It’s that time of year again, Christmas cheer, parties, trees, overeating, lots of drinking…you know the drill. We’ve had our tree up since the Saturday after Thanksgiving (it actually fell on our nephew, making us go out and buy a new tree stand).
My dad happens to grow Christmas trees as a hobby, and so we get a real tree every year. This year we managed to get one of his largest, at around 8 feet tall. My husband aspires to have a larger tree, but we will see when that happens.
As far as other decorations, I don’t go too overboard. I would, but we have cats, and I have a husband who can only take so much. We have a few stockings, but never fill them, as we don’t really do Christmas presents to one another anymore. We’re not good with the gift giving, we usually end up exchanging as soon as we have both done our shopping. And what’s the fun in that?
So instead we just host a party, have yankee swaps, and exchange gifts with our families. And this year we won’t be doing too much of that either, as we are going to Mexico in the new year with my family. Which happens to be infinitely better than material things that I want but would never actually buy for myself.
I won’t make you empty promises of pictures from our party, but darn it, I’m going to try. It looks like it’s going to be smaller this year than average, which will make for a nice intimate holiday party with way too much food. But that’s how I roll, I like to be prepared. I feel it’s better to have too much than to run out of food. And besides, who doesn’t like leftover beef stew or mac and cheese? And not to mention all the lovely desserts…
…was a total success. We had tons of food (of course), lots of wine, and great company. Here are a few shots from the day. I hope to update my other blog soon with more recipes of things we ate, but for now here is the table.
So as promised I’m actually sharing a sneak peek at the tablescape BEFORE Thanksgiving. Amazing, I know. Anyway, I happened to spend at least an hour in Home Goods the other day, in search of something to adorn my table.
The husband and I actually spent about half an hour there the day before (how I managed THAT I don’t really know), and left without purchasing anything. We had picked out some interesting pieces, but didn’t want to spend a lot, nor were we totally convinced. He made a valid point that we didn’t want things that were too tall and would make it hard to see the people across the table from you.
So I came home with these candlestick holders (the fact that I got enough matching ones is a miracle in itself).
All in all I spent around $56 on 5 candle holders, and 3 sets of candles. Not too shabby for a Thanksgiving tablescape, and one that I can keep up for much of the year. Especially since everywhere else I looked was much more expensive. I have a few other things to add before it’s done, and unfortunately you’re going to have to wait until AFTER Thanksgiving to see how it all looks. But I’m hoping to actually take pictures of the finished product. I feel like I need to, since it’s my first Thanksgiving in my new place, with my pretty new table.
Yesterday my husband asked me “are the chairs on the site?” Not knowing exactly what he meant, I deduced that he was referring to pictures of my now complete table being on my blog.
I did a whole lot of research, and managed to find the chairs I really wanted, at a halfway decent place. Lots of restaurant supply stores had them, but they wanted you to order at least 12. And I really only wanted 8. We will be seating 10 for thanksgiving, but that will be a bit tighter, and we have extra chairs that don’t need to sit at the table every single day.
So now my table area is complete, for now. Some day I hope to get some rugs up in this place, but they are expensive and difficult to choose. For right now I’ll live with just this.
You guys don’t even know how excited I am for Thanksgiving. I have so many table scape ideas, you might as well call me Sandra Lee or something.
I love Halloween. I have an extreme sweet tooth, and can consume those mini candy bars like no ones business. I also happen to love to dress up, so it’s no surprise that Halloween is one of my very favorite holidays. You dress up, and people give you candy? For FREE?! Sign me up.
When I was a senior in high school I went trick or treating for the last time. My mom told me my friends and I had to go to peoples houses we knew, and we still made out like bandits. I don’t think I could get away with that now.
The mini pumpkins I picked up at my local orchard. I know it’s nothing much, and not nearly as cheap as some of my faves out there, but it’s my little slice of Halloween fun. I also got a carving pumpkin, which I have yet to carve. I actually won’t be home on Halloween, I’ll be at a hockey game (and I want to try and dress up for it, we’ll see), so my pumpkin will just have to sit in the window by its lonesome.
I can’t really say dining ROOM table, as all the rooms are open to each other. So it’s the dining area table, but that implies that it’s small and undefined. And this table is anything but.
When we bought our condo (actually, before we had finally closed) I somehow came up with the idea that we should get a giant farm table for our dining space. The space could handle it, we like to entertain, we “called” Thanksgiving AGES ago, and we had previously been using my awesome 50’s retro kitchen table, but it was time to change it up a bit. That table didn’t really fit in the space all that well to begin with, and didn’t go with my chandelier so much. It was more of a kitchen table, not a dining table.
I set out upon a journey, starting with craigslist. Now I normally love craigslist, but I don’t know what it was lately, hard economic times, people just being crazy, but everyone wanted top dollar for their old and outdated dining sets. I’m not really a set kind of girl, so it took me a long time to weed through all the ads that didn’t apply to me. And people, if you paid $5,000 10 years ago, there is no way I should be paying $2,500 now. That doesn’t work out so well when you sit down and think about it.
I was like Goldilocks, no table was just right. This one was too small, I hated the finish on that one, this one was far too expensive, etc. People would give us suggestions, but nothing worked out quite right. So I resigned myself to the possibility that we would not have our table in time for Thanksgiving. Far worse things are going on in the world, but that made me pretty sad.
And then, one day, Apartment Therapy stepped in. I follow them on my reader, and normally just look at the pictures for design inspiration. But one day I actually read an article, an article about a man in RI who makes farm tables. Well, I happen to live in Boston, and since RI is super tiny, that’s not very far away. I checked out his site, and that was it. He was reasonable. REASONABLE rates for a custom built farm table? What?! What alter-universe was I living in?
I contacted him, we went to see his workshop, and next thing you know, we had commissioned a custom built farm table. The man who made our newest member of the family is David Ellison, of the Lorimer Workshop. He is incredibly friendly and welcoming, he’ll show you around his workshop, help you pick stains and finishes, and make the table to the size that you want. And he delivers. Well, I assume just in the “local” area. I’ve never had something custom built before, and also never been so excited about a piece of furniture before.
We will be getting new chairs (and updates on that when we do), and plan to host many, many dinner parties around this new beauty. In the process I also somehow was able to convince my husband to let me paint the coffee table teal, so I can’t wait to share that when it’s finished!
I feel like I’m in a war, screaming about the redcoats coming or something. But my amazing custom built farm table is coming this week, and I could not be more excited about it!
If you’re like me, and a) have lots and LOTS of wall space and b) have lots of photos/artwork (I AM an artist afterall), you’ll need to figure out a way to display them. ONCE in my life I thought it would be neat to have four photos of work I had done (I made the piece, my husband photographed them back when I was in school) framed in matching frames and hung up in an orderly fashion.
Well, I was never allowed to do so after that, as my poor husband had a heck of a time hanging them all so they were even. That was two apartments ago, and he WON’T stop talking about it. Inspired by a friend, I decided to just start randomly arranging photos and artwork.
I generally start on one side and work my way over. The arrangement above our TV is a few years worth of photographs, trips we have taken, artwork I have made, our wedding and engagement photos, etc. We’re always adding to it, I have some fabulous old shooting targets I want to frame and hang somewhere, and as we grow old together we’ll always have photos to add, as we’re constantly traveling, and I like to think that we’re both pretty good photographers, even if that isn’t what I am schooled in (my husband has an art degree by proxy, since he met me during my first year of art school).
We happen to have large expanses of wall space, so the sky is really the limit!
That ceiling fans aren’t always hideous? I know, this was shocking to me as well. You see, I always had to deal with really ugly ceiling fans in any rental apartment I had. You know that I’m talking about…brass, wood, those awful lights that blind you. And they shake, they ALWAYS shake. But, they do serve a good purpose, so they can be a necessary evil.
Well, not any more. They can be really nice looking, and they don’t always HAVE to have lights!
These babies happen to be 5 feet across, but you’d never know by looking at them, since they work so well in the space. I have really liked the super old school industrial types, but they tend to be expensive and kind of small. We got two of these, one for the front, and one for the bedroom. They might look like they’re barely moving, but they push that air around all right.
My husband installed them himself, which isn’t always recommended, unless your handy dandy spouse really knows what they’re doing. And mine pretty much does. Well, at least he claims to. I vacated the premises when he was working on these, because he made me nervous.
They come with a remote, which is great, because they have 3 speeds. He also somehow fixed it so that the same remote can control the chandelier in the dining area, and even can dim it. He likes to show anyone who comes into our place that feature. We all ooh and ahh for him.
But now as you can see, ceiling fans actually do serve a purpose, and they don’t have to have palm fronds and awful lights on them.
I could use some help from my 2.5 readers out there. I would love to be able to find this lighting (seen over the bar), and find out where it comes from, and how much it costs (or even something similar). I have a wall that would be perfect for it!
I came across this when I was at Sel de la Terre a few weeks ago for lunch, and I should have asked while in there (although I have a feeling the staff knows nothing about the decorating that went on), but failed to do so.
14 Foot Ceilings 