Cozy Festive Family Room

Our family room is typically my favorite room in the house. It certainly is my favorite when it comes time to enjoy a cozy holiday evening. I broke this room down into two posts, because...well, I'm just going to be straight up honest with you. I have like 3 loads of laundry on my couch and Cam's toys are all over the place and I just don't have the energy to clean it all up and show you the other side. There. How's that for honesty? But I will show you the fireplace, which is my favorite part anyway!

Family Room Flip

We flipped the family room. Literally. What was on the left is now on the right. What was on the right is not on the left. See for yourself :)



This also gives you the overall view of the family room with the updated fireplace decor. And yes, I'm still loving it, in case you were wondering. :)



We swapped the coffee table with the ottoman from the living room. There might be more furniture swapping down the road, but for now I'm liking this change. You can also see that I didn't trash the round mirror that used to be over the fireplace. He just got a new home. :)



There were a couple reasons for the change.
1. I get tired of the same ol same ol.
2. I wanted to come up with a plan for Christmas

Here is the set up from Christmas last year.


But I didn't like how the tree wasn't a focal point. New plan:



With this plan, we can just remove the one side table, and there is plenty of room for our slim tree to fit between the couch and fireplace. Our big tree will still go in the living room.

Pros to the new layout:
1. Better TV viewing, since the main part of the couch isn't in a direct line with the TV.
2. The room just feels more cozy.
3. The ottoman is a safer piece of furniture than the coffee table for our not-so-stable baby.
4. As stated above, the Christmas Tree can now be a focal point

I'm not 100% sold on leaving it this way year round, but we're enjoying it for now, and will continue to do so at least until Christmas. Do you get the itch to move furniture around too? I know I'm not the only one!

The Mantle: Complete Redo and Fall Decor

This was quite the work in progress, and it's the second and last piece to my teaser post the other day. One of the main priorities we had when looking for a house was that it had to have a fireplace. Check. It was one of the first places I decorated. This was actually after a few changes had been made from the original design.

And this is the most recent look.


I was ready for a major change. Pretty much immediately after we put up the round mirror, I wasn't liking it. As Carl stated "it's a mirror for nothing." He was right. Sadface. But I dealt with it for quite awhile. That is, until now. I convinced Carl it was time for a change, and he finally agreed to go with it. I usually need his buy in because I make him do the hanging, patching, painting, etc.

So, this reveal is a seasonal reveal, for obvious reasons. It's fall people! It's all about the fall decorating right now! So with no further ado....I give you, the new My Happy House Mantle. Momma's in love :)



I'll break it down for you.

1. The mirror is down and the frames are up now. I decided it would be OK to have some family photos up now for a few reasons. The largest family photo we had anywhere was a 5x7 and a few 4x6s from our wedding. Now that we have Cam and have had some professional family photos taken, I decided it was time to display them in a significant way.

2. The candlesticks, tea light holders, and clock all carried over to the new design. I've liked all those pieces since we got them and have no plans to get rid of them anytime soon!

3. The last piece of "regular" decor that will stay season to season are the new sconces. The old ones served their purpose, but were a little more ornate than I wanted. I wanted something sleek with clean lines. We bought two pillar holder sconces from Pottery Barn.
4. Tied to the sconces, are ears of Indian Corn. This was part of the reason I wanted sleek, simple lines for the sconces. I wanted to be able to dress them up for the holidays. I just used some twine and ivory ribbon to affix the corn to the sconce. I also used flameless candles here, these ones are orange for the season, so I wouldn't have any "burning down the house with my decor" issues.

5. The leaf is just a basic leaf garland and the gourds are just that, gourds. Pretty simple.

That's the breakdown of the fall/updated mantle. I can't wait to see what I can come up with for Christmas. But I'm telling myself to be patient. You definitely won't see a change until at least the Monday after Thanksgiving.

We made some other changes in the family room, but I think this post is long enough so I'll save that for another day. Soon...but another day.

p.s. I didn't forget about my Monday Morning Round Up. I'll be back later today with that! And I'll be posting an InLinkz for all your round ups too, so get to writing :)

Happy Saturday: Teaser Edition

I'm enjoying a cup of Pumpkin Spice Coffee and a Cherry Buttermilk Scone this morning. Hopefully you are enjoying something just as good! Aside from my breakfast, this post has two parts.

Part I:
I'm going to tease you this morning. Yep. At least I warned you. I've been talking about a few things, but giving little details. Annoying, right? Well, I'm giving you the first piece of the puzzle.

We have two projects we're almost done with, and here are the before pictures.




The afters will be coming soon! I promise. What? I told you I was going to tease you :)

Part II:

Short and sweet. My Happy Line is part of Top Baby Blogs. They have a reset on votes a few times a year, and this is one of them. It gives new blogs a chance at a top spot. Currently we are floating around in the teens! Cam would love your vote if you can spare two clicks. Simply click this button, and then the owls on the left. That's it! (you can vote every 24 hours!)

If you are feeling especially clicky, you know I always appreciate your vote on Picket Fence Blogs for My Happy House!

We've had a change in plans for today, so it's time to get down to business. More details on that on Monday's recap! Have a great weekend everyone!!