Christmas Home Tour: Take a Peek at the Hallway!!

I had this grand vision in my head of doing this one fabulous post with all of my Christmas decorating.  Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to get it all finished!!  I have finished the hallway and even put a tree in our bedroom, but I am struggling with the living room decorations this year (which is the one room most everyone will see).

So I decided that I would just share it a little at a time.  Partly, I hope to inspire everyone else to be creative with their decor.  And partly, I’m really proud of my work and I want people to see it!!!!

The only room I have decorated is actually not a room…it is the hallway.  I didn’t choose to do this area first for any reason other than that it was the easiest to clean!  Yeah, I’m brilliant (and lazy) that way.  I usually go with the primitive theme in this area, but I am in love with the red/blue color combinations that are popping up everywhere, so I changed it up this year.

If you’ve read my post about How To Make Fake Snowballs, then you might recognize a few of these things.  (I talked about the snowballs, the light bulb ornaments, and the printable in that post.)  The decorating in my hallway revolves around a Hoosier Cabinet.  It belonged to my husband’s grandmother and I’m told there was a lot of dumplin’ making going on when this was in her kitchen!  As it is, it’s been used in several different rooms in my house.  I’m even thinking about putting it in my bedroom!

You can see there is no back to it…I actually found this useful because there is a thermostat smack dab in the middle of the wall.  (That’s because no one asked me where to put it.)  The cabinet fits pretty well there and I probably won’t move it anytime soon unless someone gets my great-grandmother’s piano out of storage like I’ve wanted for the past 7 or 8 years (hint, hint honey).

Sorry…didn’t mean to get totally sidetracked!!  Anyway, the cabinet decoration started with some greenery and a few white berries.  I had some of the decorations and some I have repurposed from other parts of the house–like the basket, the picture frame, and the milk glass bowl and creamers.

Did you notice the presents??  Those are fake!  I just took some empty boxes (light boxes, gift boxes, even a plastic ornament box!) and wrapped them with craft paper and leftover wrapping paper.  Then I used bits and pieces of coordinating ribbon and stacked them up.  I think they are pretty cute.

I had a set of trees on a stand that I took apart.  I used two in the hallway and one is waiting to decorate the front porch.  The Noel tree was very simple.  I just wove different kinds of ribbon into the branches and painted large letters with Robin’s Egg Blue paint to spell out NOEL.  I bent the top and hung a red glitter star from it.  The whole thing is sitting inside of a red and white polka-dot bucket.  I bought that at Market in Atlanta for $4.  Definitely one of my favorite purchases!

Here’s a close up (and it’s a little less blurry too!):

This is the cabinet and tree all finished.  Notice the sleigh full of Christmas books in the floor…I love books!

I thought the cabinet was finished, but I actually didn’t like the way the little tree on top looked, so I added to it.  It now has red and white ribbon and a bottle of  “snow” in front of the tree.

My hallway has one little bitty ole window.  It’s lets in just about no light whatsoever.  I’m really not sure why it’s there or what the purpose is.  Also, it’s a pain to keep clean for some reason.  Still, it has to be decorated too!

The chalkboard came in a set with the basket.  I love it!  I printed out a picture of the kids that I edited on Picmonkey and used a scrapbook sticker to adhere it to the chalkboard.  I made the striped ornament out of a light bulb and painted the heart in Santa’s bag to match my color scheme.  The tree was part of the trio I took apart and I had everything else from previous years.  I use a lot of red in my house, so I can always repurpose it for the holidays.  Speaking of repurposing…that ladder used to be on the bunk beds the boys slept in!

So that’s the first glimpse of my Christmas house.  Hopefully, you can understand why I don’t have the rest of the house finished yet!  I do have one other tree finished (not the entire room) and I’ll be sharing it later.  Come back and see me and if not, I hope Christmas brings you great Joy!!