When I moved to San Diego, the lights came with me. I had them in my bedroom, wrapping around a corner, and one could tell I was home from the rosy glow that could be seen from 4th avenue. It is a testament to the number of hours I was home that my electricity bill was never over $25 a month. My Christmas tree looked stunning (as did my Christmas dress) with these lights as a backdrop.

and now, after two years of living here in Pensacola, it finally feels like my place because I installed the lights in our new family room. It’s amazing how much it didn’t feel like home here and I didn’t even notice until that wall of red got plugged in. This time it’s in an alcove, behind a bookshelf, but it glows just the same.

We created this little room for Jack because he’s wanting to explore- and his crib and pack ‘n play were just getting too small- now he can roam around the whole room. This room has also been a craft room and a catch-all-computer-television-dinner-eating-craft-project room. Now it is finally happy as the play-with-your-blocks-and-crawl-wherever-you-want room. I love the Ikea carpets (courtesy of Joshua & Julielee), the his and hers vintage chairs (via St. Vinnies here in Pensacola), and the enchanted forest of tinsel trees that grew overnight for the holiday season.

It makes me happy. And, it’s stayed clean for over a week now- super good news for the future.

the rest of the house is all Christmased up as well, I’ll share those pics later. =)

xoxo my pretties.
elle

And, the interview for Ohdeeoh.

Name/Age: Jack, 2 months
Location: Pensacola, Florida
Family: Jack, mom Laura and and dad
Room Size: 100 square feet
Division: Baby

Tip for Living Small with Kids: We’re still brand new at the sharing of our home with a child, but one thing we’ve learned is that we don’t need all of the baby gear that we were told we would need. Most of it is supurfluous and just clutters up your space.

What was one of the biggest challenges you faced in putting together this room?

There are no windows in this room! It’s an interior room and can be very drab…but other than that our biggest challenge was that we’re living in a rented home and everything has to be temporary. We aren’t allowed to paint or put holes in the walls. I love color so I tried to include it in every other place possible. We chose gray, orange, teal, and lime green for the colors and used them all over. We painted the crib lime green, dyed the sheets and the carpet (a t-shirt latch hook rug that I made) grey, and used the same coordinating colors for a quasi-bookcase that we built. The room has two built-in units in the corner. One has shelves, but the other was just an open space (it used to be open to the next room, which is now a separate apartment) so we built boxes and rectangles out of 1×6′s to use as shelving. The lanterns were purchased with the colors in mind as well, and they were hung from the ceiling with 3m’s removable hooks.

The other, smaller challenge was money- we are on a very tight budget, but we were able to pull off this space for about $220:
rocking chair from a thrift store: $30
lanterns, bulbs, wiring, and hooks: $90
wood and screws for bookcase: $45
paint: $30
robot wall decal: $5
latch hook rug supplies: $25
crib: free from a friend who was cleaning out her garage!

As far as resources go, I found lots of inspiration on your site (and flickr and modernnursery.com).

Thanks!

Garth and I moved to Pensacola last fall. Our possessions took another 3 months to arrive. We lived in a hotel for a month or so, and moved into this house right before Thanksgiving. We had a few bowls, two plates, and plastic utensils. Our landlord lent us a bed until ours arrived, and I had my sewing machine and various other crafting materials. I wasn’t able to find a job right away, and as the story goes, money was tight. So, this is what I did with what I had. It’s so simple and wonderful to me, and I think that I did the whole thing with about $10 or so. I look at our living room now, overflowing with the Christmas things that have been hiding in boxes, and while I like it, it lacks the passion, simplicity, and sentiment of what was there last year.

I learned how to make pom poms and used lots of scrap yearn that I had. Some I strung into garland for the mantel, and some I just left on the mantel with some thrifted plastic deer. I purchased vintage ornaments from a thrift store and hung them on fallen branches from our backyard, using acorns that I’d gathered from the neighborhood, as a foundation. I made a tree out of really thick floral wire and hung our photo strip pictures on them. In the kitchen I hung ornaments and pom poms above the window. We had a tree also, and I hand-stiched a little tree skirt for it, along with some stockings, but I don’t seem to have photos of those. =)

When the house is done this year I’ll be sure to post the 2008 decor edition. =)
Hope all your halls are decked exactly as you’d like!

xo
elle