If it's January - it's Undecorate Time

One of my favorite decorating projects all year has to be Christmas.   When talk of turkey and Thanksgiving begins, I also dream of all the treasured decorations just waiting to come out of hiding.   This year our son and his wife who live in Chicago were with us for Thanksgiving, so that's the only excuse I needed to decorate early!   

I blogged about the first holiday season in our new house below.

Anyhow, I guess my second favorite decorating time is when the holiday decor comes down, and thoughts turn to warm fires and old movies and generally uncluttering the rooms.   It's a lot of work to put it up, but why does it always seem harder to take things down?    Down they are and here's how things look today.

Here's the view of our pond from the breakfast room table.   Each morning we get to watch the sun come up, ducks wake up and get their morning swimming done, and generally enjoy the beautiful sunrise reflections off the water.    It is the most peaceful home we've ever had and we LOVE it.

We knew it would be nice to live on a small pond.   We had no idea how much entertainment the blue herons, ducks, geese, turtles and fish would be.   Our biggest challenge is keeping Miss Bella from barking at them!

 It was nice to have the Christmas village, Santas and snowmen in the Welch cupboard all season, but having the cupboard a little more bare, so that it can show off the patina of the beautiful wood, is nice too.    I am still very happy that we elected to leave wall hung cabinets out of the kitchen, opting instead for shelving made from antique  barn timbers.   A combination of granite and zinc colored silestone is just perfect.   Often when it's time to fill plates and fill glasses with drinks, we feel like restaurant cooks just taking oft used items off open shelves.    Sure is efficient



Although the lighting could be better, this is another view of the kitchen island, antique French chandelier and view from the breakfast room.  

Here's an interesting gift I received as a housewarming.    It's the box I'm using as a pedestal.    Do you have any idea what it is?    Would you believe an antique Chinese "rice box".   They used these boxes to measure and apportion rice.    It's wonderfully chippy --  Brooke would LOVE the patina on this treasure.   I decided to display some sparkly pinecones in a beautiful Simon Pearce bowl.    The color of the glass in that bowl is amazing.

Here's another shot of the rice box and our late 1800's mantle decked out with olive tree topiaries, apples and a couple of angels that our younger son gave me the first Christmas he had a job!   They are treasures that move around all year.

Pardon the glare, but this photo shows our front door and entry with the French vineyard table that now hold a vintage cheese box which is filled with shells. The pretty wide plank floor shows up nicely (as does the fur from our precious Peke).

Here's a shot of the zinc cheese box that holds shells collected from the area. You might also notice our french door is open - yep it's January 12th in Delaware, but it's 60 degrees on the porch

We finally finished papering the mud room, and here's a little fisherman who stands guard for us:

You can see the french ticking stripe paper which is so perfect in this high-use room.   We used the same silestone countertop in the mudroom as in the kitchen since they're close together.


Well, that's all for today.   Happy undecorating!