A Fresh Start

I always love starting fresh every January. It’s especially fun because my husband gets the kids to help him put away the Christmas stuff, while I get to stare at the clean surfaces and imagine all the decorating possibilities. I’m still pondering those, but when I figure it out, I’ll have some more January pictures for you! For now, here’s one of my favorite Christmas pictures. These three kids (and kitty) know how to make a huge mess, but since they also help clean up, I can sit back with my coffee and enjoy the ruckus.

On Christmas morning, we enjoyed our tradition of eggnog coffee cake and reading the Christmas story from the Bible, and I had an awesomely-huge latte in a Christmas mug. Then came the ruckus and then the bareness of the floor near the tree. And it was still all pleasant and festive for a few days with the sparkle of the tree and leftovers of this cake, which turns out to be the best food on earth:

But once the tree went down, so did the magical sparkle I had grown accustomed to in our living room. I started to question everything and wonder why everything seemed so bleak.

Then I figured out the real problem. We have some really crappy lighting in there. The sparkle of the Christmas tree made it just perfect, and taking it down made me realize that the room could use a little more love. And some curtains, for goodness’ sake.

Good lessons, I tell you. Savor each day, and invest in good lighting.

[And if you have no idea how to do this, contact us for a Design Consultation and we will come to the rescue.]

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We’ve been working on a bunch of projects, and things on the main floor are almost done. We painted the bookshelves by the fireplace, finally! This was a big dilemma because I thought that they looked good being wood-colored, just not this 1990’s honey-yuck wood color. It’s a little bit labor-intensive to change the wood color, though. Here was the before:

We tested several colors of light gray from Sherwin Williams to find one that looked good with the peachy brick of the fireplace. I like the brick color, but it is often hard to make it look good with my decor. But, we were finally successful with Popular Gray, which has a pinkish tinge to it in the world of grays, blending well with the brick. I wish I could show you a full-sized after picture, but the cabinet doors are still being put on at the moment. Here’s a little preview, though:

More is coming soon. We kept the same Pottery Barn bin pulls on the doors and I love the new look. It makes the room a lot lighter.

The front living room where the tree was will be getting curtains, which I am working on at the moment. I usually make the curtains out of some cool fabric I’ve come across (or drop cloths, like I did in our last house, below) but I don’t exactly know what they’ll be like yet:

Here’s what the bare space looks like now:

I also decided to put curtains in the dining room, which I made out of twin-sized duvet covers I had from Ikea that never ended up on the kids’ beds. It was super easy and cheap, as is having your 8-year-old cut your 6-year-old’s hair: