RE-decorating: Charity Home Tour

I recently went on a local charity's Christmas home tour. and I thought I would share some highlights. The first home on the tour was The Inn at Chachalaca Bend, a bed and breakfast which is owned by one of our mother's closest friends, Rosemary.   The Inn originally designed for birders has grown into a favorite venue for weddings in our area due to its deluxe facilities and lush, meticulously maintained grounds.  Eldarose and I plan on doing an entire post on the Inn so I will just post one photo from the tour for now to show the garlands and wreaths they hang outside for Christmas.  My camera was acting funny the day of the tour so the rest of the pictures honestly wouldn't do justice to the Inn. In the meantime, if you cannot wait to see more of the Inn, you can visit its official site:
http://www.chachalaca.com

At the next house, my favorite element was the topiaries that greeted you.  They had several topiaries in the front yard including this dancing bear which they covered in lights and donned with red bows. Very charming.

At the next house on the tour, the owners had renovated the home down to the studs.  In the downstairs bedroom which is reserved for the wife's older mother, they built a wheel chair accessible shower with a floral mural that covered the entire back wall.  It was beautiful and very cheery.  The owner had seen the concept in Architectural Digest and the artist of that wall was listed.  She contacted the tile artist and the cost was well beyond her budget. So she contacted the art department of the local university and an instructor there agreed to do the work for about 10% of what the other artist had quoted.  So the moral of the story is to check out local talent to find a way to get a high end look for less.

The last home I toured is a historic Spanish colonial revival home belonging to a young couple with a son. We have known the husband's father for a long time. The young couple spent a lot of time renovating their home in a very respectful manner.  They took care to avoid changing too much of the original architecture.  The home was built by the previous owner and the young couple bought the home from the estate.  They wanted to decorate their home in a way that was evocative of the era in which the home was built.  Around the fireplace, they placed a garland and wound antique lace through the garland.

The fireplace surround has colorful tiles done by California tile company.

When the couple bought the home, they were lucky enough to have photos of the home being built and the original plans. They switched the kitchen and dining room spaces so that the kitchen had the best view to the back yard and the lake beyond it.  In the kitchen, they had custom white cabinets installed with a slate top.   The kitchen island has a butcher block counter top.  To keep a vintage look to the kitchen, they used antique green glass pulls for the cabinets.  The back splash is a Carrera marble basket weave pattern that is similar to the tiles in both of the existing bathrooms. On the pantry door to the left of the counter they installed blackboard wall paper to write shopping lists and messages.

For Christmas, the couple decorated their kitchen island with oranges with cloves and wintery greenery.

Since I enjoy making tablescapes, I volunteered to help the busy young couple decorate their dining room for the Christmas home tour.  I ended up matching my own angel salad plates, white dinner plates and gold chargers with the owner's wedding silver and crystal.  The knives and spoons were placed in mini angel stockings that I've been collecting.  I brought over a holiday tablecloth and the couple decided to add a large crochet runner made by the husband's grandmother as their personal touch to the table setting.  Small gold votive candle holders and bud vases with individual poinsettia blooms were placed at each setting.

Close up of the angel stockings.

On the back of the chairs, gold ribbon was wrapped around to look like a bow on a present.  An angel ornament and a place card with an angel stamp in gold ink were hung on each of the bows.

On a side table, the owners displayed lace doilies and vintage china cups and saucers that belonged to the original owners beside gold hand-painted angel napkins.

The dining table centerpiece was large standing gold angel with a trumpet adorned with ribbon.  I'm so sorry I don't have a better photo of the entire table. As I already mentioned, my camera was being weird that day.  I am including the photo so you can at least get an idea of what the tablescape was like overall.

WRITTEN BY REBA.

RE-decorating: Holiday lunch at Jean's house

This past week, I saw my college roommate, Jean at her home in Houston. Jean has been an incredible friend for many years. This last visit, she invited me and a college friend of ours, Angela, over for lunch at her home. It was a rare treat for the 3 of us to be together. Since college, the three of us have lived in three different cities in Texas and while we will see each other when we visit those cities, we seldom are all in the same city at the same time. We were joined for lunch by one of Jean's daughters and another visiting relative. We had a great time and I was able to shoot a few photos for the blog.Jean decorates her front door for Christmas with fruit, red and gold glass ornaments, a wreath and a poinsettia.

Jean sets a welcoming scene on her front porch by decorating her wood bench with Christmas patchwork pillows and a stuffed snowman doll.

Jean lives in a spacious home which she has decorated for the Christmas holiday.  Jean has many nativity scenes throughout her home including one I gave her years ago. She has a large tree in her foyer and another one in her family room. 

Jean's dining room is already set for Christmas dinner. She uses her Lenox Autumn wedding china on gold chargers, with matching linen napkins, Towle Old Master silverware and her Waterford Lismore crystal. Her floral center piece is in complementary shades of creams and light blues. Her place card holder is a red & green Christmas tree ball ornament. She uses Sabino crystal knife rests. I especially noticed how nice the china setting looks on the mahogany table without a tablecloth.

For the casual luncheon, we ate in the breakfast nook adjacent to the kitchen. Jean used a red table runner with Christmas appliques. She also used Spode Christmas tree pattern plates with a Santa Claus napkin holder on top of gold chargers. We had a delicious green salad for lunch with great orange rolls from a local bakery. She made the salad while we watched and chatted. We enjoyed a great, relaxing time. Old Friends are such a blessing! Jean shared an easy recipe for sour cream biscuits with me which I am sharing with you below

I didn't take a picture of Jean's biscuits so I googled and found Macaroniandcheesecake.com did almost the exact same recipe.  The image above is of their biscuits.  The only minor difference from Jean's recipe below is they cook their biscuits at 350 instead of 375.  Although, they also found a handy recipe to make a Bisquick substitute if you don't have any available.  The image above, their biscuit recipe and the Bisquick substitute recipe can be found HERE

JEAN'S SOUR CREAM BISCUITS RECIPE


2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 cups Bisquick
Mix and drop into small muffin tins.  Bake @ 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.  Makes 4 dozen.

WRITTEN BY REBA

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