here.
 

Shire's Room
(age 6)
More of her room here.
 

Last year's magazine tree plus some foam trees she decorated from the Target $1 spot add a jolly little touch to her bookshelf!

That's it, folks! I'm sharing our holiday home tour in adoring memory of Matt's grandfather, Carl Snavely. He slipped away peacefully this past week to go be with Jesus and we will be celebrating his amazing life with family and friends this weekend. As a family it was our little tradition to go visit him and Grandma up in PA between Thanksgiving and Christmas. During our visit we would all bundle up and Grandpa would walk us through the charming downtown Lititz, where they lived all their life. Christmas there is pure magic. And Grandpa wanted to be sure we got a taste, every single year. So this little tour, though simple and far from magical, is for him. A small taste of Christmas, to you and yours.

Grandpa playing marbles last year with Mason, our youngest.

Thank you so much for coming by. It's a pleasure to celebrate with you this precious time of year and Christ's most treasured gift. I pray that time will move slowly for us all during this busy time so that we can enjoy those we treasure to the fullest.

Flip-Off: Cate's MCM Restoration

I'm driving down a country road and I'm hopelessly lost.  Typical.  But after reviewing google maps at quaint old-fashioned gas station, I'm on my way again practically chomping at the bit to see this craigslist find in person.  My GPS tells me to turn down a street that's not even paved - just gravel.  This is the moment where the banjo's from Deliverance start playing in my head.  Could some savvy psycho be luring me to my death with mid-century-modern furniture?  I'd have to hand it to them if so - MCM at a steal is the perfect bait.  I should really fear for my life more... but pieces are solid walnut...   By now I'm turning off the gravel road onto a gravel driveway.  It swoops around a shed and up a hill only to dead-end at the most adorable cottage with a charming garden.  I am greeted by kind smiles from the homeowners who have lined the chest quadruplets on their garden wall just for me - it feels like a homecoming parade.  

Clearly I didn't need to have my husband on speed-dial in my pocket for this craigslist interaction.  Turns out Donna and her husband couldn't have been more welcoming or accommodating.  We start talking while they helped me load up all four beauties and it became obvious that we were kindred spirits.  Not only do they have a Younglife background like Caleb's family but they have a daughter who's a fellow home decor enthusiast and is also married to a Special Ed teacher/ coach.  Uncanny.  

I'm convinced that stumbling across this ad was a divine arrangement.  And as Chelsea explained in yesterday's post, we had big joint plans for these babies.  So what do you get when two sisters-in-law take identical pairs of furniture pieces to flip in total secrecy from each other?

Furniture-In-Laws!

[Or just two creative sets of furniture relatives]

So let's take a closer look at my restorative approach to the flip-off:

Driving over to pick them up, I had every drastic transformation idea rolling through my head.  But once I saw them in person at Donna's house, I fell in love.  I just wanted them to see them returned to their former glory.

For starters, they need gold double-breasted-button-like hardware.  It just so happened that I had some I could harvest from the "white monster" and all I had to do was deepen the original yellowy/brassy finish with our favorite faux gold technique.  I also debated doing an angled tapered leg like Chelsea did but had four straight mounting brackets already lying around.  So convenience won out all around.

And of course I couldn't wait to grab Chelsea's Axel Co. reclaimed wood hexagon shelf to style with.  

Other than the hardware and legs, all I really needed to do was restore the glassy finish [I applied a coat of minwax polyshades in pecan with a foam brush].  Ugh look at that juicy wood grain shine!!

As we are in the throws of moving, and I'm scrambling to furbish our new 800 sq.ft. apartment with functional pieces, these dapper gentlemen are now flanking our bed for some much needed extra storage.  I'm still unpacking so more photos will be coming soon once the sea of cardboard subsides.  

And don't forget to stop by tomorrow to get more deets from Chelsea on her show-stopping two-tone flip!