We’re excited to share with you a little peek into Christmas around our house. It’s not a part of any official tour, nor was I asked to decorate my house–it’s just what we like to do to make this time of year especially magical for our girls. We have 2.5 trees (in the playroom we put a little white metal led tree–does that count as a half?) and splashes of the season sprinkled throughout the rest of the house. You can find the everyday sources for everything in our home right here.
The Reading Room
We kept the tree in here minimal. It’s pre-lit, tall and skinny and from Lowe’s. It’s the kind where you can plug in the three sections together and it also plugs in the lights–pure magic for me and Chris. There is a little log reindeer next to it, you can barely see, but the girls love (also from Lowe’s), a bushel of indoor snowballs, and I added a few houses and trees to the shelves to Christmas them up.
We strung 3 lengths of faux, pre-lit garland (from Lowe’s) over the girls bunks. Greta sleeps with the twinkle lights on all night and we’re trying to get Faye ready for a Christmas Eve sleep down here–because what would be better? You can see how it looks at night right here.
The Living Room
Our flocked tree in the living room, we really let the girls go nuts on. We decorate it as a family, which means there are places where there’s a lot of ornaments and some bare spots. We layer on all the construction paper ice cream cones and mittens brought home from school. There’s an ornament from every year we’ve been married and every vacation we’ve taken. It’s the happiest tree, and a real joy to stare at in the evenings.
See more flocked trees here.
The Stockings Were Hung On the Staircase with Care…
It’s always tricky to figure out where to hang the stockings in our home. We do have a fireplace in the family room downstairs, but, if you remember, the mantle is very slim and wouldn’t accommodate stocking holders. Plus, we wouldn’t open presents down there on Christmas. So, while they seem to shift around each year, this year, they are on the stairs–which many of you mentioned is the place for them in your house too! The stockings are from here. The garland is from Lowe’s.
The Front Door landing is pretty small, decked it out with 2 strands of garland, leaning branches, bells on the door, and a little check basket (from Target dollar spot!) with a faux tree in it. I even put some holly berry in our house number box! For those that have asked, our layered rugs are still going strong–it helps that our porch is covered.
The Master Bedroom
We got a new corner chair in our room a few months ago and she’s a beaut. To be honest, I’ll probably never curl up and read a book in it–that’s what our big bed right next to it is for! But it actually is surprisingly comfortable and handy when we’re putting on shoes. And easy on the eyes and now a tiny bit festive with the same buffalo check basket as we used on the front porch and reading room, except this time with a flocked tree (I got at TJMaxx) inside. When you look into our room from the hall, you see this little corner first, and it is just the right amount of cheery. (Sources: Chair, light, pillow, frame is Rosemont from Framebridge)
The playroom we shared extensively right here. And details of our decked out kitchen can be found here.
We have a few Christmas touches we’re adding to the guest room we’ve been working on that we can’t wait to share this week. How does your house do the holidays?
Our wood grain Shaker cabinet fronts were designed for busy, high-traffic homes like ours. Clad with durable textured thermofoils, this line is compatible with Sektion, Akurum, Godmorgon, and Besta cabinets from IKEA. It's the perfect, practical way to add the warmth of wood to all the rooms of your home.
We have teamed up with Loloi to create a line of rugs that are as affordable as they are beautiful. This collection houses a great mix of traditional and modern rugs, in cottage-y colorways, as well as vintage-inspired beauties that you’ll want to roll out in every room.
We partnered with Stuga on a line of hardwood floors — The Ingrid is really livable, and the color is very neutral. It doesn’t lean warm or cool, it’s that just right in-between. We have really loved putting it everywhere in our house. It’s the best jumping-off point for design, no matter your interior style. In addition to being beautiful, Ingrid is really durable — we have three kids, and we always have a home construction project going on. Ingrid stands up to it all.
SHop all
Looking for our favorite things? A place to shop our home room by room, or just catch up on what Julia's wearing / loving right now? Browse the CLJ shop.
Befores, afters, mood boards, plans, failures, wins. We’ve done a lot of projects, and they’re all here.
We have a long-standing relationship with DIY, and love rolling our sleeves up and making it happen.
Even when you don’t want to rip down a wall, you can make that space in your home better. Right now.
A reader recently asked me if I’m starting to fully embrace traditional style and whether we still consider our house to be a “modern Colonial” and why. It was a really great question and so timely — I had really just been thinking about my approach to this home and how my style has changed […]
We've been doing this since 2009 and we've posted a whopping 24145+ blog posts and counting. You might need a little help searching, huh?
Another way for us to stay in touch! Joining our weekly newsletter gives you access to exclusive content, never-before-seen photos, your questions answered, and our favorite DIYs. Sign up below!
Welcome to our online community where we've posted home, DIY, style, renovations, and family since '09. Renovating our #cljmoderncottage in Idaho and headed for new adventures in Raleigh, NC. #cljfam #cljtransformations
Links
Get Around
Make yourself right at home
Portfolio
Design
Casual Friday
Projects
Lifestyle
Gift Guides
All Posts
Shop
RivrLinks
Links
Get Around
Make yourself right at home
Portfolio
Design
Casual Friday
Projects
Lifestyle
Gift Guides
All Posts
Shop
RivrLinks
Your home looks so beautiful. The clarity in the pictures are amazing. And i can watch the dog all day <3
I came across the article “37 Gorgeous Farmhouse Front Door Ideas to Give Your Home a Makeover” on the Home BNC website, and I noticed the image for number 33. I saw that you were listed as the source of the image. I am building a home and I LOVE this front door! I would love to find out where I could find it.
Check out this post for all that info!
I have double front doors. Is that too many rugs if I layer 2 check rugs and 2 doormats?
I would just get larger sizes and do 1.
Everything about this is gorgeous!! Can I ask where your front door is from? I’m having the hardest time finding something similar :/
Pretty looking tree and i love your dog. So cute.. Also the images look so high quality. Can you suggest me a good camera?
Love the Christmas vibe at your house! Festive and fun! :)
Truly spectacular! I am in awe of your home.
It is truly lovely. Can I ask where you purchased the buffalo plaid
container that has the faux snowballs in it?
Thanks so much!
Target!
Hi, your home is perfect! I love everything I see , I may need indoor snowballs! I love the pictures of your children making cookies with their dad. I really hope I don’t get my grammar corrected, I don’t often comment because I am not a great at writing but I do know a gorgeous home when I see one. Merry Christmas,K Sunday
And this is how real home looks like. This girls’s room looks just perfect. I will have to make something similar for my daughter. Thanks for sharing this.
I am LOVING all your holiday posts! I got the cookie jar because it was so darn adorable in your kitchen! And the gift ideas! I have a question though! I know you listed one of the dutch ovens in your shop links.. but I see you have a couple others also. Do you have a brand preference? I’m looking at the Le Creuset. Is it worth it?? And I can’t decide if I want blue or white. I normally go for white because it’s timeless but also love the blue. I would love your thoughts! :)
We have the lodge brand and anolon and both are fantastic. I’m sure le creuset is amazing, just a lot more money.
Everything is so, so beautiful and festive! Awesome job!! :)
Megan
http://www.lifeonshadylane.com
great picture of your chritmas tree at night! Would love to see what tools you guys use to get such great interior pictures at night.
I cannot recommend Grammarly enough… it’s a free web add-on that will check for spelling and more importantly, grammar errors.
“For those that have asked, our layered rugs are still going strong”
Here, it should be who, not that. People = who, things = that.
Is this nitpicky? Probably. But you’re publishing daily written work. It’s important to many of your readers.
Boo. Just be grateful people share their lives with us. Merry Christmas!
My same thought, Lisa! Who vs. that is such a common error but shouldn’t be for people who write as a profession.
LISA, if you are so concerned about grammar and well written phrases why dont you check “EL QUIJOTE” that´s a pretty long book to read. This blog is about decoration etc. Yes, you are nitpicky. Relax and enjoy the essence of this post.
We just started doing multiple trees in the past couple of years. Something I swore I would never do but I love hoe much more festive the house feels. There’s just something about a Christmas tree.
http://www.lettinginthelightblog.com/
Everything looks so cozy and magical. I love the girls’ room! Simple and sweet.
We just have one tree, and it is definitely a family tree. We have a mixed religion family so we keep it all pretty low-key. However, our house is much bigger now than the house we used to live in, and I would like more decorations, especially upstairs. We have a beautiful staircase now, and I really want to put garland on it this year. Many places I looked were sold out already, or the prices were out of our budget. I am going to keep my eyes open for discounted decorations after Christmas.
Our town is full of old houses and it looks like a snowglobe village. Many people go all out at Christmastime. :D It is very festive.
I bought a bunch of our decorations at Target pretty inexpensively! They have like 20-packs of maybe 1.5″ dia. ornaments for $5 a box, and 9 ft. length garland for $4. The garland is a little stringy, but for our table runner I just got two and wove them together haphazardly since, you know. $4. And then there’s always a couple of Cartwheel coupons, and mobile coupons, and my redcard…I think we ended up spending less than $100 for all of our decorations, including the tree!
Thank you, Kathy. I’ll take a look at Target.