Hilltown House: 2017

Friday, December 29, 2017

December 2017 Round-Up

24 days of Christmas Kindness

This was our second year of forgoing the traditional count down to Christmas and embracing what I have coined our "Acts of Kindness" advent calendar. You can read all about how this came about in the post I wrote last year, and I am so happy to report that the second year went even better! I still targeted the idea primarily at my oldest son (next year I hope to be able to fully include the little one) and he is actually sad that the month is almost over and he won't be getting his special notes from Santa any more. This time I'm going to try harder to keep these acts going throughout the year and probably tie them into starting an allowance for him.

I've had a few moms mention to me that they'd like to try this idea with their kids so I'm thinking of maybe putting together some kind of kit next year that others could use. I'm still brainstorming but hoping to have something to share around Halloween next year - fingers crossed.

Our Mini Basement Makeover

Every year we like to get the boys a bigger Christmas present, something sentimental or something that they can enjoy all year. Two years ago we got them their outdoor playset, last year we got them some personal artwork, and this year we we did something slightly different and worked to make the basement a little more "friendly" and become a space they could go during the winter when they need to get out some extra energy. Our basement is unfinished and although we have grand dreams of what the space will eventually look like, right now the unfinished-ness works in our favor as I use the space for painting, and the boys don't have to worry so much about getting things dirty. That being said, the way it was set up really didn't make them want to spend much time down there, so we set about doing a few easy fixes to change that. 1) We moved the couch and their toys closer to the staircase and created a small living space around a new outdoor rug from IKEA 2) I moved anything I didn't want them getting into onto higher shelves that I built our of scrap wood and our old kitchen cabinet 3) We bought them a small TV so they can watch Netflix and movies (we bought this one on Black Friday) 4) We bought a small space heater (it's cool to the touch and has an automatic shut off) that they can operate if they get cold.

While it's not pretty, and it's seldom clean, but it's a space that they can hang out, play, and feel a little independent from mom and dad. It's been a lifesaver on these cold, dark nights and I think it'll work great on rainy spring/summer days too.

December Delivery....

For the last month I've been working on this handsome gentlemen and this morning he started his journey to his new home in Maryland. This piece is a smaller version of the Barn Door Console table that I have in my living room but with beautiful Dark Walnut stained shelves to contrast the painted bronze frame. I'm really happy with the way he turned out and digging the smaller size! The barn door makes it perfect for a TV console where you would want to hide some of your not-so-attractive tech gear + cords.

If you want to check out some of my favorite projects be sure to visit my Custom Builds tab.

Friday, December 8, 2017

Christmas Living Room Tour

Only 16 days to go folks! Our weekends are pretty much packed solid until the big day so I wanted to get done decorating early enough to actually be able to enjoy all the holiday feelings. I mentioned before that I had done a big cleanse earlier in the season, and while I put out some of our usual decor in the rest of the house I tried to only add new stuff to the living room this year (you can check out the full living room reveal here)

Maybe it comes from the house I grew up in, but I like to feel like Christmas has exploded onto every surface (No minimalist approach for this girl!) But instead of just buying stuff I concentrated on adding handmade pieces wherever I could. I already shared the mantel in an earlier post, so this week I wanted to quickly share the rest of the room.

The biggest addition was the village that now lives on the shelf above the TV. I quite literally got bored one day and thought "hey, I've got tons of scrap wood in the garage - what can I do with it?" and started cutting out house shapes, building this village as I went.

The whole village is almost 10 feet long, so I attached a few pieces together at a time to make it easier to display and store. Once sanded, I painted it all with white chalk paint. I added some pine and holly branches from the trees outside, as well as a bunch of bottle brush trees from Target's Dollar Spot. I may add some more colorful trees next year, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

On the other shelves I added in some more pine branches (the little white bells are from IKEA a few years ago), a faux white antler I found at Michaels, and made a hand-painted sign with this lovely quote I found on Pinterest.....oh and my husband is OBSESSED with Poinsettias so I've had to utilize every space I could to display them.

The tree got a little makeover this year too. My husband insists that Christmas trees need colored lights (in trade I get to keep the outside lights all white) but to make it a little more cohesive I found lights that only had Red, Green, and Blue lights. I had him mix in a strand of white lights, and picked up a few strands of white beaded garland from Target (which he correctly realized look like strands of popcorn) and presto - it looks great!

Last year the tree skirt and the Roomba had a contentious holiday season, so when I saw this galvanized metal tree collar from Hearth and Hand I grabbed it immediately and it's so much better.

On the bookcases behind the tree my husband had the great idea to set up some of his father's old train sets. The boys of course love playing with them and I love that it's kind of a modern take of the "train around the tree" tradition.

One of the main reasons I built the picture ledges during the living room makeover was so that I could have a place to put our Santa Pictures from each year and I'm happy to say they're working out wonderfully. Of course, I couldn't resist even more Bottle Brush trees, and I was able to sneak in our pixelated Reindeer from Ikea.

On either side of the fireplace I added two ornament shadow boxes based on these plans from Shanty-2-Chic and filled them with two pretty mercury glass ornaments from Home Goods and some more Pine branches.

Behind the couch I built one more ornament display stand to replace the planter box that is usually there (plans also from Shanty-2-Chic) and filled it with ornaments from Target (the stars and the Snowman are from this year's Wondershop; the balls are from last year).

And of course, I couldn't resist some new pillows and blankets for the couch! The big light blue one and the red striped pillow I found at HomeGoods...I honestly am super cheap when it comes to pillows and HomeGoods is my go to place - they're a good price and almost all of them have removable covers and down-filled inserts. I went a little crazy in the blanket department and bought 3 of the big cozy green blankets on Black Friday (in my defense they're 3 different colors and they were only $18 that day)....oh yeah, and I also got that little gray plaid one too (for only $10!)

Speaking of that big green blanket - I don't usually do this but I have to share one more thing.....this amazing little tool from ConAir! Those blankets are amazingly comfy, but they leave lots of nasty little green fuzz on the couch - this little battery operated baby to the rescue! I'll post a video of how it works on my Instagram, but I just lightly brush it over the couch and it sucks up all of the pilling. It's only $12, can be used on all kinds of fabrics, and for some reason comes in 4 or 5 different colors - so it would make an awesome stocking stuffer!!

Even though Cash isn't feeling the holiday spirit, I sure am...now to cuddle under the blanket and enjoy the lights!

Thursday, November 30, 2017

November 2017 Round Up

When I first started my blog years ago I used to post "Weekly Top Ten" montages of all my favorite things for the week - in the spirit of helping myself focus more on the positive aspects of my life and just generally be a happier person (you can still find them under the Label "Top Ten"...they're such a fun walk down memory lane!). In that spirit, I'm trying out something new this week and writing up a short "Round Up" for the month of November. TBH - A lot of other bloggers do something similar so I'm just jumping on the bandwagon here, but I thought it might be good way to share some things that don't necessarily merit a full blog post. I'm going to try to keep these short and sweet, and they'll probably be pretty random, so here goes.....

One Room Challenge Post Thoughts

It's still crazy to think that in 7 short weeks I was able to completely transform the Guest Room - it's officially my favorite room in the house now. And like a true junky, I've already got my mind reeling for the Spring! I'm really kinda obsessed with thinking about it, so here's a super sneak peek into what is going through my mind because the next session will be here before you know it!

My new "Recipe" Page

I really love to cook and I'm trying to get back in the habit of cooking at home again this winter (I was reallly bad over the summer), and to keep me motivated (and maybe inspire others to do the same) I added a new page where I am going to start sharing some of my favorite recipes. Click here to check it out - my plan is to build this out a little at a time and see where it goes, but right now I've got a few of my favorite weeknight meals, my go to Halloween dinner, and everything I cook for Thanksgiving, including the best Pumpkin Pie ever courtesy of Bobby Flay.

How my new Kitchen stools changed the whole house

Well at least the first floor....this month I pulled the trigger and ordered these amazing new stools from World Market to replace the old red ones (and I mean old...me and my mom figured out that they were at least 30 years old! Not a bad lifespan right?) I had always felt like there was a slight disconnect from the living room and the kitchen - I think in the back of my mind I knew it was the stools, but I was hanging onto them because I had painted them myself and still loved the punch of color, but they just didn't flow with the direction the rest of the house is taking. Lesson learned - if something feels off in a space trust your gut and don't be afraid to make a change!

Friday, November 24, 2017

Christmas Time Starts.....NOW!

Happy Black Friday everyone! I usually spend the day shopping by myself but I'm actually pretty much done my Christmas list so today I am going to switch over the house from Thanksgiving to Christmas (and then possibly go shopping tomorrow LOL). I really enjoyed pushing myself to blog weekly during the One Room Challenge (you can check out my final Guest Bedroom reveal here) so I'm going to try to keep the momentum going and do a Friday post each week if I have something fun to share.

To kick off the season I'm sharing a few pics of my mantel decked out for the holidays - which I couldn't resist putting together before Thanksgiving. I picked up this wreath during the Hearth and Hand launch at Target and it was too pretty to put away for a month....so then I just kinda leaned into it and kept going. As much as I love all things white these days, my husband loves decorating our XMas tree with multi-colored lights, so this year I'm trying to figure out a way to blend the two into something we both love. The colors I'm going with are blue (the antique window frame), green (the wreath), and classic Christmas Red...along with a lot of white, gray, silver, and gold.

I saw someone share this red and white pom-pom garland on Instastories and ran out to Michaels to grab it (and I'm glad I did because it's totally sold out now!) and then winded two strands around my candlesticks, which I'm keeping gray this year but would love to change out to something different next time. To keeps the garland in place I like to use a few craft glue strips or dots....they're nice and sticky but I can get them off easily when I'm done.

To bring in more green I wrapped some $3 garland I found earlier this year in the Target Dollar spot around each white candle (which are all from World Market and don't smell!) - small candle / medium candle / large candle

The stocking holder I built last year (if you are interested in a good beginner building project this is perfect - you can totally build just using hand tools and this tutorial from Shanty 2 Chic is great...or you can always shoot me a note and I'd be happy to build you one!) The little red stockings are from Kohl's....I like to keep the small ones down here so the kids can't pull them down as easily.

I have some Styrofoam blocks on the bottom of the box, and then I filled it with some pine cones (which are great to pick up super cheap after Christmas), some ornaments I found at Michaels, and the leftover Target Garland.

I want to try to add something in front of the fireplace, but I'm pretty happy with how everything is coming together! Hopefully these smaller weekly posts are fun to read....next week I have something new I want to try out, but until then...enjoy the long weekend!

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

One Room Challenge Week 7 - Guest Bedroom Final Reveal!

Lauri Tripaldi Photography

Well we've made it - 7 weeks in the books and the guest bedroom is looking mighty pretty if I do say so myself. Before we get to the good stuff, I just want to say a very big thank you to Linda from Calling it Home (the organizer of the entire One Room Challenge) as well as House Beautiful and the newest ORC media partner Home Love Network. I've decorated many rooms in my house, but taking part in this was an entirely new and wonderful experience! The weekly connection to other bloggers not only pushed my creativity, but inspired me to work to make this little blog the best it can be...and for all of that I am so grateful. As excited as I am about sharing my own space, I think am even more excited to see all of my fellow ORC featured and guest participants final reveals today!

Lauri Tripaldi Photography

You've all heard me ramble on enough over the last 6 weeks, so now I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking - and lucky for me they are BEAUTIFUL pictures taken by my wonderfully talented and lovely friend Lauri from Lauri Tripaldi Photography.

Lauri Tripaldi Photography

At the end I have included links to all of the products I shopped for this space, but for now enjoy what I've been tagging as my "Modern Farmhouse" guest bedroom, but I like to think of as my "Re-Furbished Bed and Breakfast w/a hint of Hip Grandma" guest bedroom, you know like all the cool kids are saying : )