Fake #plantlady

     I used to think I had a black thumb…then I realized that the only things I can’t grow are flowering plants. (Weird, but true.) The past few seasons I have had such a great time buying all the leafy green things. No trip to Lowe’s (and there are many) is complete without a trip around the garden center, and I’ve even branched out (plant pun not intended) to an actual nursery a time or two.

We’re plant people now!

     I love filling up the leaning garden Keith built for our porch, and have developed quite the terra cotta pot collection.  When I had a little luck outside, I thought the natural next step would be to move some plants inside. Plants make a room feel homier and brighter…and then I realized that I live in the most poorly lit house in America. We face north and south, which is great for our utility bills, but miserable for our plants. No room gets enough sunlight to keep much of anything alive.

     I’ve got some mother-in-law tongues, but was needing some variety…some indestructible variety. Enter Commercial Palm Trees. I’ve got to tell you, I have always been hesitant about artificial plants of any kind. I have seen more than enough dust covered ficus trees and faux greenery to last a lifetime, but a quick trip to the website, and I could tell (1) this was not a scam, and (2) these plants looked real! Commercial Palm Trees has a huge selection of products and services and the customer service I received was amazing.

     I selected these adorable boxwood topiaries and could not be more pleased with them. The glazed pots were included and are the perfect neutral. As soon as they arrived, I knew they would be perfect just about anywhere. For now, I have one on my mantel and one in the dining room on my favorite giant basket tray.

Ignore the fact that it looks like we’re on the surface of the sun and focus on my boxwood!

     I never thought I was the artificial plant type (is that a type of person?), but these boxwoods might be changing my mind. If you’re in the market for artificial plants…and you should be, they are kind of having a moment right now…use my code BLOGGER10 for 10% off any product (excluding custom). They’ve got a huge selection of all kinds of plants, so you’ll be able to find something great no matter your style! Are you a #plantlady too? Let me know what you find!

Christmastime is Here

     It is really and truly the most wonderful time of the year!  We’ve been decorated since a few days before Thanksgiving, and it’s all I can do to drag myself away from the decorations to go to the mailbox, or grocery shop, or work.  I’m in favor of a worldwide, month long holiday for all of December so we can settle in and be cozy.  Who’s with me?

     Our tree…oh our tree.  So we bought our tree at Lowe’s Thanksgiving night.  It was dark. It was rainy. I ran a buggy into the sliding glass door on the way out and knocked it off the runner.  Once we got this thing home…y’all, I think it kept growing.  I think it’s still growing!
     It’s kind of bald and skeleton-y, but it has charmed me.  It’s significantly more humongous than our tree last year, and it was not easy to attach ornaments to it…but its personality has spoken to me!

     

     My shelves are probably my favorite part of our entire house. They make everything feel so cozy and inviting, and I love decorating them for Christmas.  The giant nativity on the left is on loan from my mother.  My Nana made it, and it is huge. the camels are probably the size of a kitten.  The mantel is much more full this year, but I stuck with the “woodland Christmas” theme from last year. The shelf on the right has been one of the most fun little nooks in the house! Davis’s Christmas books and toys are on full display, and he has had the best time playing with them.

     I bought Davis several Christmas books at TJ Maxx right around Thanksgiving, and when I got home and started opening boxes to decorate, I found all of these that I had totally forgotten about from last year!  He is still really into his nativities, and will even find baby Jesus and tell me that he has a blanket and is in a “manket” (manger)…then he stares at me until I sing Away in a Manger…

     

     That wraps up the living room.  It is so homey and glowy and perfectly us.  We don’t do fancy Christmas at our house.  We do gaudy, overdone, and busy, and we LIKE it!

     The dining room hasn’t changed much since last year.  We still have the carpet.  We still don’t have chairs.  I did add a giant mirror, so there’s that.

 

          I also added a giant green cabinet and the basket tray.  Weirdly enough, our dining room houses some of my favorite things in the whole house, but still hasn’t quite gelled in my mind yet…I think it’s the carpet.

     The kitchen has a few little happies sprinkled around, but it’s mostly the same as last year.  We’ve got the sparkly bow on our front door wreath and the ceramic carolers (also made by Nana) in the back bathroom…because who doesn’t need to be serenaded in there?

     I am so thankful to have this home and this life to do Christmas in.  When Davis gets excited to play with his nativities, my heart could burst!  The fact that he knows baby Jesus is in a “manket” is almost too much for me.  I know it’s just a “trick” right now, but more than that, it’s a foundation.  How marvelous, how wonderful, how incredible that our God wrote His story for all of us. As an adult I experience a new aspect of Christmas every year, but it’s simple enough for our children!  As I get older, I’m more and more aware of the fact that it’s not the “Christmas story.” These were real people who lived a real life in a real place in service of a REAL God. 

     The same God who formed the earth is the same God who sent his only Son to the broken world, and He is the same God who is still writing His story!  I am in awe of His first coming, and filled with hope and joy at what He is still doing and will do when He comes again.  Christmas is the best kind of reset for our spirits.  A time to rest and refocus on the fact that the Jesus in the manger, however lovely, however worthy, however precious will not return as a gentle baby but as a conquering King!  We will turn our eyes on Him in a wholly new kind of reverence and awe!  I can’t wait!  Christmas isn’t the end of our year, and it’s not the end of the story.  It is the most beautiful beginning!

Merry Christmas!

Halloween Home Tour

     Soooo…these decorations will be coming down probably tomorrow, but since they’ve been up for a month, it’s high time I blogged them!  I love Halloween, and I’ve had the best time making our house a little spooky.  Also, I couldn’t find my camera, so these are just plain old iPhone pictures.

This is on our front door.  The wreath I made right after we got married, and I love changing out its accent seasonally.  The bat is a little wooden hanger I found at Hobby Lobby a few years ago.  I just twist tied it to the wreath.

The giant basket tray is from Dirt Cheap (originally Target I think), and it is everything.  The yummy pumpkin waffle candle came from WALMART.  I instagrammed about them, but these fancier candles are back with the cleaning supplies and are changed out seasonally.  They have three wicks and smell so pretty.  The 4x4 canvas is mine, and I kind of want to carry it everywhere I go.

I looooove decorating our mantel.  Our fireplace sticks waaaay out in the living room, so if it’s going to be a little obnoxious, I might as well help it out…right?  I’ve seen paper bats everywhere, and call me #basic, but I love them.  Mine are a little cartoonier than I was planning, but I still think they work.

     Keith bought me the Halloween tree last year for Christmas (because he knows the way to my heart).  I was going to dress up the bottom with some sparkly green and purple tulle, but it was stuffed away in a box, and I didn’t have the energy to dig it out.  I have big plans of printing Halloween pictures each year and stuffing the tree.  Maybe when Davis is a little older and doesn’t hate crafting, we’ll make some ornaments for it too!

     If you squint or zoom, you can see my Halloween village on the mantel.  I bought a Christmas village from Dollar Tree and sprayed it black (and added GLITTER this year).  I really want more pieces, but our Dollar Trees have been kind of pitiful lately.

     Davis has been surprisingly well behaved with the decor! I have a glimmer of hope for my Christmas tree(s)… He hasn’t bothered the tree at all, and only occasionally stops to point out the cat’s eyes or tell it “nooooo noooo” (which is apparently what all cats say).

Aaaand a wide shot…which I mostly include to remind myself how pretty the house looks when it’s picked up.  Sigh.

     The clock is ticking y’all!  This week I’ll get my cozy cottage all Thanksgivinged up, and in about three weeks, it’ll be a straight up Christmas wonderland in here!  I’m going to attempt to get some pictures of Davis at our Fall Fest tonight, and maybe I’ll get my tail in gear to blog a little more.  My mother told me today that I may just have to “burn the midnight oil…” #wisdom

New House: The Afterish Dining Room

     When I last I left you, you were staring at our boring brown box of a dining room.  Since then, I’ve managed to steal away time for a few pictures and a mostly completed look.  Just to remind you, this is where we started…

This is taken from the opposite angle, but I think it gives the best view of what we’re working with.  Also it’s the least blurry and yellow.  I am hopeless with a camera.  Flash, no flash, lights on, lights off, windows open, windows shut…doesn’t matter.  My pictures are always yellow and slightly crooked.

     I realized when taking these pictures how empty it still looks in here, but there are plans in place.  Those plans just don’t include me spending all the dollars to get some more furniture.  I’m kind of looking for chairs…but kind of not in a hurry.

The church pew was the first piece of furniture we bought for this room, and it may be my favorite piece in the house.

     We stumbled upon the pew at a local antique store and snapped it up.  I have been wanting one for such a long time, and they can be really hard to find and really expensive.  The table came from another local antique/junk store and I love that it’s dinged up without being “distressed.”  The light fixture came from my grandmother’s shed, where it had been my whole life…waiting on me.

 
The valance matches one we put in the kitchen and is made of foam board!  The armoire had a former life as an ugly television cabinet until it was painted and antiqued by a family friend.  Now it houses our files, printer, and computers.

     The platter is lettered with one of my favorite hymns – Come Thou Fount.  This room is by no means finished.  We’re still planning on redoing floors at some point, and I would love to get matching upholstered chairs for either end of the table and a bench for the front.  I say it every time, but I really like how this room turned out.  I use it more than I thought I would when we first moved, and once we have a little more seating, I think we’ll get even more use out of it.  It’s a nice light balance to the living room, but the accents really complement each other.

New House: The After Living Room

     Today is the day!  I actually took pictures of our fancy new living room and am so excited to share them!  We’re not exactly done with this room, but we are 99% closer than we were.  Before I start, how about a big, fat round of applause for Keith, my DIY, painting hero.

     We love it.  My sister is the one who starting this navy train rolling.  Her living room is a fun green-ish gold (that sounds ugly, but it is soooo fun), and I needed a bold living room too…because I’m a little sister, and that’s what we do.  I obviously didn’t want the same color, and I couldn’t wrap my head around a bright blue.  We couldn’t do kelly green because of my favorite chair, and yellow was a no because 1. no and 2. yellow looks bad on me.  I was very scared of navy, and the fear didn’t go away until the entire room was done, but I’m in love.  After approximately 568,746,351 paint chips and four samples, we went with Rogue Blue by Valspar. 

     Like any sane person, I was worried that the blue would be too dark (especially since this room only has one window), but it’s much brighter than I expected.  The vaulted ceiling keeps things from feeling too gloomy, and looking from the front of the room, you can see into the kitchen and dining room which are both very light.  Looking from the other angle, you see the window with light colored curtains.

     The window isn’t huge, but we cheated its size by hanging the curtains at the edge of the window, so you’re getting the full amount of light through it.  We keep the door open a lot during the day when it’s nice, and the really helps out too. 

     This is not a true representation of the color; it’s way too dark! The first and second picture are much better, but I wanted to show all angles.  At some point we would love to rip up the carpet and do wood floors in here, the dining room, and down the hall.

     Making this crazy bold choice has really made this feel like our house.  I like things that are a little different, and my decorating style is definitely my own (I’m not beige.), and this room came together just how I wanted it to.  I’m left to assume that Keith feels just as passionately, because he would not have climbed these walls otherwise.
     Next on my list to blog about is the dining room…another favorite!  You can see it in some of these pictures, but I’ll be back with alllllll the details…sometime.  In the meantime, I’ll be cozied up in my favorite room in the house.

New House: The Before Living Room

     Now that we’ve been here for six months and have painted nearly every wall, it’s high time that I actually take pictures and share them. Our living room is pretty much done, but it wouldn’t be a reveal if I didn’t show you the extremely gold befores. Please know that when I say “gold,” I do not mean in the fabulous Olympics way…I mean in the harvest gold horror kind of way.

If you’re in the math business, calculate that we have 12 shelves that are 6 feet wide by 1 foot deep. We have 72 square feet of shelf. Just reading that makes me feel like I need to dust. This picture is taken in the corner by the front door.

This is the same wall as above but in the other corner with my back to the front window.

     Let’s discuss the carpet. It may look unassuming and neutral. It’s not. It is white interwoven with red and green specks. I do not love it…we’re going to look at some other options very soon. We want to do a dark hardwood in the living room, dining room, and down the hall.

The top is taken with my back to the dining room. The bottom is taken with my back to the kitchen. The spots on the wall are not avant garde art choices. They’re spackle and paint samples. We’re going bold.

     We love our new house, and I love my husband for climbing these tall, tall walls to paint. The new living room feels like ours (which is great since it is…). I almost chickened out on the paint color, but once it was done and I took a few breaths…it was love. Give me some time to pick up Davis’s toys, and I’ll get some pictures of the finished product!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

     It is Christmastime in the McGuire house, and I am so excited to show you around!  In my estimation, there are approximately elevnty thousand ornaments, seventy-five nativities, fifteen hundred lights, and three stockings.  We are loving celebrating in our new home, and I have had the best time making everything festive.

I don’t why it is so hard to get a decent picture of a Christmas tree…
This is our first married year with a real tree, and I am in looove!  We put all of our personal ornaments on this tree so I can see them all the time!

     My tree style is definitely “more is more".”  I start with white lights near the trunk then colored lights on the outer branches (and by I, I mean my husband).  Then we do the “stuff ins” – big things that don’t hang.  I’m actually going to Dollar Tree sometime this week to buy giant bows for stuff ins.  I get two of each color and stick them together back to back to make a ball (thank my mother for that one!).  Stuffed animals, books, and stockings work as stuff ins too.  The gnomes live under the tree every year.  They’re a much sweeter alternative to that creepy elf…

This is the  closest you can get to standing in my living room…unless I know you in real live person, in which case, come on!  The shelves don’t actually angle back like that, but there was no way to take a picture straight on without blocking out some of the fun.  This year I left all of the shelf décor and just added the Christmas to it, but I have dreams of filling those babies to bursting with all Christmas!

Our stockings came from TJ Maxx or Marshalls a few years ago, and Davis’ came from Lands End.  I love it so much…I may have gotten a little misty when it arrived.

Two of my favorite nativities.  The others are nestled in the shelves.

    
Silver tree and my most favorite Santa pillow of all time!

     That’s the living room in all its coziness.  If I didn’t live in the most poorly lit house in America, I would be able to show you how glowy it is.  You’ll have to stop by for that.  Let’s back into the dining room and see some more of my favorite things!

    
There’s not a great place to put a tree in here…but I made it work.  This one has more of a color scheme than the living room trees.  Of course I love all of my ornaments, but this one doesn’t have any personal ones.  It does however have Persimmon the Christmas Pig and Hildegard Hedgehog and the best sparkling pom-pom sticks I’ve ever seen.

    
We actually have three ceramic trees that my Nana made.  I have the behemoth and my  mother and aunt each have one.  You can’t really tell from the photo, but it’s pretty giant.  It uses a normal, household sized bulb and weighs at least 48 pounds.
The picture on the right is a wider shot of the dining room.  The apothecary jars came from Marshalls and Target (less than $15 apiece), and all of the vintage glass ornaments (my love language) came from my mother.  That Santa is part of the same kooky family as Milton (the moose on the left), Persimmon (in the tree), and the squirrel (unnamed as of yet) on the mantel.  I also have a Halloween cat, an Easter bunny, a Turkey, and a small cat ornament…and a standing appointment with a therapist to discuss my problem.  Kidding about that last one, but seriously…I’m obsessed.

They’re all Annalee dolls, and I find them at TJ Maxx and Marshalls all the time.  Also, for some reason, the jars look dangerously crooked in this picture.  They’re not…my camera makes everything look tilted.

Merry Christmas from the kitchen.  I have my Christmas mugs out, a tea towel on the oven door, and a few fun tins sprinkled around. 

     This. Is. My. Favorite. Time. Of. Year.  There is not a single aspect of Christmas that I don’t love.  Things are gearing up, and I couldn’t be more excited.  This weekend we had our choir Christmas performance, and I am exhausted and exhilarated.  We sang a new arrangement of “Little Drummer Boy.”  Y’all.  It was so much.  Every time we sing these songs that are so familiar to me, I hear them with fresh ears and get something new out of them.  I love to decorate and “do Christmas.”  Can you tell?  But the real reason I love Christmas is the reminder that He came for us!  As delicate and fragile as a newborn, but no less God. 
     I could fill our house until it looked like a forest, but that wouldn’t make Christmas any more special.  Christmas is special before the decorating.  We celebrate because we have a God that gave himself up for us.  He loved each us before the first Christmas and still today.  How incredible that our joy isn’t over when the trees are taken down and the lights are wound up.  Our joy is an eternal joy because, hallelujah, Christmas can never be over.  A day or a month or a season isn’t how we define Christmas.  We define Christmas by what our God did for us, does for us, and will do for us when He comes back! 

Merry Christmas!

New House: The After Kitchen

     We are 92% done with the kitchen!  We still need to add a ceiling fan, a window treatment, and some art (and possibly do something with the table), but other than that, it’s brand spanking new!

Gray can be so hard to photograph!  The walls are a warm gray…not at all purple or blue.

My plan is to put a cornice board over the windows here that matches one I want to put in the dining room.  I need to go fabric shopping!

That hideoferous light fixture you see to the right there will be going shortly.  We’re going to put a ceiling fan there because #thesouth.  Also, it’s much brighter in here now.  Previously there was an ugly fixture that was teeny tiny and dim.  We picked a much larger, brighter light, and it has made all the difference.  It’s not the most beautiful  thing, but it almost disappears into the ceiling.  I can actually see to cook now!

I do not love the googly eyes above the sink, but I don’t know what the plan is for them yet.

It is just so much lighter in here now.

     I love how this room has turned out, and it’s not even done yet!  The laundry room also got painted and it feels so much nicer.  Keith did all the painting (because he’s a hero), and my mother put that yellow gourd on the vintage scale (because she’s a genius).  Assuming we ever actually buy that fan and make the window treatment, I’ll be back to show them off.
     We did our dining room this same color, and it looks so clean and pretty.  There are still quite a few things I want to do in there, but I’m loving it so far. Aaaaaaand we just finished painting the living room this weekend, and I don’t ever want to leave it.  Hold on to your hats people…I’ll be back soon.