Yesterday I decided to put up our new Christmas tree! It arrived a few days before that, and I was torn on when I wanted to put it up since it's a little bit earlier than normal. Excitement to see what it looked like got the best of me and, well, it's now standing tall in our living room. It's such a beautiful tree, and the perfect size for our living room. I've been debating on how I want to decorate it, and I finally have a plan! The next few weeks will be busy getting the house ready for Christmas, and I'll be sharing the tour, and so many other ideas, starting the first week of December! Get ready, because there's so many good things coming! Other fun things: ...
Designing And Buying Our Ikea Kitchen
I'm late in sharing this post, but better late than never, right? Designing and buying our Ikea kitchen was a new experience for us. We'd never went through the process of designing, creating and purchasing Ikea cabinets, and while it was definitely an experience, we're still glad we did it. When we first bought our Willow House, basically everything needed gutted. There really wasn't anything worth saving, and the kitchen cabinets were in really, really rough shape. We knew, just like with the rest of the house, the kitchen would be getting new everything. And because we needed to remodel the house on a budget, we'd be leaning on Ikea for the cabinets because of their solid ...
The Best Flocked Christmas Trees
'Tis the season to start shopping for a new Christmas tree! Since my very tall, beautiful, tree won't fit in our home, I went on a big search to find the best flocked Christmas trees to replace the one I have. I loved my other tree... but with our home having 8' ceilings, there's no way we'd make it fit without it looking like a Clark Griswold tree shoved in the corner. That's not necessarily what I had in mind, so... let's talk flocked Christmas trees! First, let me just lay the ground work and let you know how picky I am about Christmas trees, especially flocked trees. They're not all created equal in the way the flocking is dispersed, and the type of flocking on the tree. I prefer ...
TGI-Friday: Decorating For Christmas & More
Happy Friday! These past few mornings we've woken up to snow on the ground, making things feel a lot more like Christmas, and less like fall. The cold has definitely arrived, and I've been enjoying watching the snow blow around and shine in the sunlight. I'm really excited about decorating for Christmas this year. Last year, we were living in our tiny rental while we were knee deep in demo'ing our Willow House. We did minimal decorating, but did manage to put up a little mini tree to celebrate. This year though, I'm looking forward to spreading the Christmas cheer all through the house like normal. I'll be doing a Christmas Home Tour around the first week of December, and because of ...
Our New Entry Light
We've been making some progress around the house these past few weeks. One of the things we were finally able to get done, was installing our new entry light. When we bought the house, most of the rooms didn't have ceiling lighting. I'm not sure why that was such a big trend back in the 1980's, but when we were knee deep in remodeling the house, we had an electrician come in and add recessed lighting, as well as a few new ceiling boxes where we didn't previously have any lights. Our entry was one of those rooms. We've waited several months before buying a light fixture for the space, but since we've been making a few other changes and adding in new furniture, it was time to finally ...
Our Halloween Front Porch
Eeeek! I'm so excited to share our Halloween front porch with you! This is the first time I've ever really decorated for Halloween. I'm not into the gore, the blood or the scary, but bring on all the cute Halloween things! Now that we live in a subdivision, our neighbors have been warning us that we have a tremendous amount of trick or treaters. Other than my nephews in the past, I've never really had many trick or treaters, so this year, I thought it would be fun to add a little Halloween to our home to welcome all the cute kiddos. Enter in: Bats. Lots of them. I bought some 3D bats several weeks ago, just waiting for the right time to hang them up. I knew I wanted them on the ...
The How Great Thou Art Pillow Pre-Sale Is Live!
It's such an exciting day around here! After working around the clock for the last month or so, the How Great Thou Art Pillow pre-sale is live and ready to shop! Woohoo! Over the last few years, I've received countless e-mails requesting that I bring this pillow back in stock. Today, I'm so happy to make it a reality and offer the pillow up for grabs this holiday season! This pillow is so much more than a pillow. It's a beautiful and meaningful message that speaks right to the heart. It's a reminder of those we love and the memories we cherish. It's also one of the best conversation pieces in my home. A couple years ago, I went through one of the most difficult times in my ...
Our Fall Front Window Box
Better late than never, right? Today I'm sharing our fall front window box, and honestly I was hoping to have this up on the blog a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we got a below average cold spell right after I bought some plants and I just couldn't plant them only to have them die a night later. Then, because I waited, some the mums I bought started looking a little tired, and not the prettiest, so I switched gears and used some wicker, light up pumpkins as my focal point instead. I'm not sad about it, because they look amazing! When I was pulling out all of my summer plants, I decided to leave in the ivy. It's mainly dried at this point, but it still looks really pretty ...
My Favorite Ways To Nest During Fall
I'm such a big lover of fall. There's so many different reasons to love the season, but there's something about it that requires us to slow down. The madness of spring and summer fades away and it's now time to experience the cozy pleasures the fall season brings. Because of that, I thought I'd share my favorite ways to nest during fall. If I'm honest, I "nest" all year long. Constantly tweaking and changing our home to suit our needs, or to help things function better and run more smoothly. But fall brings another layer to my nesting desire. It turns into creating a "cozy nest", where we feel warm, relaxed and comforted. Affiliate links are provided below. Full ...
Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones
'Tis the season for all things pumpkin, right? That's why for this month's Scone of the Month recipe, we're going with Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Scones. They're delicious, with just the perfect hint of pumpkin and cinnamon mixed in with chocolate chips. Mmm... Growing up, especially during fall, my mom would make the most delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They were buttery soft and the perfect combination of pumpkin and chocolate, while still having the cookie base. As I've been making a list of all the new scone flavors we want to try, this tasty combination was at the top of my list. I wanted to recreate one of my favorite cookies into a delicious scone! If ...
A Big How Great Thou Art Pillow Pre-Sale!
I am so excited so share some big news with you today, and it involves one of your very favorite pillows! A few years ago, you may remember when I started selling the fan-favorite How Great Thou Art pillow. You all loved them so much, I couldn't keep them in stock. Then, with all the changes I went through personally over the last few years, I wasn't sure when or if I'd be opening my online shop back up, or if I'd ever sell my designs again. That didn't stop the e-mails from rolling in, filled with requests that I start selling this pillow again. I heard you, loud and clear, I just wasn't sure when the timing would be right. Now that life has settled down, and the blog is ...
Changes To Our Entry
Now that we're finished with demo and have all the big key items in place, we can finally start playing around with all the fun things in the house. One of the first rooms I wanted to tackle, was our entry. Given that it's one of the first things our guests see when they walk in the door, I wanted to make it tidy and presentable. Changes to our entry our have definitely given the house a breath of fresh air, and it's so nice having a pulled together space when we walk in the door. When we first moved in, and as we were unloading furniture, we put one of our dressers in the the entry and it stayed there until recently. I knew the dresser would never be a permanent solution, but ...
TGI-Friday: Hawaii Trip Recap
Happy TGI-Friday! We're officially back from Hawaii and as much fun as we had, it's so nice to be home! There's something so comforting about coming home to a place you love! One of the first things I told Todd as we were rolling our bags up to the house was how cute our front porch looks decorated for fall. I shared all about that last week, but it's still looking just as beautiful today. One thing I can say for sure, fall is in full swing in Colorado and we were able to see the colors changing from the airplane. It was such a beautiful sight! We traded beaches and ocean air for crisp nights and changing trees. Both are lovely, but this is home. We had so much fun in Hawaii, ...
Our Fall Front Porch
What a happy day it is, when I get to share our fall front porch. I love decorating our porch. It's one of my favorite ways to give our home an instant boost in curb appeal and it always gets my creativity rolling. Since I've never decorated the front porch of our Willow House, I was even that much more excited. This is easily the smallest front porch I've ever decorated. There's not a ton of room to do extravagant things, so I leaned heavily on my simplistic side to welcome guests into our home. But as always, I included corn stalks. I always get them from our family farm, and this year my brother let me take some from one of his fields. I must say, I love the way the ...
Four Reasons We Chose Carpet For Our Bedrooms
Since I recently shared the tutorial for installing our laminate flooring throughout the house, I wanted to also share the four reasons we chose carpet for our bedrooms rather than installing the laminate floors. To be honest, we thought long and hard about installing the laminate in our bedrooms as well, but in the end, carpet won out. I know there are so many people who prefer a hard surface flooring throughout their entire home, but that's just not us. Here's why. 1. Carpet Is Soft & Warm Underfoot One of the biggest deciding factors, was the fact that carpet is soft and warm underfoot. We enjoy stepping out of bed and landing on a soft, plush surface. Sure, we could ...
Painted Front Door Interior
There are a few existing things in our house that we're temporarily keeping until the time comes to upgrade and replace them... our front door and the stair hand rail being two of them. In order to stay and blend in, they both desperately needed painted. I'll share more about the handrail later, but when we painted our exterior, I went ahead and painted the exterior side of our front door as well. Since we were still knee deep in demo'ing out the inside of the house, I didn't spend the time painting the interior side, knowing it would get scuffed up. After we moved in, the interior side of our front door looked really out of place. I put it off for a little while, making it out to be a ...
TGI-FRIDAY: Scone of the Month, What I’m Taking To Hawaii, Fire Pit Search & More
This week has been so incredibly busy! Next week we're we sneaking away to Hawaii, so I've been doing my best to get ready for our trip, and making sure the blog has new content for you to enjoy while we're away! I'm also in the middle of working on two big projects we'll be launching in October. I can't wait to share more, but sooo many of you have been asking for one of them, and I can't wait to bring it to you! My lips are sealed for a little while longer, but get ready! In case you missed my blog post earlier this week, I shared a fun new series I'm introducing on the blog: Scone of the Month. I can't even tell you how much I love scones. They're one of my absolute favorite ...
Gluten Free Apple Pie Scones
A few months ago in a TGI-Friday post, I shared all about my love of scones. I really, really love them. They've always been a breakfast staple for me, and I look forward to making a batch every weekend, always coming up with different flavors and combinations to experiment with. Over the last month or so, I've had this idea to share a scone of the month recipe with you. How fun is that? A scone of the month.... with each month featuring a new flavor we've been enjoying! So, this is me saying, let's do it! But before we dive into the delicious gluten free apple pie scone recipe I'm about to share (seriously, they are sooo good), I thought I'd share a little back ...
A Simple Fall Table Setting
With entertaining season right around the corner, I wanted to share a simple fall table setting idea. And when I say simple, I mean simple. Today, I'm joining a wonderful group of bloggers to bring you a whole collection of table setting ideas. Alicia from Nick & Alicia invited me to join in, and I'm so happy to be bringing you an easy idea you can recreate in your own home. So many times, I know setting and decorating a table can be a little bit intimidating... but it doesn't have to be. And setting a beautiful table also doesn't mean it has to be anything extravagant or fancy. I kept it as simple as possible on my table, and I loved how easy it was to put together, and how lovely it ...
Our Fall Home Tour
I've mentioned a couple of times that I've been in major fall nesting mode. It's been a little while since I've been able to do any fall decorating, and this year I was looking forward to getting my hands busy again spreading fall throughout the house. Today, I'm excited to share our fall home tour! I've joined forces with a group of amazing bloggers, organized by Marty from A Stroll Thru Life, and we're all opening our doors to share fall decorating ideas you can use in your own home! If you're visiting from Designing Vibes, welcome! I'm so glad you're here! Erica has such amazing style and I love how she's transitioning her home into fall! It's no secret that it's sometimes ...
How We Installed Our Laminate Floors
Picking out flooring for the new house was one of the very first things Todd and I started doing once we bought the house. Even though there was so much demo and other things we had to start in on, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to source flooring we liked. Today, I'm sharing all about our process in picking the flooring we chose, and how we installed our laminate floors! Affiliate links are provided below. Full disclosure here. Like most people, our goal was to find flooring that would be durable, but also reasonable in price so that we'd have money for all the other things this house needed in order for us to move in. We searched high and low to find the best ...
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