Holiday Home Tour 2014 {Video}

Back in 2011, before I left my Toronto apartment, I shared a video tour of the itty bitty space. One of the requests I get most often is for a video tour of the “new” apartment. Three years later, I finally got my act together and filmed one this weekend…on one of the dreariest days of the year. It’s a little dark and grainy (and I couldn’t use natural light for all the shots), but I hope you get the idea. You’ll get to see every room of the apartment and how we’ve made the space work for us.

This isn’t a magazine worthy home, but that’s okay. It’s definitely “lived in” and all our furniture is hand-me-downs or pieces we’ve refinished along the way. I can’t wait to have our own house someday and go crazy decorating it (à la Clark Griswold), but for now this is our home. I’m sure that someday we’ll look back on it and be glad that we have this video of our first place together, when we were just young newlyweds sharing a tiny apartment with two tiny dogs. I hope you enjoy!

We’ve got our new tree up now, with the Gordon tartan wool blanket as a makeshift tree skirt and the newly refinished antique sled nestled in beside it. Soon we’ll have all our gifts tucked in under there! You’ll notice that there aren’t any of the Dried Orange Slice Ornaments on the bottom of the tree, because a little black dog has found that they’re quite nice to nibble on.

For the rest of the tree decorations, we kept it simple. We put up the Felt Gingerbread Men Ornaments, some new wooden cranberry garlands, silver bells that jingle, our honeymoon road trip souvenir ornament from Biltmore Estate, Simple Felt Ornaments (the mittens!) and hid our glass German pickle ornament we picked up at the Toronto Christmas Market in the Distillery District last year. The Victorian Christmas Tree Tinsel reminds me so much of our trip to the Black Creek Pioneer Village last December and their Christmas displays. (In the video I say the tinsel is from the tinsmith we met at the CNE, but later on I realized it’s from Lee Valley!)

The old cupboard I found at my grandpa’s house is still being used as our bar, but for now we’ve tucked it in behind the tree. If we do need to get a bottle of wine from it, you can still open it without hitting the tree. In the basket, I’ve got some boxes of Christmas cards to mail out, which I’ll start working on this week.

Over on top of Garrett’s desk, I’ve set up my handmade Christmas village!

I added some new miniature wreaths and garlands that I picked up on my family’s trip to Port Perry last December.

 The little metal sleds are a new addition too.

The new garlands may just be one of my favourite parts!

In our bedroom, I swapped out the botanical prints above the bed for some holiday sheet music (tutorial and printable sheet music here) and added a garland and LED candles from the wedding along the top of the headboard. This is really how our bedroom always looks – books stacked on the night stands, hand creams and scented candles on my side and the alarm clock on Garrett’s, the bed made (I do it every morning, without fail) and two little dogs being cute. The rest of our apartment can be in shambles, but the bed always has to be made.

In the window, I hung a paper star lantern. It makes the whole room glow at night…and I love how it looks from the outside too.

These two love to sit together and look out the window.

At night, the bedroom is extra cozy with the candles on, lamps lit and the star glowing. I’ve been going to bed early this week just so I can settle in to read with a mug of chamomile tea and enjoy it all.

In the dining room/office, I set up a little tree with some of my favourite silver and gold baubles from last year, nutcrackers that remind me of going to the ballet years ago with a dear friend and the cookie jar I used for our 2012 advent calendar. I haven’t filled it up with cookies yet….but that doesn’t stop Garrett from checking every day! (Maybe I should surprise him with a batch of these tonight.)

This will be the fifth Christmas that I’ve dressed up the Maltese Falcon on my office shelves in a little Santa cap

The shelf above the sink got a little festive touch with a jar of mini candy canes, set aside to make Peppermint Bark. I have all my favourite cookbooks and magazines tucked up in here. I love pulling them out at the beginning of a new season and looking for different recipe ideas. Even while I was tidying this up I came across a special edition magazine Garrett gave me that is all about one-pot soups. We’ll definitely be needing that soon!

On the other side of the kitchen, I hung up this cute new plaid tea towel from Crate and Barrel. We’re still loving the Framed Weekly Dinner Menu two years later.

 I hope you enjoyed this little Holiday Home Tour. I’m sure I’ll be adding to our house throughout the month, as I’m always tweaking things here and there. Wishing you all a December that is Merry and Bright!