colorful eclectic christmas tour

Hello all you wonderful people, and welcome to our Christmas tour! If you’re headed over from Clean and Scentsible today, we’re so glad you’re here. Be sure to check out all the other sites participating, below!

You know one of our very favorite things are before and afters, when we talk about our house. I think because it’s come such a long way from very interesting beginnings. There’s something about it all decked out for Christmas. So we’re thrilled that you’re here if you’ve never stopped by before, and we hope you’ll sit down, pull up a comfy seat and tune in while we share a little bit of our colorful eclectic Christmas tour! 

I’ve never been so excited to deck the halls for Christmas. I think this year has been so rough, it just felt right to celebrate in full on denial, with lots of sparkle and color. We started early and actually enjoyed the process, so it’s been really nice. 

But let’s begin at the beginning, shall we? Once upon a time, This is what it looked like when you arrived at the front door. Four smaller rooms: a foyer, formal living/dining, somewhat of a galley kitchen and a living room. We knocked down the walls and opened up the ceiling. 

The entire redo of this house was quite the undertaking, and still a work in progress. I remember getting discouraged and tired because we took a lot of it on, manual-labor-wise, ourselves. I would come down the stairs exhausted in the heat with one goal in mind… The Christmas tree. Silly but true, it was a symbol of getting our family settled with fresh beginnings. It gave me all the warm, fuzzy motivational feels to see this project through.  

It’s seen quite the change. 

The house hadn’t been touched since 1980 something, and this was once the long ‘formal’ living room area.

It looks so different now!

We do work for clients too, and we think that taking out walls and ceilings, all depends on the space. Sometimes, it doesn’t work, despite being trendy or not. This room was begging to become our great room. And we’re so glad we did. People ask us all the time if it’s loud. It’s really not, but having other spaces to enjoy and spread out in, affect this too. 

Here’s a better look at that wall, now. It holds a fun piano and our Christmas tree!

Over the fireplace this year, we loved adding a portrait from our recent session with the amazing Light By Iris. {We adore her if you live in the Nashville area (She does Austin some, too!) so be sure to check her out.} The kids are older now and we’re so glad to have sweet family portraits.

It had been years. 

Total side note: be sure to check out our art here – it’s 40% off with the code art40 right now! We’re finally able to offer it at a lower price, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Most of the art you’ll see in our home – with the exception of a few vintage pieces, are all original to us. 

At our front door entryway, we have our free advent calendar, which makes for great convos with the kids at dinner each night. Be sure to check it out here. 

Another angle of what those {original paneled} walls once looked like! I would have loved to see them without that beige color and the linoleum we uncovered underneath, but I also don’t blame the previous owners for painting them. Either way, bye walls. That door once lead outside, and we added our first addition last year. 

Hello, great room/kitchen. 

We adored bringing in some Christmas pillows this year, to up the ante with all things festive and warm. We figured after Christmas is over, they’re easy to store since they’re mostly covers. 

Pillows: 

• Red Buffalo
• Grey stripe – from our own fabric collection
• Purple – originally from Target
• Multi houndstooth – sewn by me – {I was so proud because the patterns matched up}
• HoHo – found here
• blue velvet from H&M

If you can tell from the photos, the kitchen was a complete redo – this renovation was down to the studs. We repositioned the original and added another window, so we had more light on each side, and included some stained glass salvaged from an old turn of the century university in Boston, as well. 

It’s a simple multifunctional space, and the heart of the home. 

This is one of the first photos we took of the house. I guess you could say we were big dreamers, since our family wondered why we were even doing this.

But we had a vision, for sure. 

This was once the space for eating in the kitchen, and we loved adding extra storage with a window seat, here. Again, you can see where the first addition was added to the back, when you peek through the window below. And not to jinx it {fingers crossed!} we hope to begin our master suite in the future, to the right on that wall. Just past where our fridge is, now.

It’s a long exhausting story you may not have heard me ramble about before, pertaining to all things septic. We hope to be able to share more in 2021. I think we can all use a little optimism right now… so I’m going with it. 

Our house is a split story. Oddly enough, we really like it and have fun plans for the front this spring on helping that true to form, ‘jutty’ design out a little. But the upstairs and downstairs are located here on this wall. One once lead to a garage, which we changed over to a fully functioning basement. The other, the upstairs bedrooms. 

We’re all about anything that shines this year. Colorful and bright.

We’re basically pretending 2020 hasn’t been a total dumpster fire. 

One more view of those walls. 

And how it looks now. 

The kids have quite the collection of Christmas books at this point, and we love bringing them out each year. 

So the door that once lead to the back yard… 

Is now this space. 

Once upon a time, it looked like this on the outside. 

Now at Christmas time, it looks like this. 

Since the great room was no longer a formal dining room, and we wanted to have more space for entertaining, family, etc… It’s perfect to spread out a little. 

Yes, I’m always moving the mirrorball around in this room. It’s perfect for sunlight since it’s surrounded by windows on every side. 

We shared our Christmas mantel here – it says the weary world rejoices, in case you were wondering. No, you weren’t the only one. Some fabulous people thought it said ‘the scary world rejoices’- I guess I got a little crazy with my W. That applies, too. 

And details on our flocked tree, here. 

Upstairs, are all of our bedrooms. Our oldest’s room originally looked like this…

And we took it to this. 

The younger two share this space. It started out like this. In retrospect, that red would have worked better for the holidays.

It’s now this. We like it better this way. 

Yes, the dogs love modeling on beds for treats, any chance they get. We shared this DIY star garland just yesterday. 

And our master {hopefully, eventually our daughter’s room?} went from this… 

To this. 

The basement was an entirely different beast.

Most asked question that drives people crazy: Is it a basement or garage? PICK ONE! 

It was both. We just made it into a fully functioning basement. And no, for now, we don’t have a garage. Eventually. This house is a forever work in process. If you live in the Nashville area, and you’ve seen what’s available, you probably totally get it. We’ve been thinking outside the box on this one for a while. Here’s a peek of what it once looked like, on the outside here. 

A full post on all the details, here. 

The entryway is probably my favorite. It works hard and we love that it’s also pretty… most of the time. 

But we took it from this… 

To this. 

Another space that’s kinda satisfying for the holidays. 

Again, more fluffy posers for treats. 

Our little laundry area, for now, even got a little swag.

Because we all need a little Christmas.
Right this very minute.
Maybe I should just calm down.

I won’t. 

We use this bright and happy area for family movies and game nights and a good place for kiddos to spread out when they can {safely} have friends over. 

We have a variety of Christmas trees in our house. This one holds all our sentimental handmade ornaments and we adore it. The kids wanted some colorful bulbs last year, and it was fun to add. This one might be my favorite, just because it’s so fun. 

There are no McMansion-esque wasted spaces here. Every bit works hard, and the places that don’t yet, we have big plans for as we can get to them. Slowly but surely. 

We’ve decked the handmade hideaway in the past, but we ran out of time this year because real life. But you can check out that fun tour, here. We have a fun plan for it in the spring, though!

And if you have no idea what a handmade hideaway is, check it out here. 

If you missed our Christmas {Covid} Cabana, that tour can be found here.

We hope you enjoyed our little Christmas tour. I know the whole thing with before and afters make it kinda long, but we appreciate it even more when we get to share the work we’ve put into it.

Thank you all so much for stopping by today. Have an inspired day!

Next up on the tour, Finding Silver Pennies! Be sure to check out their fabulous home + all the other fabulous sites on the tour. 

This week I’m joining some of my talented blogging friends for the Christmas Seasonal Simplicity Series home tour week! We’re all sharing part of our home decked out for Christmas. Be sure to check out these fabulous Christmas decor ideas by clicking on the links below each image.

Sharing with me today…

Wednesday

The Handmade Home / Finding Silver Pennies / Joanna Anastasia / Amber Tysl

The DIY Mommy / My Sweet Savannah / Dans le Lakehouse / Fynes Designs

And sharing the rest of the week…

Monday

The Happy Housie / Inspiration for Moms / Maison de Cinq / This is Simplicite

Chrissy Marie Blog / Modern Glam / Nick & Alicia

Tuesday

Cassie Bustamante / Cuckoo4Design / Lemon Thistle / Love Create Celebrate

tatertots & jello / Jennifer Maune / She Gave it a Go / Clean & Scentsible

Thursday

Two Twenty One / Cherished Bliss / Life is Better at Home / All Things With Purpose

This is Our Bliss / Home Made Lovely / Place of My Taste

Friday

The Tattered Pew / Life is a Party / Rambling Renovators / House by Hoff

Deeply Southern Home / Grace in My Space /
Taryn Whiteaker Designs / Just a Girl and Her Blog