((***a late addition to the blog, "the home show" was in December! This is for anyone that missed seeing our home clean and decorated!))
I love to go to the home show, and I will love it even more now that I know how much work it takes to get ready for the home show!
It is an interesting experience to open your home to your community. It is more than a bit nerve racking when you are a family of 6 and in the middle of real life ~ meals, homework, basketball practice, laundry. It was a very organized process of knowing what rooms to clean/decorate first. I had to threaten a couple of the boys with bodily harm if they made any more messes! (I told them they could only mess up the 5 feet around them ~ that is reasonable as their mother, right???)
It was also a great impetus to get all the "little things" done that needed to be done, too, thank you DH!!!
This was also a good opportunity to participate in a community effort, this Holiday Home Show helped fund Christmas for many families in our two little towns. That is good enough reason to clean house, yes?! It was also a great way to reach out in our community with love. We were the only family that participated that was not Mormon. We were able to open our doors, hearts, and arms to our neighbors in a non-offensive way (I hope), and show our love of Jesus. He is the doorway.
Our home was one of seven in our community, the other homes were so unique and adorable in their own way. I loved each one.
So with that little intro, welcome to our festive home!
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A self portrait of me (albeit just fingers), just a day before the big event...
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A very significant picture of my DH on a ladder fixing the messy tangle of wires I had concocted for all of my christmas lights. Thank heavens he helped me, I could have burned something down? 
Look at him, doing something he swore he would never do, helping me with Christmas lights! Yes!
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What all that work looked like at night, the big night...(and thank you to Karilyn Cox & Connie Cox for their love and design of my front porch!) I felt like I was back in one of those old gorgeous homes in Chapel Hill, N.C. with all the decor. Yum.
And then of course it snowed snowed snowed that day...but that didn't seem to deter the annual home show crowd! I am not sure how many braved the harsh conditions, but we had a full house most of the night.
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I have pics of rooms and several pics of things I LOVE this Christmas...Mitz took half of them while I was visiting with friends. I took several the next morning when the lighting was better.
This is a pic of Charlie, my little kitchen friend I purchased from my new favorite local store, Ruby Bloom. Isn't he the best? I will definitely be a regular at Chelsey's store.
My master bedroom...lovely.
And a pic with a little better lighting. I borrowed the chests from the Stonehouse (across the street) and the wreaths are a "his and hers" creation tied together, I love it. I also tied up a bunch of lights and mixed them with pink glittery balls in a basket, the result was a really sweet rosy glow. I will have to remember that next year, a great way to do intimate lighting for small spaces.
(Not a single picture of the kitchen? Shoot.)
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Of course one of my favorite aspects of the house, my workspace...love love love it. It was also the hardest room to straighten up, but I decided that that was part of the appeal for me...it is a workspace! You can see into the newly finished hallway that connects our old house and new, that was a HUGE project to complete this year. It looked so playfully fun with the little bench and self portrait paintings. 
((We didn't show DH's office, it is very handsome and wonderful but it was filled with all the things I was trying to hide? Baskets of laundry, backpacks and junk mail...real life stuff))
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This is Joshe's room. Joseph's was just as clean-cute. Love the character of these old bedrooms, they are cute rooms even without decor. I just had to put a little something at the window and extra pillow and blanket.
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My favorite part of the homeshow...the entry...
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The sleds are from the basement of the Stonehouse, a perfect addition! I wouldn't have thought to display them this way. We also moved the red bench from the kitchen for everyone to sit down to put their shoes back on (no shoes at the home show!).
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My little blessing over the house for the holidays...that our home would be just that ~ "Heaven and Nature Singing" It really proved to be a great way to decorate for the holiday, a theme to work with, and hum too?
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Even the coat rack looked festive?
The kitchen counter top with all the ephemera of the holiday prep...jars and jars of ribbon.
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A close-up of the kinds of things on the tree, all kinds of containers (wood, copper, painted, tin) filled with natures treasures. This sunflower head was 10 inches across, they make such a statement in a tree. My boys all think I am too "organic" when it comes to the tree. I love it.
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Another pic of the snow after the party. Wow. It is going to be a snowy year.
I am so thankful that we did the home show this year. It was an adventure, a truly once in a lifetime event! Hugs and kisses to friends and fam!
jj
