Merry and Bright Christmas Home Tour 2014
Welcome to my Merry and Bright Christmas Home Tour 2014!
This year I spent a little more time than I usually do getting my home all ready for Christmas. I’m not sure why, but I felt a little more overwhelmed at the idea of all the decorating (and a touch intimidated by all the beautiful home tours going on in blogland). So I decided to give myself a few days (instead of a few hours) to decorate, and it was a lot less stressful having done it this way.
And I figured that since the carpets were vacuumed, the laundry put away, and the kitchen cleaned, the least I could do was document it right? It was now or never to show you my home all decked out for the holidays! It’s not perfect, but it’s our home and it feels lovely.
Merry & bright for Christmas…come on in!
Warning…picture overload. 😉
Our Christmas home is very colourful this year, and it all starts on the porch with bright and cheery Christmas trees!
Over time I’ve accumulated quite a collection of bright and colourful ornaments! Many came from my collaboration with Canadian Tire over the last couple of years.
These snowflakes are new to the porch this year, and they seem to add the perfect touch, tying in our yellow door.
When you come into our home, the first thing you will see is our holiday welcome message! I love this wreath on our chalkboard wall…
This year I had a lot of fun hanging simple evergreen wreaths on various glass doors throughout our home (I found these at Michaels for $2.99 each! LOVE a good deal like that!). They are simple and pretty hanging on our office doors…
Speaking of our office I added a little Christmas cheer in here too. This is where I spend a lot of time working on my blog, so it’s nice to have some decorations.
And it’s also where I can get away with having a white tree with pink ornaments! 😉
Next up is our living room. Not much changes in here year after year, except this year I was able to convince my family that we needed white lights on our tree! I can hardly believe that everyone was on board with having white instead of coloured lights! Our only regret is that we didn’t add at least 3 more strands! We love our tree…we have a real one every year, and there is no theme…it’s a beautiful collection of ornaments we’ve collected since we were married and had kids, so everything on it is really special.
I kept our mantel simple this Christmas. It’s funny because I love decorating my mantel for each season, but have a really hard time decorating a Christmas mantel. I feel like it competes with the tree too much so I never know what to do with it. I even had it completely empty for a while and it didn’t feel quite right so I added a simple evergreen wreath and filled my lanterns with coloured ornaments.
I also decorate my stairs with evergreen garland, lights and coloured ornaments. They looks so pretty during the day, but especially so at night!
Merry & bright!
This year I also decided to add some holiday cheer to our eating nook. Ever since we got our new (and much smaller table) I like decorating this space.
This nook is nice and bright, which makes it the perfect space for silver, gold and copper accents.
Side note: you may also notice a certain photobomb?! That’s Ed our Elf. Yes we have an elf and we love him.
For a little extra cheer, I added ornaments to a silver tray on our table. My 5 year old said that he specifically loved this decoration. Too cute!
I also hung a simple evergreen wreath to my dish cabinet and I’m loving it! I wish I could leave it there all year.
I love this view from my stove area. When I look over at it, it makes me happy.
Now on to our master bedroom!
I have never in the history of Christmas in our home, ever ever decorated our room for the holidays. And now I’m wondering why I haven’t before! Our room is my most favourite part of our Christmas home.
I love the colour of our walls so much that I have really put an effort into keeping our master bedroom a sanctuary. And it’s funny because as soon as we painted our room last winter, I immediately imagined evergreen wreaths hanging over our bed {I used miracle command strips to hang them}. I LOVE how they look hanging there. I thought about adding something extra to the wreaths, but I really just love how simple they are.
Then I layered on our faux fur blankets, fuzzy snowflake pillows and made our bed all cozy!
One of my most favourite things about our room is the NOEL sign that I found at Target! It adds the most gorgeous cast of light in our room…I need to find a sign I can keep in here all year round. It’s SO pretty!
Just look how gorgeous it looks at night!
For a little extra lighting I also added some LED branches to the basket of twigs and sticks that I used for my fall mantel.
LOVE it!
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So that’s my Christmas home…festive and cheery! Now if I can just manage to keep everything tidy for the next month…that would be a miracle. With my kids getting older I can’t even believe how messy my house gets on a daily basis…seriously. I’ll just come back here to remind myself how clean it can be. 😉
I hope you enjoyed my tour! Maybe you’ll even find a little inspiration for your home!
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If you’re looking for more Christmas Home Ideas, check out tours from my friends Virginia of Fynes Designs and Tara of Suburble!
Gorgeous Jo-Anna! So warm and festive.
Thank you Tiffany! xo
Great tour JoAnna! I especially love those bright colors on the porch and your yellow door!
Thank you so much Cheryl! I’m so happy with our new yellow door!
Your house looks beautiful Jo-Anna, I especially love your colourful front door -so much fun!
Thanks Dannyelle! I’m loving it too – it’s nice and cheerful!
Ha! Lucky I didn’t post my tour, it’s WAY better than yours. Yeah, I’ll be getting to that any day now…no, really….you just wait missy…I’m going to blow you out of the water. No, REALLY. Yours wasn’t elegant and festive AT ALL.
Hahaha Cynthia! 🙂
i love all of it and your bedroom is so cozy.
Thank you Bette!
Hi Jo, your home is simply gorgeous – so fresh, bright, and festive … and so clean!
Thank you! 🙂 It feels so nice to have it all done now…now it’s time to just sit back and enjoy it!
I love the colors & the white furniture! ! Everything is soooo gorgeous! !
Thank you so much Paige!
Beautiful home! I love all the pops of bright color, especially on the banister. I soo wish I had a banister to decorate! The master looks so pretty and cozy. Merry Christmas
Thank you Virginia! I can’t wait to see your home tour!
But seriously, the LED lit twigs in the basket Are they electric or battery powered? Where you get them?
They are from Canadian tire, and are battery operated LED lights. They will stay on for 5 hours if you wish, then automatically shut off, and turn back on 19 hours later. LOVE them!
*did*
What a gorgeous Christmas tour! I love all of the bright and happy colours, but I must say my favourite part is your master bedroom. That marquee sign is AWESOME, and all of the textures and layers look so cozy and festive.
Thank you Christina! I’m really loving our master bedroom too! I’ll definitely be decorating it every year from now on! Thank you so much for stopping by! xo
Lovely as always xx
Thank you Cindy! Happy Holidays to you and your family! 🙂
Jo!!!! Absolutely gorgeous! I love everything and I CANNOT wait to come and cozy up by the tree with some wine and that goat cheese bacon dip! Just gorgeous!
Oh thank you Lori! I can’t wait either! Let’s set a date my friend!
Jo-Anna, your bedroom is my favourite room of your house – so cozy and gorgeous! I am dying over those pillows and that marquis! I LOVE It!
I love, Love, LOVE every Christmas decor detail! It is like your home is made for Christmas! I love how bright, cheerful and whimsical (I mean that as a compliment) everything looks! Have a wonderful Christmas!
So love your bright and cheerful home! It is not too cluttered like I have seen other Christmas home tour….So pretty!
Jo-Anne, I love your style and enjoyed this virtual tour so much. I’ve been keeping my decorations very minimal, and it works for me, but I love how you’ve incorporated Christmas decor throughout so much of your home, while keeping the look clean and stylish. Ho, ho, ho!
On another note, I wanted to say hello to you at FBC2014 and while I saw you on the other side of the room once, I think that’s as close as I got! Maybe next conference …
Hi Marlene! Thank you so much for your lovely comment! It’s too bad we didn’t meet at FBC! Hopefully we can make that happen in Montreal next year! Merry Christmas to you!
So sorry, of course I meant to say “Jo-Anna.”
Jo-Anna,
Back from holidays and cleaning up my open windows on the computer….looked at your holiday home tour once again, and i have to tell you that I love, love, love it….by far the best and prettiest of all I’ve seen this year, and I have looked at a LOT!! I admire the simplicity and clean look, and especially the sparkle. You have hit a home-run!! I hope you still have these decorations up…I am thinking your family and friends would enjoy them well into the new year!! Best wishes!
Sarah