Holiday Home Tour- Part 2

In case you missed part one of my holiday home tour…look here! Today’s holiday home tour- part 2 brings you the living room. There was just too much going on in there for me to add it to yesterdays post.

My built in shelves are the biggest decorating challenge I have. Each shelf is more like a cubby and each one needs to not only look independently but work together as a whole. I start out by removing everything and giving the shelves a good cleaning. I used to try and just remove a few items and add in my Christmas decor but I’m finding the remove everything approach easier and it gives me a better finished product in the end.

Here’s most of the stuff I took down. I put away the things I, obviously, wasn’t going to use like spring flowers, but kept out all of the other elements I might use. Look at that pile of “A’s”, haha!  See how many of these things you can spot in the finished product. (some ended up in other parts of the house)

Here’s what I ended up with! Take a look below for a close up of each shelf. 🙂

Which one is your favorite? 🙂

There’s more going on in my living room besides the shelves! Take a look at a few other bits and pieces.

I love adding subtle touches of red here and there. These little cardinals make me smile.

Here’s where my chatbooks live all year, but I’ve added in a few holiday touches too. Our plate and bottle for Santa’s cookies and milk stay here until Christmas eve.

This happy snowman has graced our home for a number of years now. I’m pretty sure he came from Costco. He plays music, but I’ll be honest…I almost always have the sound turned down all the way. I prefer having just the lights.

We add a new building to our Christmas Lego village each year. We are anxiously awaiting the newest Fire Station set to arrive. You never know when a Lego tree will catch on fire…I mean you know those mini figures are so irresponsible! 😉

This vintage type writer is one of my most favorites possessions. The color is especially fun. I added in a “merry Christmas” paper, although I had to make it up on my computer as the type writer doesn’t have a ribbon in it. But shhhhh…we don’t need to tell anyone the typing is fake! LOL!

I almost didn’t put this basket of books out this year, figuring the kids were too old and wouldn’t care. I was wrong! Both of my youngest kiddos have pulling their favorites out and reading and re-reading them every day. Maybe some day they won’t care, but this year they are still little (atleast at heart). 🙂

This is our latest light up from Costco. I think the lights are so pretty, but I do have to say I find the sound a bit annoying. Even when I have it turned all the way down I can still hear music coming from it. It only gets turned on when we have other things going on (like the t.v. or radio on).

It’s too hard to capture all of our little light up houses, but here’s a glimpse. We have 15 now (adding atleast 1 each year). This shelf in my living room is empty all year (I don’t like cluttery stuff up there) except at Christmas. When all the buildings are lit up it really is pretty.

Finally I’ll show you our advent calendars. Each kid (no matter how old!) gets an advent style calendar. This year brought the following…. Joshua- Hot Wheels, Meghan-Tea, Sarah-socks and Sofia-squishies. They all seem to be enjoying them, although this morning Joshua got ONE tiny traffic cone to use with his hot wheels…he thought that was quite a rip off! LOL! I had to remind him that he’s already gotten two new hot wheel cars and a couple of other cool accessories.

That’s it! Wait…you say you didn’t see the tree?? I’ll save that for another post. I want to highlight a number of our ornaments so you’ll have to wait. Here’s a sneak peek for now….

Hope you enjoyed my holiday home tour!

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