A Christmas Tour

I have a Christmas Eve special for you!

I am finally ready to show you our newly painted downstairs! I have been so excited to do this, but waited until I had my Christmas decorations in place before I took pictures. This extra time allowed for us to have the new carpet installed in the family room (just two days ago!), and also give DH time to do some 'touch ups' that he was fretting about. So let's begin!

This is one side of the family room complete with new carpet! The door behind the rocker goes to our screened porch. In the rocker, I have draped Eventide. On the antique chest is a yo-yo table topper made from a Thimbleberries pattern.

This window is at the far end of the family room. I have a small table there with this little Charlie Brown tree and a pretty table topper that was a gift from a blogging friend. Quilt Sue, remember sending this to me?  You are sooo sweet!

The kitchen table has a Thimbleberries table cloth, although its design doesn't show (the decorative parts are along the outer edges), along with a felted candle mat and centerpiece. Another tree fills in a spot in the bay window.

Leading from the kitchen into the formal dining room, I've added yet another small tree. This one has a garland of homespun yo-yos and a handful of counted-cross stitch ornaments which I made years and years ago.

Now we are in the formal dining room looking back at that little tree in the previous picture. This room had become more of an office than a dining room. In the great painting project, we decided that we wanted to return it to its original purpose. Have you been noticing the newly painted walls and trim? DH did a fabulous job. Every picture in today's post shows some portion of our downstairs, all of which has been newly painted.

Our front room has our big tree. The day I took these pictures was not a particularly sunny day, but there is enough light coming in the windows that the rooms all look darker than they really are. (If I had any idea of how to control lighting when I use my cell phone camera, I could correct this!)

Perhaps curtains would make a difference? Are you noticing that none of my windows has curtains? All were removed when we painted and are so faded that I've decided to replace them. This will take a bit of thought, however, so in the meantime we are curtain-less; not a problem for us in our remote country setting. We are more likely to have a deer or a bird peeping in our windows than a human. Curtains really are not a necessity here.

With the windows behind me, the shadows are diminished and the wall color look much more true. Here is our front room sofa, with Winter Lily draped over the corner. The NOEL art on the wall is another of my counted cross stitch creations from 30-some years ago. I was big into cross stitch before taking up quilting. The table runner on the coffee table is one I made a few years ago - no particular pattern; just random Christmas prints in random blocks with a border.

The view in the photo above is from our front entrance. I have always hung our stockings from this banister. We look clear across the front room and the dining room is through the door you see through the rungs.

Perhaps my favorite spot of the house is this little corner in the front room. Grandma's old secretary is on the left, then I have a ladder holding quilts. The churn dash - or is it monkey wrench? - quilt takes top billing. In my chair, I have draped Chock Full O' Charm in that gorgeous French General fabric. I like this corner for reading. It's out of the way of traffic; I feel almost like I'm hiding from everyone when I sit here.

At the foot of the stairs right inside the front door, sits this bucket bench which looks mighty spiffy with a stack of quilt tops folded there. I showed these off more fully in a recent post, if you want to scroll back to see details. I really am considering having a few of these quilted before next Christmas.

I will finish the tour with this picture from the entry hall. When I was very small, my grandparents gave me and my siblings stockings, all like this. I used mine continuously each Christmas even into adulthood. At some point about 5 or 6 years ago, I realized that it was losing some of its decorations and needed to be retired. I had it framed to preserve it; I love bringing it out every December. I estimate that this was given to me in 1960, so we are looking at a true vintage piece here - 56 years!

This tour has now concluded. I hope you are enjoying your Christmas Eve! I expect DD2 to stop in later today. She will then go on to her boyfriend's house for Christmas there. Tomorrow afternoon we will get to spend time with some extended family on my side when my brother and sister-in-law host an open house for all of us.

We will go to mass this evening and probably drive around to see Christmas lights - that's sort of a tradition we started when the kids were little, yet we still do it ourselves now that they are grown!

Merry Christmas, Friends!