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Christmas Living Room Tour
Only 16 days to go folks! Our weekends are pretty much packed solid until the big day so I wanted to get done decorating early enough to actually be able to enjoy all the holiday feelings. I mentioned before that I had done a big cleanse earlier in the season, and while I put out some of our usual decor in the rest of the house I tried to only add new stuff to the living room this year (you can check out the full living room reveal here)
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Maybe it comes from the house I grew up in, but I like to feel like Christmas has exploded onto every surface (No minimalist approach for this girl!) But instead of just buying stuff I concentrated on adding handmade pieces wherever I could. I already shared the mantel in an earlier post, so this week I wanted to quickly share the rest of the room.
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The biggest addition was the village that now lives on the shelf above the TV. I quite literally got bored one day and thought “hey, I’ve got tons of scrap wood in the garage – what can I do with it?” and started cutting out house shapes, building this village as I went.
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The whole village is almost 10 feet long, so I attached a few pieces together at a time to make it easier to display and store. Once sanded, I painted it all with white chalk paint. I added some pine and holly branches from the trees outside, as well as a bunch of bottle brush trees from Target’s Dollar Spot. I may add some more colorful trees next year, but I’m really happy with how it turned out.
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On the other shelves I added in some more pine branches (the little white bells are from IKEA a few years ago), a faux white antler I found at Michaels, and made a hand-painted sign with this lovely quote I found on Pinterest…..oh and my husband is OBSESSED with Poinsettias so I’ve had to utilize every space I could to display them.
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The tree got a little makeover this year too. My husband insists that Christmas trees need colored lights (in trade I get to keep the outside lights all white) but to make it a little more cohesive I found lights that only had Red, Green, and Blue lights. I had him mix in a strand of white lights, and picked up a few strands of white beaded garland from Target (which he correctly realized look like strands of popcorn) and presto – it looks great!
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Last year the tree skirt and the Roomba had a contentious holiday season, so when I saw this galvanized metal tree collar from Hearth and Hand I grabbed it immediately and it’s so much better.
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On the bookcases behind the tree my husband had the great idea to set up some of his father’s old train sets. The boys of course love playing with them and I love that it’s kind of a modern take of the “train around the tree” tradition.
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One of the main reasons I built the picture ledges during the living room makeover was so that I could have a place to put our Santa Pictures from each year and I’m happy to say they’re working out wonderfully. Of course, I couldn’t resist even more Bottle Brush trees, and I was able to sneak in our pixelated Reindeer from Ikea.
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On either side of the fireplace I added two ornament shadow boxes based on these plans from Shanty-2-Chic and filled them with two pretty mercury glass ornaments from Home Goods and some more Pine branches.
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Behind the couch I built one more ornament display stand to replace the planter box that is usually there (plans also from Shanty-2-Chic) and filled it with ornaments from Target (the stars and the Snowman are from this year’s Wondershop; the balls are from last year).
And of course, I couldn’t resist some new pillows and blankets for the couch! The big light blue one and the red striped pillow I found at HomeGoods…I honestly am super cheap when it comes to pillows and HomeGoods is my go to place – they’re a good price and almost all of them have removable covers and down-filled inserts. I went a little crazy in the blanket department and bought 3 of the big cozy green blankets on Black Friday (in my defense they’re 3 different colors and they were only $18 that day)….oh yeah, and I also got that little gray plaid one too (for only $10!)
Speaking of that big green blanket – I don’t usually do this but I have to share one more thing…..this amazing little tool from ConAir! Those blankets are amazingly comfy, but they leave lots of nasty little green fuzz on the couch – this little battery operated baby to the rescue! I’ll post a video of how it works on my Instagram, but I just lightly brush it over the couch and it sucks up all of the pilling. It’s only $12, can be used on all kinds of fabrics, and for some reason comes in 4 or 5 different colors – so it would make an awesome stocking stuffer!!
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Even though Cash isn’t feeling the holiday spirit, I sure am…now to cuddle under the blanket and enjoy the lights!
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