Christmas Home Tour – Part 1

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Christmas home tour with English and French country accents for a casual, elegant look with a bit of vintage, antique and thrifty decor.

Welcome to our Christmas home!

I'm quite excited to share Part 1 of my tour with you today. 

I rarely share my husband's study in great detail because it's an actual working home office and never straightened up enough to shoot.  

I gave it a good cleaning and moved all of the work stacks (piles of paper) to the floor in the family room. I promised that I'd put them right back in their organized chaos after I took photos. 

You'll also be getting a look into our dining room which I totally love these days.

Before we get started, I'd love to thank Marty from A Stroll Thru Life for organizing this beautiful tour for us. 

If you are stopping by from Citrine Living, welcome! Tamara has a gorgeous home. I love all of her blue and white! 

Christmas Home Tour – Part 1

Let's start with the study

You will find SHOP THE LOOK sliders throughout the post to shop for exact and similar items.  You can also visit my AMAZON SHOP  for favorite finds for the home, garden, fashion, beauty, and more! 

Bentley would like to welcome you to our home! If a fireplace is on, he'll be there.

If you've visited my Christmas home tours before, you'll know that Bentley is quite the model by choice. I kid you not when the tripod and camera come out….he is there and ready. 

Sometimes I get him to pose, but most times he's curled up sleeping in the shot. 

When you come in the front door, you walk into an open foyer with the study on one side and the dining room on the other. 

We built our home in 2004. It is The Abberley Lane house plan by John Tee for Southern Living.

We loved that the house has 3 fireplaces. The ones in the study and master are gas. The family room is wood burning. 

I decorated it very simply this year as I always do. I pretty much just do greenery on the mantel with lights and call it a day. 

This is the first year with the curtain lights. I put them up in the dining room last year. Since the windows on the front are symmetrical, I added them here this year. They are really fun and magical for the holidays. They come with a remote and have varying functions from static, blinking, and more. You can see last year's Christmas Tour HERE.

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Furniture wise, this room hasn't changed a beat since we moved in. The rug is an antique kilim that we bought specifically for this room. We've always loved rug shopping together. 

It's got such a classic English Country style that just works for us. 

I do change things up with pillows and small decor items.

We do plan to start looking for a new desk and chair. My husband needs a bit more space to work on to keep him from spreading it all out on the kitchen table. LOL! 

The 2 wing back chairs were a bright canary yellow that I bought used from an ad in the paper 20 years ago. We had them reupholstered when we moved here. I'd like to lighten then up at some point, but for now just changing the pillows does the trick.

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There's my traveling blue and white garden stool. It's been on the porches, in the family room, in our bedroom and now in here. I found a few similar ones that are at a good price. You'll find them in the shop the look section. 

The Christmas tree peeking through is in the foyer. It's a great spot for the 2 rooms to share the view. It's featuring blue and green ribbon to tie the 2 rooms together. 

I just did a Facebook Live this week with more details on this room. It's part of my 15 Christmas Tips Video Series. 

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I bought that whimsical tree pillow about 15 years ago at the Atlanta Gift Mart. It's still a favorite. 

The pair of Staffordshire dogs work well with the hand-painted tiles from a local artist. This fireplace screen was a perfect fit to not obstruct the painted hunt tile scene. 

Let's stroll through the foyer to the dining room!

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While our daughter, Ashlyn, was home from college at Clemson (since March) that antique armoire was her job. She did an amazing job stripping and sanding all the layers of paint. You can see the progress on my Instagram Highlights.

I'm still not finished with it. I've got a few areas of new wood to stain very lightly. I really like the natural look with a bit of chippy paint still in it. I think that I'm just going to wax with clear wax then test out some white wax on the sides to see how it looks. I really like the raw wood look. 

I picked up 2 faux evergreen and eucalyptus wreaths at Hobby Lobby for the doors. I hung them with a cream ribbon using Command Hooks on the backside of the doors. 

This basket is one of my favorite thrift store makeovers. It's perfect for centerpieces so that I can easily remove it from the table. I've been using this area as a gift wrap station and a work desk at times. 

These place cards were made with reindeer ornaments from Big Lots. You can watch the Facebook video in my series on how they were created. 

This thrift store mirror makeover was one of those projects where you start layering paint and love the outcome! 

See that gorgeous disco ball? That was actually on a toy motorized disco ball that my daughter would play with. She'd crank it up with her musical instruments and her friends would have a blast. It quit working. I removed the disco ball off before throwing the motor away. 

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Casual elegance is definitely the theme in here. This runner from Target was the inspiration for the mainly green and neutral look. The napkins from Marshalls and old Southern Living at Home chargers give the look a splash of red.

This is the first year that we have ever put a live tree in the dining room. I'm not sure it will happen again, but the tree farm that we go to in NC was going out of business. It's so sad. We will miss going there each year, selecting a tree and cutting it down. Their prices have always been amazing. 

Since they were closing up, ALL trees were only $20 no matter the size so we got 2. None were manicured. You just found one and they cut it for you. This one was rather scraggly, but that is exactly what I wanted in here. It is actually now my favorite tree in the house. I just simply strung string lights. 

Trees seem so much smaller in the field. The ceilings in here are 10 feet and we ended up cutting some off the trunk to bring it down a bit. 

I can't wait to share our main live tree with you in Part 2 of our tour. That tree is a funny story. IT IS MASSIVE! We didn't think it was until we got it home. It's over 12 feet tall and took up the entire width of the double French door in the den. I went from being in awe, to oh, no….what were we thinking, to disappointment, to being optimistic to absolutely in love with it! I'll be sharing it next week so be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you'll get a notification. You'll find the form at the end of the post. 

Thanks so very much for stopping by my Christmas Home Tour – Part 1.! Be sure to look below for the subscribe form so you'll get notified when part 2 is live. 

Be sure to visit Southern State of Mind next up on the tour. You are going to love Heather's home! 

Here is Part 2 of our Christmas Home!

Monday December 7th

A Stroll Thru Life – Worthington Court – Clean and Scentsible – StoneGable – Pink Peppermint Design – Decor To Adore 

Tuesday December 8th

Modern Glam – It All Started With Paint – Town and Country Living – Hymns and Verses – Making It In The Mountains – Life On Cedar Lane 

Wednesday December 9th

Designing Vibes – Inspiration For Moms – Grace In My Space – The Wood Grain Cottage – Whispering Pines Homestead – Remodelando la Casa

Thursday December 10th

CitrineLiving – Our Southern Home – Southern State Of Mind – Duke Manor Farm – White Arrows Home – Thrifty and Chic 

Friday December 11th

11 Magnolia Lane – Follow The Yellow Brick Home – Delightful Order – Southern Hospitality – Cassie Bustamante

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