Christmas Eve Snow!

The first snowfall of the year came to our area on Christmas Eve!  Needless to say, there were some excited little people tripping around the house that day, and some excited bigger ones too:)

Red and white and snow

Snow-covered lanterns that flank the front door of the House from 1800

Snow on the spine of a beloved garden phlox

Christmas Eve snow on the evergreen shrubs 

Bee Balm skeletons, covered in the first snowfall

I loved the little dusting of Christmas Eve snow this year, but not so much the three inches topped with freezing rain that came two days later.  More is coming on Saturday, and all I can think about is spring!

A Vintage Tablecloth at the Window

I changed my mind about the kitchen curtains.  I still like the idea of incorporating yellow and black into my vintage-theme kitchen, so I dug through the tablecloth drawer and found a pale yellow vintage tablecloth that hub's grandmother gave us awhile back.  It's linen and too nice to cut into, so I folded it carefully and attached black rings.

I hung it inside the window on a black tension rod I picked up out at Lowe's this morning, and I really love the look.  I may take it down and do a little strategic pressing, but for the most part, it's done!  So simple, no sew, vintage window treatment.

It filters the sunshine into a warm glow in the afternoon, and looks great at night too, against the soft yellow of the new backsplash:)

That's my kind of project:)

Deco's in the Vintage Green Cabinet

I managed to do a little decorating today, in between my Christmas cleaning and other obligations.

We call this the green cabinet, for obvious reasons.  It's an old secretary with a flip-down desk that I picked up at an antique mall to celebrate moving into my first apartment quite a few years back.

 With the glass doors closed, the lights from the christmas tree reflect.

Rusty lantern, another attic find.  I can't burn a candle inside my cabinet, so I popped in a frosted glass ornament that catches the light in almost the same way.

Pretty glass ornaments in a vintage milk glass sugar bowl.  This makes me happy:)

Atomic Kitchen? or Funky Mid-Century?

I want to make the curtains for my kitchen.  I'm in the process of updating the paint and finishing a bead board backsplash, and the curtains I have up now just don't jive.

My color scheme is going to incorporate pale yellow and gray, with pops of colors like black and burgundy.    After much research all over Etsy, here are a few of my fave fabrics:

Atomic Kitchen

Midnight Butterfly

Floral Butterfly

Funky Mid-Century

I'm picturing a simple cafe curtain, mounted half-way up the window with a tension rod and those metal rings that clip onto the fabric.  Like these, over at The Bungalow Blog

Don't you just love em?  I hope mine look this cute.

Hallmark Ornament Tradition

We started the Hallmark ornament tradition in our family, back when I was pregnant with our first little bundle of joy.  That year, we bought the Parent's-to-Be ornament:

Many, although not every, year since, we've indulged a bit around the holidays:)

Our First Christmas Together Ornament.  Hub's sister got us this one.

Toy Story

This one plays the Nutcracker Suite while the ballerinas dance.  

Corinne, from Barbie and the Three Musketeers, which is HUGE at our house right now.

The fun part is letting the kids pick out the ornament that represents what they really loved that particular year, hence Toy Story, Barbie, and the Ballerinas.  On my son's desk is a Tom and Jerry that he has proclaimed too delicate to hang on the tree, as Tom's foot has fallen off more than once.

Christmas Lighting at City Park

Tonight is the annual lighting at City Park in our little hometown.  I'm hoping we make it out there to catch all the excitement.  There's a lake and wild ducks and geese in our park, and it looks gorgeous when the Christmas lights go up.

Here are pics I took of the park after Christmas in 2009:

Isn't it beautiful?

A Cat in the Key Basket

Lately I've been on a mission to declutter and organize the House from 1800.  We've been here a little over four years, and in that time we've amassed what looks like a lifetime of belongings, objects, collections...ie:  clutter.

My latest accomplishment was the re-organization of our computer desk, which takes up a corner in the livingroom.  I placed a small Christmas basket in the cubby nearest the front door to hold keys, wallets, and lanyards, and to spread a little Christmas cheer:)

This is what it ended up holding:

What?

A New Slant on the Laundry Room

So today I had the awesome idea of removing the old, dated cabinet doors in the laundry room, painting the cabinetry, and making it open shelving.

We've never really used those upper cabinets for much because they're behind the dryer and awkward to reach.  I thought if the shelves were open, they would lend themselves more to a useful purpose.  This is what the cabinets were currently housing:

Not really the most functional use of space in the laundry room, right?

I was picturing something like these open shelves over at Blissfully Ever After.  Beautiful, aren't they?

But when I took the doors off the cabinets behind the dryer in The House from 1800, this is what I found:

Just a little crooked!  I had to giggle when I saw the slanting shelves.  I just love that someone before us was a DIY'er just like me:)

I think I'm going to leave them in all their catawampus glory, paint them, and add some pretty baskets or containers:)  Beadboard in the backs would be lovely too.  I am a huge fan of bead board these days.

Replacing the Tile in the Kitchen

So this was our kitchen floor tile when we first bought the House from 1800:

The grout was dark gray.  The tiles had once been a light grayish white.  They were cracked in places, and pieces of grout had come loose.  It was nothing to be working in the kitchen and suddenly step on a big ole piece of popped grout.  ouch.  So we did this:

It took half a day to break up the old tile and get it out, and then a year and a half to replace it.  I did mention I'm a little bit of a procrastinator, right?

After I scraped the subfloor, I realized that the guy before us had mortered the tiles directly to plywood, and ALL the how-to-tile video guys on YouTube said this was a no-no.  So we laid backer board.  We found Hardibacker at our local Lowe's, and it did the trick.  No more popped grout!  This is the tile we eventually settled on...I'm so glad we had taken the date off the camera at this point.

We used ivory-colored grout and sealed it with a spray:

And now it looks gorgeous:)

Eventually, I hope to stain the cabinets a dark cherry and build an island where the table is pictured.  I found the idea on Pinterest, and I can't wait to try it:) 

As far as laying tile goes, I hope to NEVER again have to do it.

Thanksgiving with Mom

So we spent Thanksgiving night at Mom's this year:)  After feasting on favorites like Turkey with sage stuffing and home-made noodles, we put up the Christmas tree.

Mom is a great collector of Christmas ornaments, and it's nothing to see three ornaments of varying sizes hanging from the same branch.

She also takes the trophy for Christmas deco organization this year.  Every ornament was neatly accounted for and painstakingly packed away after Christmas last year.  Who knew egg cartons made great ornament holders?

If you have any 8 year old boys at your house, you might find hedgehogs in the tree...

Or Beanie Boos, if there's a 7-ish chick...

We just love Grandma's glass ornaments:)

Add a vintage star tree-topper from the attic:)  This still had the $6 McCrory's tag on it.

Happy Thanksgiving:)

The Day Before Thanksgiving

And I've been sorting through mountains of boxes which contain mostly Christmas decorations.

For the moment, I've made things worse.  Tissue paper and old tinsel and strings and strings of lights fight for space on my kitchen floor.

I rescued these handmade wooden blocks from The Attic.  They look at home on our mantle:)

Chaos Before the Holiday!

Thanksgiving will be here next week!  Hard to believe we're all ready heading into the Holiday Season.

Here at the House From 1800, everything is in chaos.  The logistics of trying to meld the contents of two homes into one smallish-with-little-storage home are frightening.  Right now my living room is full of boxes, my countertops are scattered with dishes I'm trying to sort through:  what to keep, what to get rid of.

I really miss that HGTV show, Mission Organization.  It kept me on my toes.  I could use a little of that right now.

Regardless, we'll have a happy Holiday here:)  We might have to scoot around a few piles of  "stuff", but there will be peanut butter pie at the end of the tunnel, and roast turkey with stuffing, and Mom's home made noodles.

It's all good:)

Random Pics:)

Some favorite pics of our House from 1800:)

Job's Tears and lavender garden phlox in the spring

Lanterns from Mom

Double Tiger lily and herbs on the kitchen windowsill

All the odd angles of our little fixer-upper.

Back yard snow through the French doors.

Geese in the back yard, coming in off the creek.

French doors and bowls.

Vinca, in a pretty dish

My pretty double-pink rose from the distressed rack at Lowe's

Walnuts drying on the back deck.