Country Living Christmas Home Tour

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Hello sweet Friends. We are so ECSTATIC that you're here today!

Earlier this week, we shared our first Christmas home tour of 2015 and mentioned that we'd be back today with our second Christmas home tour hosted by none other than Country Living and the ever-sweet Ashley of Cherished Bliss .

Please come in.

We recently freshened up our front entry bench by painting it in a classic black (Coal Black by Fusion Mineral Paints) and adding a new light fixture. After almost three years of searching and pondering which light to buy, we found this one at Home Depot while we were there looking for something completely unrelated to lighting. Go figure!

Honestly the entryway is normally FULL of shoes and coats. It stayed like this for quite literally five minutes before it was a mess again. #ILoveMyFamily

I would really love to replace the brown/beige tiles with really large gray (maybe slate?) tiles. But don't tell Dean that just yet – he's not a big fan of tiling floors!

Shop the entryway look:

Now, we're going to skip over the rest of the main floor for a moment and go straight up to our master bedroom. (You'll see why in a sec.)

This room usually gets a bit more of a Christmas touch, but I was working with what we had and very little time. Thankfully it doesn't take too much to add a little festivity to a space. Just a sign, some antlers, mini trees or a pillow will do it.

Also we recently moved our treadmill up there, so the rest of the room is rather a mess with piles of things all over. Which is okay, because we're not hosting Christmas this year, so no one else has to sleep in there but us. (Our parents take over our room when they visit since we don't have a guest room.)

Don't mind the yellow knobs. We typically have yellow as an accent color in here, with pillows and flowers, etc. I am thinking of changing them out for maybe crystal knobs in the new year. What do you think?

Shop our master bedroom look:

And now for the main floor.

This tour actually holds a bit of a surprise for those of you that are here regularly because WE SWAPPED OUR LIVING AND DINING ROOMS!

It started because we needed a space to put up a second tree for the kids. I decorated the neutral and black tree. The pretty, just-for-looking-at tree.

But the kids really wanted to keep the tradition of decorating a family tree too. Which I'm perfectly happy with because it's TRADITION and we have a couple of Christmas trees in the crawlspace and extra ornaments from changing themes and collecting them over the years.

The issue was that we couldn't find anywhere to make another tree fit. There was just so much wasted space with the previous layout.

So Dean and I started to rearrange the furniture and one thing led to another and now we have a much large and more spacious dining room, which I love.

Shop dining room look:

And I am thoroughly enjoying our uber cozy main floor living room.

That's the tree the kids will be decorating. We just haven't gotten to it yet. 🙂

Also if you read our first tour post, you know that I was having a hard time getting into the Christmas mood this year.

Typically this is not an issue for me. Usually I'm in the Christmas mood 365 days a year! (No joke!)

Shop the living room look:

But for whatever reason I just wasn't “feeling it”. And in that last tour post I encouraged you, that if you weren't feeling it either, to focus on the true reason for the season. To collect your thoughts and feelings and realign your focus.

These home tours can be a fabulous place to be inspired and to see the creativity and beauty that abounds in our world.

But they can also be a place that some of you/me/us can feel completely inadequate. Like we aren't enough. That we don't have enough.

To be honest part of my feelings about the Holidays this year were brought on by guilt. I was feeling guilty that Dean and I and our family have a nice house, with pretty things. Things that were most certainly only a dream a few years ago.

But when I was sharing this with a friend, she said that that was just wrong. That where God has brought us, what He has done in our lives over the last few years through this blog can serve as a reminder that GOD DOES GREAT AND SMALL THINGS even now.

He fulfilled my dreams of a beautiful house and brought to pass so many of the projects that Dean and I only day-dreamed about way back in our very first house. He grew AKA Design in us through you our readers, our hard work and by opening so many doors. He put the creativity in us and shone a light on it in a tiny little run-down house long after he brought Dean and I together.

And, as my friend reminded me, if He can (and did) do that for us – He can most certainly do it for you too.

So please don't feel “less-than” while visiting all the beautiful Christmas Home Tours or by the perfect displays while you're out shopping.

Please see the beauty. Be inspired.

Use what you have. Rearrange the furniture. Swap some rooms.

Look at your space in a new way and be creative.

Merry Christmas from Jackson too!

And most important of all – know that GOD loves you so much that He sent baby Jesus all those years ago for YOU!

And that's really what Christmas is all about, right?

May you have a blessed and Merry Christmas!
xo,
Shannon & Dean

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