PAINT THE WALL AND CEILING THE SAME COLOR OR INCORPORATE VERTICAL STRIPES

The first thing you should do if the space in your home has low ceilings is to make it more light-filled by painting the ceiling a light color.  This simple step will make the space feel much larger by making sure it is as bright as possible.  In our home, we use 3/8 plank boards in combination with the same paint color.  Visually, this maximized the height as much as possible.  But there is no issue if you don’t want everything to be white; simply make sure the ceiling is lighter than the walls.

LOW HANG OR RECESSED LIGHTING

And speaking of more involved solutions, this one can be a bit tricky, but it may be worth it because it can make such a significant improvement. Getting rid of any existing low-hanging ceiling fan, chandelier, or other non-flush with-the-ceiling lighting in your room can be a significant upgrade. It may be necessary to hire an electrician to install the recessed lighting, but it will be well worth the cost.  Here you can see we used huge chandeliers where the ceiling heights are way up there and both recessed & a low-hanging light where the ceiling is lower.

MOUNT CURTAINS AS CLOSE TO THE CEILING AS POSSIBLE

This classic design trick gives a room a feeling of openness and airiness. Hang the curtain rod as near to the ceiling as you can if your room has 7 or 8-foot ceilings. Yes, even higher than the window’s trim. Many people believe that the trim serves as a guide to indicate where to place a rod, but honestly, we went all the way to our ceiling in our old house, and I think they looked great.  These ceilings were about nine feet and the hanging the curtain rod close to the top still worked!

USE LOW HEIGHT FURNITURE

Large, heavy furniture can make any space appear smaller. Consider choosing furniture that is proportionate to the height of the ceiling. We laid our mattress directly on the floor and added extra throw pillows so that it doubles as a lounge recliner.  An option for dining or living areas is to use long, slim, low-profile couches in dining or living spaces to make the furniture proportionate to the size of the space. To create a room that feels larger, you may also use full-height shelf units and thin shelving that reaches the ceiling. Low-height furniture gives the impression that there is more overhead space whereas towering furniture focuses attention.

Making the most of rooms with low ceilings calls for careful planning, imagination, and a good sense of design. When done well, the outcome is a room that is both useful and aesthetically pleasing, giving the impression that it is larger than it actually is

Here is a compilation of our holiday home tours over the years. It’s awesome to look back and see how Susan’s styling has changed over the years. At how much our babies have grown (tear). And reminisce on the huge effort it takes to get the house ready for filming. Here they are in all their glory. Also, I’ll add a little background in the effort it took to get everything together.

2022

Each year, the decorating starts off with the fireplace room. It’s the main room of the house and has both the front door and stairway upstairs. What is challenging is the room is off-centered. Susan often has Cath, Grandma, and me trying several different combinations of tree placements in order to get it right. This year we tried all four corners until we landed back to the original location. Then out of the blue, SQ got the idea to add two smaller trees on the side. I think it looks awesome.

We kind of try to have a “big reveal” each year.  For 2022 the reveal was the kitchen.  That was a ton of work to get that all set.  Susan briefly went into the whole effort on the IG post but here are a few more details.  The whole effort started because SQ wanted to feature these Arhaus chandeliers without swaging them because we had swaged lights in the two rooms that connected to this one.  And I’ll admit, she was right even though I knew that not swaging them was going to lead to so much more work.

In order to string the electrical wire we needed to remove a ceiling panel. That was a chore in and of itself because they were actually inch thick knotty pine – the good stuff. But when I finished cutting out a rectangle and we found 1880’s floor joists, I knew the whole ceiling was coming down. Really, the exposed beams are awesome. I think they look great and when Susan saw them, her eyes just lit up. I love it when she gets like that. Her mind just races to figure out how best to show off this amazing, beautiful treasure that was buried for years. SQ dreamt up painting the subfloor (on the ceiling white so there was a good contrast between that and the wooden floor joist beams.) Then that led to painting the rest of the dining are in the kitchen white. Lastly, while Susan was in Australia, I painted harlequin squares on the floor that she said would add interest. Here’s the technique I used in case you’d like to paint these in your home.

The song is a Silent Night cover by Steelings.  Very cool.  We went back and forth on the song choice this year and ultimately went with this because it has a whimsical feel to it.

2021

2021 is definitely one of my favorites.  I really like this one.  Here is the Handsome and Gretyle’s home page and link to this song called December.

This year Susan faced the challenge of having to get over an artistic block. Nothing looked quite right and it was an effort to get started. Unfortunately I cannot help with new decorating ideas. She’s got to be the one to decide what looks good. So SQ went to her favorite sources for inspiration – store displays, Pinterest, reimagining spaces in our home. And then ultimately what did it for her was thinking back to those holiday moments from when she was a little girl, looking at pictures of her mom and grandmother using tinsel on her trees and boom, the whole thing came together! The feeling of an old fashioned Christmas Is always something Susan strives to create each year. We got the biggest tree that could fit in the room and SQ, Cath, the girls and Grandma showered the tree with tinsel for hours. It looked just amazing.

From there everything came together pretty smoothly. Our big reveal was an update to the kitchen again (only using paint) and a ton of new paint jobs throughout the house. We installed wood paneling on the far side of the kitchen to add texture and depth to the walls and then painted that and the floor a deep shade of blue. I’m a huge fan of the look and am always so impressed by SQ’s ability to add subtle changes to have a big impact. Huge thank you to my friends Joe and Brandon for coming over to help me get everything ready.

2020

Lastly, here is 2020. (The girls have grown so much!) The story behind this is SQ had recently done a video house tour that was done on her phone the year before. While it was good, she knew that she’d like to do more to really show off the decorations and our holiday home. We had met Joel through a few family get-togethers (He’s Cath’s, husband’s, sister’s, friend’s husband) and knew he was super talented. We were lucky enough that he agreed to shoot our house and both SQ and I were blown away with the result. He truly captured everything we were hoping for and am so grateful for his work.

This year our big reveal was the concrete on the walls.  Originally the concrete was supposed to be only on one wall but because it looked good, SQ asked to have the entire space done.  I’ll say this, it was generally easy to do because it’s just slathering on the walls and doing your best to smooth it out while the concrete is still semi-wet.  But my shoulders were sore for a week!

The song is Angels We Have Heard On High by Future of Forestry

Lastly, in 2021 we recorded our fireplace mantle for people to stream on their TVs.  Cath and Dave suggested this since they don’t have a fireplace at their place but really enjoy playing wood burning fireplaces on their tv as a backdrop while hosting friends.

Videographer

Our videographer is Joel Krogman. I cannot write enough about how much of a stud muffin this guy is. Truly a genuinely nice person. SQ and I always question if we’re “professional” enough for him since he’s worked on movie sets before and we never even have 100% of any room done before shooting starts. A lot of times, Joel is recording a room while Susan, Cath, Grandma, and I are rushing to stay one room ahead of him. But he’s always patient, reassuring, and even goes out of his way to help us set up. He’s just an absolutely awesome guy and if you’re in the Chicago or St. Louis area, I highly recommend reaching out to him for any videography help you need. Here are all his links:

https://www.instagram.com/joelkrogman/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-krogman-a6569b33

YouTube

You can find us on YouTube here.  Be sure to follow us!

The Holiday House Walk is my favorite home tour and I am so happy to be a part of it again this year!

I would like to send a huge thank you to Jennifer Rizzo, our tour organizer, who is an amazing blogger, friend, inspiration! Make sure to visit her charming home, you can check her out at jenniferrizzodesigncompany.  Her home is always so warm and inviting.  And every year she seems to be able to create a sense of nostalgia that improves time and again.  Definitely make sure to check out her tour.

If you’re following along the house walk and coming from Jenn’s site at Clean and Scentsible, welcome!  Her home is so charming and she is just amazing.  I really love the way she put a spin on the traditional green and white Christmas décor.  You’re going to love it!

This year the house tour is going to look a little differently from me.  If you follow along on Instagram, you probably know that I just returned from a 16 day trip to surprise my sister on her birthday in Australia.  So the decorating at our home was put on hold; however, you better believe I still had the decorating itch so I surprised my sister by decorating her mantle for the season.  Let me tell you, it’s totally different shopping for Christmas in a different country but I think it turned out pretty cute!

I arrived home from Oz on Thanksgiving and have been working to pull Christmas together here.  One of the first places I couldn’t resist decorating was our dining area in the kitchen.  We recently made some huge changes to this space.  While attempting to hang our two new chandeliers we found that we had to take the tongue and grove boards down from the ceiling.  One thing led to another and we now have our gorgeous floor beams exposed.  Now this is what I would call a happy accident!  I just love the way they look and the entire room feels more warm and rustic which is a nice balance to the glam and elegant table setting.  I just love mixing the two styles together.

The beautiful dining room was pulled together using items from my very favorite store Arhaus.   I will link everything at the end of this post.  I love the way that these color glasses pop against the rest of the place settings.  They add an unexpected twist to traditional Christmas décor.

While I was away, Rob surprised me by painting our floors in this amazing harlequin pattern!  He knew it was something he knew it was something I had dreamt of for our kitchen floor.  I picked the colors and he did all the hard work.  I have the best husband and I love him so much!  I cannot believe how much it has transformed this space.  Here is a sneak peek of one of the corners.  More to come soon.

Another room I was able to finish this week was our daughter’s bedroom.  It brings me so much joy to see our two girls laughing while decorating their trees.  For their room trees they pick out whichever ornaments they want to decorate with and place them where ever they wish.   Truth be told, they are some of my favorite trees ever.  I just love the organic, whimsical way they look. Not to mention these scenes are what Christmas is to me.  It’s all about family and making our home magical for our girls.  Artwork is by Lindsay Letters.  I’ll link them below.

Thank you so much for joining our holiday home tour this year.  Make sure to follow along on Instagram as we finish decorating for the season.

Love, Susan

If you want to start the tour from the beginning and get endless decorating ideas for the holiday make sure to start here!

Dining Room

• Sutherlin Gesso Chandelier
• Adriana Dining Table
• Bottoni Dining Chair
• Hair On Hide Placement
• Luna Dinner Plates
• Luna Cereal Bowls
• Acadia Gold Taper Holder
• Tannon Wine Glasses
• Francis Area Rug
• Natural Woven Cane Christmas Tree Collar

Girl’s Room

• Watercolor Christmas Tree Art
• Tide Pool Art
• Knit Beanie
• Front Cable Cardigan
• Cozy Rib Pajamas
• Dearfoams Slippers

We built our Tuff Shed three years ago.  (If you click this link, Rob wrote a blog post where he talked about the ordering, designing, and construction of our shed.  Also, here is a top 10 questions answered piece that gives a bit more info.)  Since then we’ve done so much with the space.  From Halloween, to birthdays, to simply having an extra sleeping space.  Lately though, I’ve been using the space as a place to relax and I’m here to write about that.

I got to design the space myself and I knew I wanted something that would inspire, be charming, and foster conversation.  Here are three simple tricks that I used to do just that.

• Make it cozy by providing lots of cushions and blankets for cuddling.

• Well-lit areas create moods and personality. It is then welcoming to relax, unwind, read or enjoy a cup of coffee!

• Speaking of reading one of my favorite ways to create coziness and texture in here, is to add books.  There’s nothing quite as good as unwinding and escaping with a good story while enjoy a bit of nature from the comforts of my snuggly chair.

Now that I have shared all this and how we have enjoyed the space the last few years I am beyond excited to announce that we are about to get our hands dirty and give this escape of ours a whole new look inside paired with a whole lot of intention. This space is transforming not only into a sanctuary to get away but we are turning it into a game room as well. Think of your favorite cozy cabin, tucked away in the woods, a crackling fire, books and now vintage games to enjoy!! The girls are so excited but I have to admit mom and dad might be even more!

We can’t wait to bring you along!

Hey World,

Rob here to tell you about the steps I took to paint the girls’ rooms’ floors.  To get going, I’ll start with the straightforward one, my youngest’s room.  Her little unique space has moody walls (farrow and ball down pipe) that Susan picked out a light, white(ish) color that we painted her whole floor with (pointing by farrow and ball) For this season of her life, she has been kind of obsessed with outer space, so she wanted a star filled room.  Susan recently bought a nightlight that displays “stars” and “galaxies” on the ceiling (Here’s the link if your kiddo likes stars in their room too ) and when combined with the dark walls it looks awesome, not going to lie.

The tricks to painting floors are straight forward but may not be completely obvious.

First, outline the parameter with a brush but make sure to follow the grain pattern in the wood.  So typically, this means that two walls will be easy since the grain will follow along the wall and the other two walls will be tedious as you must apply paint only the same width of the brush.  But if you don’t do this you’ll see the irregular pattern of the bristle crosscut against the grain of the wood.  Annoyingly you won’t really see it until the paint is dry and to fix you must sand it down.

Second, you’ll want to always use paint specifically made for floors.  Initially I questioned this since I knew I was going to apply poly over it as protection against normal traffic but when I asked the Home Depot guy he said the paint is mixed to 1) be more resilient against scuffs than typical wall paint, and 2) better accept the poly coating.  Now, the guy may be lying is butt off, but he said it very confidently and with great emphasis on how important it was to use floor paint over wall paint, so I’m going with it.

Third, always apply poly and let it dry overnight.  This step is the most frustrating for me.  Inevitably I will always miss a drip or worse, leave a large glob that must be fixed (will detail how to fix below).  But these issues are worth the hassle because poly protects against scuffs and spills.  Plus, it gives the floor a finish that doesn’t stand out per se but is absolutely noticeable if absent.  The shine of the poly and the slight patina look is definitely something that should be part of the process.

If you find that you’ve missed a drip or glob there are one of two options to fix.  First, if it’s small and/or not in a place your wife will notice, simply paint over it and pretend it never happened.  Hopefully the spot is small enough where a topcoat of poly over the repaint isn’t needed, but if not, apply a thin layer with a brush after your touchup.  The second option is what I had to do because my mistakes, as is always the case, were large and immediately noticeable by everyone.

The mistake glob I left to dry overnight was right in front of the bathroom door.  No way to hide it with paint.  To fix, required scraping and sanding.  Initially I used 60 grit sandpaper in the hope that the glob of poly would smooth off like wood does.  Unfortunately, it ended up tearing and balling up into little plastic looking pellets.  I mean, this kind of makes sense since plastic and poly are both oil products.  After a few failures, I tried a higher grit sandpaper and had better results.  The 150-grit sandpaper worked the best and I sanded the blob all the way down to the bare wood.  I then repainted, and re-poli-ed the area, making sure to overlap onto the non-messed up section so that it blended in well.

This good boy didn’t find the globs too bad

The diamond pattern required all the steps needed in the first room plus a whole lot of tedious taping. Our oldest daughter wanted something special and unique in her room as well but something that wouldn’t compete with the shiplap. When Susan showed her the harlequin floor pattern it was love at first site so we got to work!

To begin we found the center of the back wall by measuring the entire width and dividing by two.  We knew the eye is drawn to that point, so building out the diamond pattern from there looked the best.  Next, we cut out a template to help guide the taping.  Susan picked up a 24”X36” poster board from the dollar store.  I then cut it down to a 24”X24” square with a razor.  A little trick we used was to tape the sides of the board to add rigidity and smooth the edges.

Once we had our starting point and diamond we were ready to begin.  With our house being as old as it is, I knew that nothing would be truly straight.  To address this issue, I used a laser level that my mom bought me for Christmas 2020 (thanks mom!!!) to ensure the diamond template was placed correctly.  That means that the top point of the square was at the center of the room and the bottom aligned with the laser guide.  And because the template is simply a square laid diagonally so that it magically became a diamond, I know that each side was even.  Thus, the north/south and east/west orientation was set up correctly.

If you don’t have a laser level that can measure N/S and E/W then you can use a carpenter’s square or really any long board that you know has edges that are 90 degrees.  And honestly, even with the laser guide the squares I taped off are not all perfectly the same size.  There is some give that you have with this since the errors get overlooked by the human eye.  So long as the points where the diamonds meet are together and the squares are reasonably alike, then you’re good.  Even Susan, whose job it is to find flaws and make them pretty, didn’t notice the places where I had to adjust the tape so that the points met up.

And here is how to get the diamonds to touch.  After the first diamond was taped off, I placed the template so that it touched the square the tape outlined.  This means that the template was on top of the bottom point of the first diamond I outlined.  Because of this I had to use a razor to slice the painter’s tape and remove it from the new diamond.  This requires a bit of skill but it’s easy after the initial run.  Ideally, the razor is very sharp, so you don’t press down hard at all, which prevents cutting the wood floor itself.

This same pattern of 1) aligning the template with the laser guide so that it’s oriented correctly, 2) placing the template on top of the prior diamond outline so that the points touch, 3) cutting off the excess, and 4) taping a new outline repeats until you get near the walls.  When you get close enough to the wall (or really any impediment) so that the template no longer fits you’ll have to use a straight end and a square edge to continue the pattern.  The square edge should be placed so that it’s on top of the prior diamond’s outline just like with how you did so with the template.  Next, tape along the outside of the edge to the wall, making a partial diamond.  To finish, cut off any excess tape.

When the diamonds are all outlined give the floor an eyeball test to see if you notice any major peculiarities that can be fixed by adjusting the tape.  This is much easier to do than repainting.  Next, ensure all the tape is pressed firmly against the floor by firmly running your fingers down the sides.  I can’t emphasize how annoying it is to pull tape and finding that some leaked under an unsealed edge.  Also, and this is optional, I wrote a small ‘P’ for paint in each square I was painting.  It helped me make sure I didn’t just make the dumbest of all mistakes by painting adjacent diamonds.  Yes, it was overkill but after all the taping I was tired and craving a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.

Same as with the taping, the painting process is tedious and requires patience.  I used a super small artist brush to get the small areas near the wall.  Also, the 3-inch-wide roller I used for the main section of the room only had a ½ inch nap (the hair on the roller that holds the paint).  This is because I wanted to ensure that I couldn’t easily smear a paint glob onto part of the floor that wasn’t supposed to be painted.  Additionally, make sure to overlap the tape when applying the paint so that it pushes the tape even more against the floor.  Last tip – roll out the roller on the pan so that not too much paint is going on at once.  You want to ensure the paint goes only on the diamonds you want painted. (Told you this was tedious)

Oh, and don’t paint yourself into a corner.  Plan ahead to ensure you end the painting where you exit.

When you’re through and the paint has dried make sure to apply poly so that your work is preserved.

Colors used walls and light color on the floor Swiss coffee, dark diamonds are antique white. Both Benjamin Moore.

Here are the links to what we used to decorate!! (Collage Below)

1. Mainstays Extra Plush Lightweight Sherpa Throw Blanket, 50″ X 60″, Blue

2. Better Homes & Gardens Embroidered Velvet Quilt, Full/Queen, Blush

3. nuLOOM Transitional Leslie Area Rug

4. Mainstays Flannel Sheet Set, Grey Wilderness, Twin

And here are the tools we used