No Place Like Home for the Holidays

Here we are, decking the halls for our first Christmas at home in Tallahassee!

Our TV is now where our Christmas tree was last year, so we decided to block our back door and put our little tree in front of it. It looks so cozy in our little apartment, and Carson went the extra step and put colorful lights (which believe it or not are from the Christmas we were engaged so we've gotten lots of bang for our buck) outside. 

Merry Almost-Christmas!

Decked.

We decorated for Christmas the Sunday before Thanksgiving because we wanted to enjoy the pretty Christmas lights and decorations for as long as possible, and because we knew we didn't want to get home from South Carolina and immediately set things up. 

We purchased a TV on Black Friday, and with the living room set-up that we had, there wasn't a good spot for it. So while we didn't get home and begin decorating the house, we did get home and immediately begin rearranging the living room. This set-up is different for us, but we're liking it so far, and you can see the glow of the Christmas tree from the kitchen now too!

The only problem we have is that we're the only ones to enjoy this set-up. Anyone want to come visit and see our Christmassy apartment?

Remember when I made this wreath a couple of years ago? Here's a tip if you make one: glue the ornaments balls to the tops. It will take you longer, but if you don't, it will somehow break every year and you'll find yourself performing wreath surgery approximately every 365 days. Were I to make this again, I'd not only take the extra glue step, I'd also use E6000 glue instead of just hot glue.

The Gallery

Last fall, Carson went to a conference and left me alone. I got a lot done that weekend, making crafts, preparing dinners for the next week and cleaning my house. 

I also did a lot of decorating. Not a LOT, but I definitely hung things on the walls. I really don't like bare walls. They don't feel homey to me. I don't even notice them in other people's homes, but they drive me nuts in mine. That's why my house probably looks to you like a lot of chaos - there's stuff on the walls in every room. 

Anyway, at that time, we still didn't have a couch in our living room, so it was basically an empty space with boxes of decorative pillows and a sad rocking chair. There are windows, the entryway, a fireplace and doorways into other rooms on all the other walls, but there's one long wall with nothing on it. Poor lonely little room. 

So at approximately midnight one of the nights he was gone, I gathered a bunch of pictures and stuck them on the wall, so they filled it up. 

It was meant to fill a space and be a temporary part of our wall.

But although I loved the happy reminders of friends and family, I didn't like that pictures fell off, or that it made the room look messy, or that it was basically my face a million different times (Carson doesn't take as many pictures as I do... shocking, I know). 

So one day, I decided I'd had enough.

 I'm not sure what exactly motivated me, but my plans for a nap after work went out the window and I gathered spare frames and laid them out on the floor to make an arrangement. That proved a bit difficult, so I hung one of the canvases on the wall, then arranged the others around it and kept hanging until I liked it. 

It's imperfect and off-centered and I didn't have the time to do a really good job so there's a little blue poster putty hanging out in between the frames, but I love it. 

And that's that. Except later on, I bought some spray paint to make the frames all black. 

Our Cheery Home

So I really love this house so much that I'm afraid that people think that I'm bragging every time I show pictures of it. And I guess in a way I am, because it's so cute and so perfect. It's really going to be sad to leave such a cute house - we really lucked out. It's fun to rearrange things, take old things out and put them in new places, and to sit and admire the great wood floors and the fun archways and trim.

I'm really loving this bookcase in its new home downstairs. It's fun to see our books in a different way - partially because they're organized in a different way, and partially because we could never really see them from far away while they were upstairs.

As much as I love new books, I love the cracked, worn bindings of some of my old favorites. 

On this shelf, I put a box I bought in Ukraine one year, a picture from my trip to the Netherlands, and this neat canvas/painting my mom bought for me last Christmas. I think it's from here. I went through a phase my first year in college where I read almost nothing but poetry (LOVED my literature class), so this shelf is in tribute to that.

One this shelf, some of my favorite books, a picture from the day we got engaged, the painting of Washington I did on a cardboard box, and a little owl from my mother-in-law that's actually a lip gloss but looks too cute to use.

And then of course, we have the basket of children's books. We found a couple more fun ones at a local thrift store (the same one that provided us with a table, a mirror, a rocking chair and our coffee table). I never put my Christmas books away so they're in there too, which makes it look like we added more than two books.

I found this great little Etsy shop with quite a few things that I wanted, and decided to pick one small thing to purchase. I chose this little print. It's actually a postcard, but I wanted to put it in a frame that I already had, so it's just perfect.

On this little table, there's a crooked lamp, a Scentsy warmer from my sister, an owl vase (from my mother-in-law and yes the owls are an intended theme - click here for that story) and a wedding picture on a canvas.

The little stand I bought to hold the picture up was apparently made for holding feathers, because it kept tipping over, so Carson bent wire to make it stand up, thinking it was a temporary fix and lo and behold, it worked perfectly!

This isn't in the living room, but it's right next door, so I thought I'd include. These shelves had been getting a little disorganized and crazy. There were plastic cups in one of them, plates on another, so I took everything down and rearranged. Now my cookbooks have a home (I typically use the internet for recipes, but they're easy to access with the help of a nearby chair) and everything is nice and tidy again. I love these cheery shelves. 

Touches of Green

Though it seems far away, Spring is coming! 

Because I have been to a Target recently, I know that most of the nation thinks of little bunnies and nasty Cadbury eggs when they think of Spring, but I don't. I think of sunshine and budding, growing plants. 

I haven't kept a plant alive for, well, ever. My parents are gifted in that area but I completely missed out on the "growing things" gene. I still like the idea of plants in my house, so right now there are plenty of green touches around as a tribute to the coming season. 

On the table, we have this lovely pot of fake grass, purchased three years ago with a Crate and Barrel gift card

And the mantel has green books, fake green plants, a green flower painting and pictures with green in the background (that part was an accident as I just wanted silver frames but it works!)

My dear Brooke bought me these as a hostess gift in December. I've always wanted to grow the real ones, but given my success in that area, these faux succulents fit the bill nicely.

I had a gift card to spend at Bed, Bath and Beyond and spotted this in the clearance section. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, but now that it's at home, I really love it. 

Little Changes, Part Two

Part one here.

So, I've always wanted curtains... long, touch-the-floor curtains. I've considered purchasing them, but have discovered that I am frugal, at least where curtains are concerned. I've thought about making them, but to get fabric I'd really love, and to sew all of those long straight stitches scared me; plus, it's not always the most cost-effective way to go either. 

Every time I went to Target, or TJ Maxx, or Tuesday Morning or a similar store, I'd see what was up for grabs in the clearance section. Apparently, people aren't fond of purple and dark red... because those are the ones primarily on sale. I'm not fond of super mismatched curtains, nor is my color scheme purple and red, so I left the stores disappointed that I never found a set of drapes for $8. 

Long story short (not sure why I AM making this a long story), Groupon had a sale on long brown curtains - $30 for 4. Done. They shipped faster than the promised 6 weeks (I think they came in 1) and they work perfectly. They let in light but also let the room look more "finished". 

And then Bed, Bath and Beyond had two polka dot valances on sale for $4 each, so I bought those, knowing that though they may not go with our room currently, they work, and they could possibly work in a future guest room or kids' room... I felt like I had to buy them because I couldn't pass up $4 and had a bunch of gift cards.

The other change is in our room... we moved the rocking chair (Carson found it at a thrift store) upstairs under this little window. It makes a cozy nook for reading or just storing folded clothes (*ahem*).

Love how homey our little space is getting!

Little Changes

As the winter days go on and on, I enjoy finding projects to do. I like to prettify things and be happy that if I can't change what's outside the walls of this house, I CAN do something about he inside.

The other night, we acted on a plan I've had for weeks, but couldn't do myself...

We had two bookshelves upstairs and I liked that - it was nice seeing those old familiar titles every time I went to my room. I don't like to keep my books to myself though - I wanted them in a common place where we could see them and I had the perfect place - the living room. So one night, deciding that I had had enough, I unloaded the bookshelf in about five minutes. 

Carson took it downstairs (not to make him seem less strong but it's one of those cheap Target shelves so thankfully he didn't need my help at all) and moments later I was reloading books onto the shelves. They're no longer categorized and alphabetized (I'm sure it will drive me crazy and that will happen) but I love them in their new space. 

What do you think? Do you enjoy the little changes that cold (or just long and dreary for those of you in snow-free places) winter days seem to bring about?

This is a post about curtains

I think that the reason that I am at a loss when people say, "What's new, Lindsay?" is that I don't have a lot of new. We work, Carson goes to school, we go to church... but nothing particularly thrilling happens during the week. 

And then... we got curtains.

I know.

 ABOUT TIME - that's what you were thinking, isn't it?

(I've been thinking that it was about time since right after we got married, except then I realized that I am far too cheap to want to spend $32.50 [or even $10] on just ONE curtain panel, when I'd definitely want more than just one. Thankfully Groupon had a deal or these windows would have been naked for probably forever. And then I found two polka dot valances for $4 and thought that $4 was too good to pass up... and one day we'll hang them in a baby's room or something because they're polka dots but for now they're in ours because I HAD to buy them and they didn't have grown-up looking curtains for $4)

Now you want to see my windows, right? 

Well, feast your eyes. 

What have I been doing lately? Oh, just admiring my new curtains. That's all.