Man, I love what the holidays does to our home.
I love the anticipation, the heart preparation, the tree and the ornaments and all the smells of pine and cinnamon and wonder. It’s honestly the one season in our home where I throw order to the wind and embrace the messiness of the season.
The more decor the better! Stockings! Mistletoe! Trees in every bedroom!
Hang garland from the curtain rods! the staircase! the bookshelves!
You want to leave the Little People Nativity out on the coffee table for a month straight? No problem!
Cluttered countertops full of baked goods, Christmas cards and ingredients for holiday recipes? Mama is so cool with that.
But there comes a point right around New Years day, when we’re home from our travels, the gifts have all been opened, the baby Jesus from the Nativity is completely MIA, and my “everything has a place and everything in its place” self can’t sit down in the living room without seeing pine needles and empty Lego boxes and discarded wrapping paper and little piles of stocking stuffers that haven’t yet found their “place”, where I just. have. to. call. it.
Y’all? It’s time. The tree is going down today. Christmas is over!
(Except not in our hearts – don’t worry! Just in our living room…)
It’s honestly my second favorite time of the year. Especially if we’re having one of those awesome, Tender Tennessee heat waves and I can have the windows open while I do it!
This year, I didn’t quite make it all the way to Epiphany. The Twelve Days of Christmas just went on too long. Actually, I’m pretty sure we didn’t make it past January 2nd. But y’all, after all of that COLOR, it is so nice to be back to my happy place of Achromia. <— I know that’s not a word. But I’m considering using it as a name for my happy place.
Ryan laughs that I generally overcorrect in my January Christmas-take-downs. Everything gets a little starker than it needs to be (see the candlestick by the fireplace that isn’t even allowed to have a candle on it? Ryan has just accepted that and has started to use it to hold his coffee mug in the morning. For fancy.)
The mantle is sad it’s so bare, and I’ve warmed it up with a few things since I took these photos. But my point is: OXYGEN! I can BREATHE!!!
And as a consolation for having to take down that big, beautiful “A Thrill of Hope” painting my brother-in-law painted for me, I got to frame our new family photos Claire Wise shot of us this fall. It killed me to narrow my favorites down to four!
And, though I do adore our Little People Nativity, it was fun to switch things up with a vase of white tulips (my favorite flowers), a delicious candle, and a little book I made from my 2013 instagrams for our family to look through and remember together. (It turned out to be such a good move to have it out and available for the kids to flip through and talk about!)
So thankful for this tidy, over-corrected, fresh start. Achromia feels so good!
ps – speaking of fresh starts, it’s definitely not too late to jump in with the SheReadsTruth community for their “A Fresh Start” Bible reading plan! (they’re only 4 days in today, and it’s easy to catch up or jump right in there) It really is one of my favorites.
xoxo,
Raechel
I so need to clean up Christmas and start working on some things around the house. I have so many projects in my head and I can’t wait to start. Paring down and cleaning out are part of them. your house is beautiful and I love seeing your pictures.
Ahh – me too! I feel like I have so many more projects than time right now! I spent some time on Pinterest today and it made me itchy to make something :)
Always so nice to hear from you, Kristen! xoxo
I love the name Achromia for our happy place! I completely understand where you are coming from. As soon as I got back from TN, all the Christmas decor came down and I went to organizing every drawer and cabinet in my den (my place is so tiny the term den is more fitting). The Myers home looks stunning as always! I too have been loving all neutral and letting greenery be my pop of color. However, I haven’t quite got everything converted to neutral :)
Can you tell me the name of grey and the white color you used in your home please? Your home looks great. Still getting mine back in order.
Hi Carol! The walls in our living room are Benjamin Moore “quiet moments” – actually has a slight hint of blue in it. As for the white – nothing fancy, I’m afraid. Probably just Behr’s “ultra white” from home depot for the moulding in the dining room, and the fireplace and built ins were this color when we moved in!
So I went to the site to look at the books you can make with insta photos and wondered if there was a good way to import your photos from insta into the site? I can’t even see how to save photos from insta to my computer :(
Do you like the quality? Is the company’s name on the book?
you know, I was never able to find a handy way to log in to Instagram through AI for an import either. Maybe check their FAQ page? I ended up going through gram feed.com/raechelmyers (use your name instead, of course) and saving all of my favorites into a folder to upload.
I do definitely like the quality – we were super pleased with it when it came! I like that I can choose full bleed for some pages if I want.
And the company’s name – yes, their logo is printed on the back center. It’s relatively small though and not obnoxious- I don’t mind it.
Guilty of still having my Christmas decorations up … Like you said it’s kind of two-fold, a part of my wants to remove my decorations because they’re extra clutter but then it’s reality that the holiday season is over!
Love your decor style :)
Oooo….. I love the colour scheme of the house!! Very calming, with colour pops from the photos. Nice!!
I just moved this month so I’m getting to do the initial set-up. It’s taking me forever though because I just can’t make decisions. I use a lot more colour than you (though my fave is simple black and white stripes for ANYTHING), but it’s just hard to determine where things should live. Come over please. :)
Tulips are my favorite flower, too. Though, I’m partial to red tulips.
Looks fresh and beautiful : )
Happy New Year.
Thanks, Joyce! Same to you!!
Hi :) your house is gorgeous! We are remodeling our house I was wondering if you have your stair case wall painted dArk what color are your hallways upstairs? Thanks :)
Hey Michelle! Thank you! The upstairs hallways are the same color as the wall up the stairs!