Wednesday, November 9, 2011

2011 Christmas Walk--Part One

Hello! As promised, here are some pictures of the 2011 Christmas Walk. In the community where I live, every year 3 homes are chosen to be featured on the Christmas Walk. The owner of the home basically decorates their entire house for Christmas from top to bottom, inside and out, and then opens the doors to the public to come and see. It was a ton of work. I started preparing for it in early October. I took one room of the house at a time, scrubbed and cleaned it from top to bottom, and then decorated it for Christmas. I don't want to get into too much detail about my house, because I did a long series about my home and talked about every single room and how it was constructed HERE if your interested. Today, and later in the week, I'll just show a few pictures of each room in the house and talk about my eventful day.

This is me outside our home. Each home was marked with this special sign so the guests could easily find it. The Methodist Church, which sponsored the walk, gave me this beautiful corsage to wear for the day so people would know that I was the owner of the home. O.k. all crafter's can start drooling now. This is my newly constructed CRAFT ROOM which was just finished about 2 weeks ago....just in time for the walk. I've been working in the space for over a year now, but the upper cabinetry was just installed and painted 2 weeks ago. Since I know most of my readers are crafter's, I will have a separate post next week sometime with more photographs just to talk about this room and all it's special features. I have to say, this room was one of the hits of the day. Every woman that saw it said they were jealous and wanted this room. And my husband is now considered the most wanted man in Modena by all the women, because they want to be married to someone who could build them a room like this. His head has really swelled over all the female attention he received on Saturday. LOL! One lady said to him 'Now where do I go where I can find a man to build me something like this?'. His response was 'Well, if you go to bars, you will meet a guy who likes to hang out in bars, if you go to church, you'll meet a good guy that wants to please his wife.'. Wise words.


This is our sun room. It's the room our daughter was married in, you can see pictures and read all about that HERE. On a regular basis it's where I hang out with my two birds and all my plants, and where we have large dinner parties. There are 10 windows, and I hung a wreath in each window. Then I have one big wreath on the wall, a beautiful table setting, and some garland on top of the shelves and furniture. I also swagged 20 yards of red silky fabric across the windows and added big green fabric bows and bells to each upper plant holder. You'll see more of that view later this week.





Here is my Table Setting. The center floral arrangement was provided as a gift from the church, I surrounded it with candles and covered a gold tablecloth with sparkly green tulle. I had gold chargers, white dishes with a gold edge (leftover from my daughter's wedding), sparkly satin green napkins from Pier One Imports, and floral picks as napkin rings.




This is our office, where I write my posts. It's cut off in the picture, but on top of the left bookcase are two Christmas Houses. One is a replica of a JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts store where I work, and the other is a replica of a Menard's Store for where my husband works.


This is the doorway leading out of the office, existing the original part of the house and walking into the new addition (sun room).


This is my dining room with a view of the kitchen. My tree doesn't fit in the small living room of the old house, so I put it in the dining room.


Another view of the dining room.

This is my small living room. We have a large family room in the new addition and use that space when the kids are all home for a visit. I'll post pictures of that room another day.


This is the 3rd floor upstairs staircase looking down into the Living Room.

This is the upstairs bathroom.


Upstairs Hallway.



My son's room. Both my children have their own 'little trees' which are decorated with all the ornaments they collected growing up.

The view looking into my son's room.


The master bedroom.


My daughter's room.


All in all, it was an exhausting, but wonderful day. We had somewhere between 500 to 700 visitors. Everyone seemed so happy to see all the Christmas Decorations and they had so many questions about the construction of the house, and decorating questions, that my hubby and I stayed very busy. It was a joy to read the guest book after everyone had left. I was just expecting to read names, but to my delight a lot of people wrote comments like 'Wow!', 'Beautiful Home', 'Thanks, I needed this!', etc. Our biggest joy was meeting several elderly woman who grew up in the home as children and hearing their stories. In the 1940's our home was used as the Town's Telephone Office and so many of the visitors that day had stories to share about coming to our house to make a phone call. So many people seemed so happy to just be able to come into the house and recall their special memories. It made all the hard work so worthwhile, and I felt so blessed by God to be able to use the home He gave me to bless others. I'm still hearing comments every time I go to town, and I just received a thank you card in the mail today from someone who visited the house thanking us for opening our house and being a blessing to so many people. Our house has been a 12 year labour of love, and after watching our daughter get married in it a year ago, and the beautiful day we had on Saturday, and all the memories we have, it was well worth every single second of hard work.


Have a great day! Amy




























8 comments:

  1. Delighted that you shared it all with those of us who couldn't go through it personally. What a gorgeous home, Amy. You've made it so cozy and oh, my....what lovely decorations for Christmas. Very warm and cheerful. Thanks so much!

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  2. Wow Amy!! Thanks so much for sharing all your words and pictures!! What a beautiful home. The home looks so warm and cozy with all your touches and work!! The decorations are so festive and stunning!! Gorgeous!! It looks like it took a great deal of time and work. I sure can understand how you would be exhausted!
    hugs,
    Chris

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  3. WOWWWWWW, Amy! Your home is absolutely STUNNING!!....beautiful home and I love how you've decorated each room....so classy! When I decorate for Christmas, it never turns out classy looking like that...mine ends up looking more like kid art, lol!

    ...and YES, I'm definitely drooling over your craft room. So huge! I love the big scissors on the wall. :)

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  4. Amy all that you showed of your house looks amazing - what a lot of work.
    Thank you for blessing us by sharing.
    Blessings
    Maxine

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  5. Thanks so much for sharing the photos of your beautiful home. Everything looks gorgeous~

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  6. WOW! Thank you so much for sharing your home with us! How absolutely beautiful!

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  7. Amy, thanks for sharing your pictures...your home is beautiful and beautifully decorated. Looking forward to seeing more of your craft room. Our homes are so important to us, not only for the structure around us but the memories and dreams we have as a family in them, and I can hear in your words how much yours means to you.

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  8. 0h my heart be still. I LOVE it all. What a wonderful work of heart you have in your home. We used to have these house walks back home in IL but they barely even decorate here in NC and I miss the midwest this time of year. Your house is gorgeous. I love old houses.

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