First, apologies for the absence of posts this fall.  When I’m back at school, Chad works harder than ever on the house, but he doesn’t always have extra hands for picture-taking!  We can’t wait to provide a window update, as the first set is back in the frame and they look AMAZING!  Also, we may have a roof on the smokehouse this week…get ready for it!

This weekend, we broke up the monotony of my final-exam studying with plenty of holiday cheer.  Chad has had a few issues with the heater in the last few weeks (I think the house was an average of 40 degrees in mid-afternoon, requiring some serious Eskimo-style layering), but now the entire first floor is opened up, warm, and feeling like a real house.

Here are a few pictures of Christmas season at Edge Hill!

First, a “big” welcome to Jackson, the newest member of our family!  We don’t know if he’s ever seen a Christmas tree, since he grew up in Hawaii (do they have to import Christmas trees there? Or do they just decorate palm trees?).  He is just as goofy as Afton and we’re having a blast integrating him into our “pack.”

Cami is not too sure if she’s a fan of TWO Great Danes in one house, so she watched the Christmas prep from a distance.

We got a wild hare mid-decorating and decided to pull down some of the paneling above the Great Room fireplaces.

Here’s the “before”:

And…what’s this? A little corner of wall paper showing from behind the paneling?

And another piece hiding up in a corner where a piece of panel had already fallen down:

And, down it came!  You can see the plastic vapor barrier that was behind the paneling. 

It makes the whole room start to feel less dark and depressing.

AND!  The remains of the border we found above the second mantel has the same pattern as some of the gorgeous wall paper we uncovered in our attic adventure (And this is one of our favs, it’s gilded)!

And here is the full pattern:

Most of the decorations are courtesy of my Aunt Barbie, Uncle Skip, and cousins Jen and Christine, who gave us “Our First Christmas” as a wedding present.  It is so nice to have five tubs full of yuletide spirit in our first few years of (student-loan ridden) married life!  Barbie also made the adorable little cross-stitched pillow, below.

 

Apologies for the poor lighting in the next picture, but when we moved in this door was laying on its side mysteriously in the Great Room sans hardware…and now is hanging AND has a doorknob, so it is exciting to have a picture of this guy pulling his weight!  The icing on the cake is that this is our bedroom door, so we are no longer living in a cut-through space!

Now that we’ve got a bedroom door, maybe we’ll get a chance to remove these wonderful mirrors above the very traditional mantle…

 

A little mistletoe for the front hall:

And, drum roll, please…the TREE!

A 10.5-foot beast – what a treat to have room for a big tree!  Unfortunately, we accidentally picked one with razor-sharp needles, but Chad valiantly lit the whole thing in record time and we decorated with the first round of ornaments (there are still a few that need to make the trip from Richmond).

We hope some of you will get a chance to stop by while the house is decorated.  Happy Holidays, everyone – and for those of us who are still students, best of luck with final exams!