I don’t love the fact that almost the entire main floor can be seen from the front door.

Have you ever noticed how frequently foyers are featured in design magazines, usually with some amazing statement piece that sets the tone for the house?  Often these entries are designed to shield the rest of the house from view.  When we were building our home I knew I would wish I had that kind of entry, but I couldn’t find a way to do it with our floor plan.  The dimensions of our lot gave us little choice about the footprint of the house and we did the best we could.  We ended up with a great house, but no real entry.  There’s somewhere to stand inside the front door, but you can see pretty much everything from that spot.

Which is fine, if it’s all clean.  But more often than not I feel like I’m opening my front door and the shoes, toys, socks and so forth is what sets the tone instead of a console table and an awesome mirror.

Here are some pictures of what you see if you turn your head from side to side upon entering my house:

If you knock on my door and the curtains are open, you can see through the dining room and into our kitchen eating area  (translate:  table must be clean).  When you enter the house, the dining room opens on your left with a clear shot of my kitchen counters  (translate:  counters must be clean also).

If you look straight ahead when you walk through the door, you see this:

To the right is the hallway leading to my studio/guest room with a closet and bathroom on the way.  The closet is currently our game closet which my youngest girls love to open and pull things out of ALL. DAY. LONG.  Getting that hallway clean and keeping the closet door shut is no small feat.

To the left is our family room, and for some reason everyone loves to drop things on the ground in front of this table, or on top of the table.  The table itself is a thrift store find which needs a coat of paint.  I don’t love the bookshelves but they’re sturdy and functional and I want access to some of our books in there.

Lastly, on the right is the living room.   {Happy sigh.}  I love my living room.  I can get it looking right in less than 2 minutes.   It’s the one view I have going for me (most of the time) when that knock is heard.

So there you have it.  In about three quarters of a second you can sweep your gaze across the areas of my home that get messy faster and more often than any others.  When everything is clean, I love that.  When it’s not, I really wish I had some focal point I could draw attention to instead of the clutter on the floor.

I’ve been thinking about that.  A focal point.  Is there something I could do to catch and hold the eye nearer the door?  Between the hallway and the living room sit the stairs.  All too often the stairs hold 2-3 small piles of various things that belong upstairs.  All too often I’m the culprit, placing it there while I tidy up so I can save time and take one big trip upstairs.  A few years ago my sister made me this awesome “H.”  I’ve had it in several places since then:  on my mantel, leaning against the fireplace, on a wall in the family room.  I made some changes to the family room so the H was without a home for a while.

Until now.

I hung it on the stairway wall, and I think I like it there.   I like the drama of the strong lines, and I like having something to notice.  From the front door it looks like this:

While I’d like to say that it makes the entry a little more interesting and attractive,  it surely makes me more motivated to keep the stairway clean.  It’s hard for me to justify a temporary pile on the stairs when in my brain the presence of the H means that it’s an area worth maintaining well.

I’m trying something on the edge of the dining room as well, with a similar goal in mind.

This little red bench is having an audition on the edge of the room near the front door.  I like it’s size but I’m not sure about introducing red in the dining room and I really love the red on this bench.  I saw a cabinet a while ago at an outlet store that I’ve been dreaming of ever since which would be a perfect statement and storage piece but that’s just an idle dream.   So the question is:  bench or no bench?  And do you think the H is an improvement?

Every day one of my housekeeping goals is to have the main floor tidy and clean.  With little ones home all day this usually proves to be a challenge, but it’s a good challenge.  We have days when other things take priority, and when that happens I’ve learned to shrug and open the door with a smile.

Tell me, do you have a formal entryway?  If not, what do you do to keep “the view” under control should someone knock?

Hopeful Homemaker

Restful, calming, inviting.

Adding beautiful greens to my bedroom mantel gives the entire room a new feeling.  I love this view from the top of the stairs.  It makes me look forward to unwinding, finishing the day peacefully.  During the day I love how bright the sunlight is in this room; it makes our gray winters a little more bearable.

Silver bells, layered garlands, white lights with silver covers.  Simple and classic.  Every year I wonder if I’ll be ready to do this mantel differently.  Then I unpack this garland, hang it up and fall in love all over again.

A few pieces of silver on the mantel with my white antler wreath.  I love this wreath.

Creating an atmosphere like this in my bedroom reminds me to slow down, enjoy the season, take care of myself.

Merry Christmas!

Hopeful Homemaker

shared here

I smile as I watch our younger children standing beneath them, trying to spot theirs.  It’s a really short mantel, especially for ten stockings.

I  placed my all-time favorite nativity scene above the stockings.

I get a lump in my throat every time I stop and look at it.  The simplicity of it speaks to me.  I love that the entire scene consists of the manger, baby Jesus, sheep and three angels.  It reminds me of the heavenly host – so much bigger than the small circle of witnesses present in person – that celebrated and rejoiced in the birth of the long-awaited Savior of the World.  There is a production called Savior of the World that we try to attend every year which has forever enhanced my feelings about the unseen witnesses to the birth of our Lord.  This nativity scene rekindles all those feelings for me.

The world – all of us – waited so long for Him to come.  Now we wait for Him to return.

Enough said.  I just really, really love it.

It’s hard to believe that in just over two weeks those stockings will be filled instead of hanging expectantly.  Where do the days go?  I still have much to do…

Sigh.  It’s a wonderful time of year, isn’t it?  I hope you’re enjoying it!

Jennifer

shared here

One room, at least, is ready for Christmas.  I enjoy decorating the dining room for holidays because it’s the room that stays most like I left it.  My children cheerfully redecorate everything else they see but for some reason they generally leave the dining room alone.

I placed a vintage Christmas tablecloth across the table and replaced the large mirrored tray I’ve been using in there.   While unpacking boxes in the basement I remembered the ceramic lamb I always use at Easter and decided to bring it up.  We are, after all, celebrating the birth of the Lamb of God.

So using the lamb as a starting point, I then pulled a nativity scene from another room and used it as well.

I placed Mary, Joseph and the baby on a cake platter with more lambs to continue the theme.  I love the simplicity of it.

For height I borrowed a large trophy vase from my family room mantel and filled it with picks I had on hand; some inexpensive berries, beaded leaves purchased last year from Ballard Designs, and green flocked pinecones around the edge.

The wise men are placed around the other side of the tray to add visual interest from all three of the openings to the room.

A few ornaments were added to the dining room cabinet.  I still love the blue in that cabinet.  I’m so glad I painted it earlier in the year!

My favorite vintage bust just makes me happy perched up there.

I love walking through this room.  In fact, I realized that many members of our family walk through this room countless times a day.  Perhaps displaying a nativity scene in here was a good move because it will be so often seen by all of us.

I’ve been a total stress case this week, calm on the outside but nerves humming on the inside.  The little ones are still so needy and emotional.  In the past two days we’ve had only a couple of waking hours when one or both of them weren’t crying.  Seriously, my almost four year old cried for over 2.5 hours on Monday night, just to make sure we all knew she wasn’t happy with us.  It’s been wearing on me, I think.  I wonder if they’re just not feeling better yet or what?  Either way, I’ve got to calm down.  Maybe I should pull up a chair at the dining room table and make myself sit there until I’m quiet inside.

I hope your Christmas preparations are in full swing and on schedule!  More importantly, I hope you make time to be still and ponder the reason why we’re doing all this in the first place.

Please excuse me while I attempt to go follow my own advice.

Jennifer

Using branches from one of our cherry trees (which is dying), I built a mini-tree in the kitchen.  It sits between the two windows near our table.  {This also makes it difficult to photograph because of all the lighting behind it.  Sorry!}

Standing over eight feet tall, our gratitude tree is actually one really big branch with two smaller branches attached.  I spray painted them all white, but didn’t go for total coverage.  They almost look like aspen branches now.

I placed the tree in an urn, weighted it with rocks, and wrapped it in some creamy burlap I had in my stash.

I wanted to hide the spot where I attached all the branches to each other, so a burlap ribbon and vintage dictionary page “flower” was added.  In its center I attached a glitter-covered rose I had sitting around and a tag declaring this our “Harrison family gratitude tree.”

When I started this project I intended to take down the white mirror that hangs between the windows, but once it was up I loved the reflection of the branches so much that I left it in place.  It adds more dimension to the tree.

In keeping with the color scheme I chose to cut our leaves out of the same dictionary pages.  I cut them in a variety of shapes (found here) and I love the way they look.  Because they lack color their shape is emphasized.

To hang each leaf we simply punch a tiny hole and use a wire ornament hanger (purchased at the dollar store) which is then hung on a branch.  We’ve also started using a Sharpie to write on the leaves which makes it easier to read with all the dictionary text.

Last night we had a family discussion about gratitude in which my older children shared thoughts and insights that were very encouraging.   I am grateful for brief moments when I discover that we just might be getting through to them, after all.  We also talked about how Thanksgiving is the perfect prelude to the Christmas season.  I have also been pleased with the enthusiasm with which they’ve welcomed the tree to our kitchen.  It’s big enough that we can’t help but notice it and I’m excited to have it for the holidays.

So there you have it:  our 2011 gratitude tree, created entirely with materials on hand and not a single penny spent.    And for the record, I am grateful for it because it provided me with a creative outlet on a busy day, which motivated me to get my work done and which brings me joy each time I see it.  It is beautiful to me.

What do you think?  Do you do something to record your blessings and grateful thoughts during this wonderful season?  I’d love to hear.  If you’d like a peek at another adorable gratitude tree, check this out!

Jennifer
*Don’t forget:  today is the last day to enter my 2nd giveaway for some velvet pumpkins in non-traditional colors!  Leave a comment here to enter.

An old metal bench.  An oversized acorn hanging from burlap and embroidered ribbon.  A simple wood plank declaring “A Day of Thanksgiving and Praise”.  A lantern with a pumpkin and some battery operated candles enclosed.  A couple more candles on the ground in blue lanterns.

Simple.  It makes me happy.

And over by the front door, the wood sign I’ve had for many years:

Welcome to our home.  And welcome, Thanksgiving!

Jennifer
*Love Thanksgiving?  Dont’ forget to tell me how you celebrate and enter to win a “give thanks” banner here.

The sun is shining and I’m about to head outside for the last of my weeding and bulb planting before the temperatures plummet tomorrow.  This gorgeous day is supposed to hold through tonight, which will mean plenty of happy children come dark.  We’ve got kids scheming to meet up with friends to trick-or-treat and little ones still vacillating between this or that costume.

Before the day is over, I thought I’d share a few pictures of the Halloween decorating I managed to do this year.  It was minimal, but fun.

This year I put a bird cage on a mirrored tray and used that as my starting point.  I was in the mood for simple black and white, so I made a few black and white velvet pumpkins and put my favorite vintage crowns on them.  Yes, I still like crowns on pumpkins.  Most of them sit in a footed silver bowl.

A little vintage bust fit nicely inside the cage as well, along with some beaded leaves and a small collection of black and white seashells for pattern and scale.

I added my favorite velvet crow to the outside of the cage for fun.  I like having him perched up there.

On the back side of the cage I used my gold glittered “Boo” letters and added a wire spider hanging from the top.

While I like to challenge myself and use things differently each year,  I do love to hang my beaded spider web across the picture frames every year.  It looks great there and the children love it.

Lastly, I hung a vintage black scarf across my favorite mirror in the living room.  In a mostly white room, I like the dramatic effect of the black hanging there.  If I’d done this all sooner and had more time, I would have really gone for it with a black and white theme in this room.  Maybe next year.

And there you have it.  I used some of my traditional orange things in the kitchen as well.  Tomorrow it will be time to take it down and prepare for Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays.  For now, I’m going to take my little one (now the only child not asleep) out with me to pull a few more weeds in what may be the last sunshine we have this week.

I hope your Halloween is a lot of fun!

Jennifer

A couple of weeks ago when my brother got married, I mentioned that we also hosted a gathering for another brother.  He and his little family traveled from Mississippi to be with us, and while they were here they blessed their new little baby, Elsie.  We were honored to host the blessing in our home, and it was so kind of Christa’s family to come here and join us for the event.

I knew I’d only have a few minutes to prep for the blessing but I wanted it to be nice.  I wanted to do something for Brent and Christa that showed them we love and support them, and I wanted things to look nice for Christa’s family.  That can be tricky when you also have three other four other families staying with you, but I think we managed.

I built the decor around two things, the vintage tablecloth with green and turquoise flowers, and the Elsie banner.  I used all white dishes, simple plates and napkins, and we had milk and water to drink.  Too late I thought about finding some little milk bottles to serve drinks in, with striped paper straws.  It would have been perfect, but I couldn’t find what I was picturing, at least not disposable or cost effective.

Christa’s family brought the food, so we had it all prepped before they came and it only took about 3 minutes to arrange.

Much as I love cupcakes, it was kind of nice to see something as simple as cookies being served.  They were delicious, and a variety of cookies were offered.  My personal favorite:  molasses.

The banner was fun and easy to make.  I tore some pages out of my vintage dictionary and cut them into triangles.  I then glued some glitter to the edges and stamped the letters with rubber stamps and ink.  We simply stapled them to the aqua ribbon and I used the large silver urns to anchor them on each side of the food.  They provided just enough height for the banner to hang over the cookies.  At the end of the evening I put both the banners in a bag and sent them home with Elsie’s family.

We made a second banner and set up a second table in the backyard for the children and others who would want to sit out there.  I set up a couple of tables with chairs and tied aqua sashes around the chairs.  And then I forgot to take a single picture.  I guess that’s what happens when you get busy playing hostess.

On the other end of the counter near the drinks I got out my silver glittered baby letters and took a walk around the yard for some fresh flowers to cut.

In the end, I think everyone had a great time.  People visited and lingered, and seemed to enjoy themselves.  It was such a great day.  And my payment for it all?  Holding beautiful little Elsie.  Oh, she is precious.

Brent and Christa, thank you so much for sharing such a special day with us!  We love you and miss you and think you’re amazing.

Jennifer

First, I get excited about them too easily.  Something looks so simple, or so easy, or so much fun and I think I’m up to it even if I’m not.  I’m slowly getting better at making wise decisions about what I begin.  Part of the time I am, anyway.

Then there’s this funny thing that happens to me once the project supplies are in my possession.  Sometimes I jump right in and finish the entire things, but sometimes I don’t.  Sometimes it’s like there are weights on my back making the project seem out of reach.  Either it sounds just fun enough (or urgent enough) that I take care of it quickly or it sounds just hard enough that I avoid it.  Or I let myself stress so much about the outcome that I fail to start.  And it sits.

Please tell me I’m not the only person who does this.  The most fascinating thing, perhaps, would be trying to predict which response I’ll have to this or that idea/project!  Seriously, this is an area in which I drive myself crazy and being a consistent finisher is a habit I’m really working on.

I have two headboards that have sat in my basement for months.  Easy projects?  Yes.  Projects that are really fun and rewarding to finish?  Yes.  Projects that landed in my “too whatever to start” category?  Yes.  They needed to be sanded and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  A few days  ago I went and bought a sander, and still they sat for about a week.

Until now.  I am happy to say that I finally cleared 30 minutes of my life and got to know my new sander.  It’s funny how easily some things come together once you just get started.  Now one of the headboards has a first coat of paint drying on it and the other is ready to paint.

Why did it take me months to do this?  Have you got a cure for this problem?
I know, I know.  Habits.  I’m working on them.

HH

I realized when I posted about my new kitchen sign that I’d never taken pictures of the valances I made for my kitchen windows this summer.  I previously had vintage white linen in the windows but wanted some pattern in the room.  I found a Robert Allen print that I liked and went with that.

I like the way it brings a few more shades of blue into the room as well as a touch of green and yellow.

I also picked up a mirror on clearance, painted it white, and hung it between the two windows in the eating area.  A simple project that adds beauty to my kitchen.

HH