Porch Light Reading holiday home tour. Come tour our home for the holidays! Thrift store finds and DIY projects. It’s perfectly imperfect.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays! I’m completely jazzed about Christmas this year and really, it’s because of the kids. They are at the perfect age for everything magical. We’re out of the only cartoons stretch, and getting more into movie marathons of Harry Potter, The Grinch, and my favorite, The Christmas Story!
Plus all the other classics with homemade hot chocolate and snuggles on the sofa.
So I want to welcome you into our home this Christmas season and give you a peak into our holiday life. But this isn’t like some other homes with perfect decor. This one has budget finds and thrift store gems. It’s how we’ve learned to stretch a dollar, and really there is nothing wrong with that.
You’ll see that things are a little miss matched or extra loved and that’s ok! Because that’s real.
So come on in.
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This will be our 5th year celebrating Christmas in this home and things have changed a tad over the years. The kids are no longer in diapers and are helping more than ever in the kitchen. Which means flour on the floor most days and cookies that if they are not asking for, they are defiantly thinking about asking for any minute now.
We can load up in the car with little effort as we search the town for the neighborhood with the best Christmas lights. They know the lyrics to all the holiday music and sing as loud as they can to Joy to the world.
And even though we miss family back in New England, we’ve stepped into a groove of our own small family traditions right here in Arkansas.
We may not be able to share our homemade cookies with you, but we do want to give you a peak into our DIY, thrift store, perfectly imperfect home. So come inside!
HOLIDAY HOME TOUR
Coming up our walkway you’ll notice that we’ve been adding to our DIY outdoor decor. Including Christmas trees, DIY candy cane, our tomato cage gnome and our snowman wreath!
Opening the door you’re met with our front entry table that acts as a barrier separating the front entry from our living room. Since it’s one long rectangle for both the front entry and living room, we had to be a little creative with our furniture placement and I think it works quite well.
We decided to move all the sofa tables around to try a new location for for our tree this year. And when I say we, I really mean me… and my husband just came along for the ride. But I love it! and the bird cage can stay put over by the fireplace to keep away from the doors and drafts.
Our bird is named Little Ray and he’s one amazing parakeet. Oh and on the Christmas tree you’ll see our favorite ornaments. Our dogs Dylan and Penny. They are sweet old puppies and the reason I have to sweep twice a day.
You might have noticed that my area rug is a very small for the living room, but I have to tell you why. We have the best bohemian rug that I adore, but with all the Christmas decorations I just couldn’t take the explosion of colors. It was too busy for the space and I needed something a bit calmer.
So we got creative and pulled this rug from the dinning room to give the living room rug a break for the season. Even though it’s small, I love it! It’s calm and allows the Christmas decorations to shine.
Over the fireplace you’ll find all of our stockings and some thrift store garland that I can’t even tell you how excited I was to find. Is there better garland out there? Yes… Is it for $2. No. So there you have it. Thrift store garland for the win.
Along the curtain rod is our DIY dried orange garland project, which was one of my favorite things to make this holiday season and left the house smelling amazing as it was drying in the oven.
Turning back around you’ll find our Christmas tree and Christmas village over to the right hand side. The wreath on the door gets soaked every morning from the kids taking turns spraying it before school. It’s lasted way longer than expected so I have no complaints, unless it’s before they have found their shoes. But that’s a different story.
Last year we decided to give this Christmas tree a makeover! It’s about 7 years old now and the lights went out on one side….It was like that book and movie with the green guy.
We had planned on getting a new tree, but the ones we liked gave us (me) sticker shock seeing that they wanted over $300 for them. So we took off the old lights, made it a bit taller and added our own DIY pine cone decorations.
I’m not sure how everyone else gets their trees looking so perfect. Our decorations are a mix between paper cut outs and popsicle sticks the kids made at school, the glass decorations are arranged up high and we say a prayer that they make it to next year.
Our kitchen nook is the first place that gets messy after I’ve cleaned the house. Even though this photo looks pretty good, there is probably hot glue stuck to the table from my oldest’s ugly sweater contest she’s having with her class.
Priorities. And I think fun and homemade dinner won that night.
Our Christmas village is my husband’s and my favorite thing to set up each year. Can you guess where I found them? The thrift store! All except one that was gifted to us by my husband’s aunt. The kids set up the little dollar store cars and this village comes to life.
The snow doesn’t look real, and the mirror lake is obvious, but it doesn’t matter. At night when we turn these lights on it’s one of our favorite displays. It reminds us of back home. Of my husbands childhood growing up and setting up the Christmas village with his aunts.
This was our first year braving a ladder and putting lights around our roof line! The wood Christmas trees are a new DIY addition that we just stained this afternoon and this weekend we’ll be adding a sting of lights to each one.
With each season we add a bit more and get creative with new holiday DIY projects or things we find second hand.
So that’s it! Our front yard decorations aren’t perfect and our Christmas tree doesn’t look like it came straight out of a magazine, but it’s cozy.
Our kids won’t remember that our lights didn’t match or that our tree is decorated more heavily on one side. They won’t remember that the village had dollar store mirrors and people.
They will remember making that ugly sweater for school. The smell of popcorn and cookies baking. And the excitment they feel every morning looking for that Elf that sometimes forgets to move.
So embrace the mess and miss-matched things, and know that it doesn’t have to be perfect, to actually be perfect.
Wishing you and your family peace, love and good health this holiday season.
Best Wishes ~Sara
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