It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Every year I start setting up Christmas stuff after November 11th. We've already had our Thanksgiving here in Canada a month ago by this point so why not?

Here's a little look at what our place is starting to look like set up for Christmas...

Our Christmas tree has always looked the same... always red and gold. I think because for a long time all I had was red ornaments that an old roommate passed on to me.

Here's a look at our tree from a couple of years ago (I'm sure it looks very similar!)

I'm not sure if you've spied the track set up around the tree... and the one lonely house that is lite up (there are a few more on the other side of the tree near the back too) but John has a lot more room in the new house to spread out his train set this year. 

Did you know that sometimes Michaels (the craft store) offers free classes where they supply the bulk of the supplies? Because they do. I went to one in the fall with my mom and sisters to make a floral pumpkin design (all we had to do was purchase the pumpkin) and returned to make a wreath a couple of weeks ago (all we had to do was buy the wreath base - it was on sale for $8 when I bought it plus I have a teachers discount so it was even less than that!). I wish they would have supplied something red for the wreath but apparently their theme was "gold" or something. I didn't look at the cost of all the things I added on to the wreath but I'm sure it all adds up fairly quickly and I could likely sell this $8 wreath for $50 now (so if you are interested in my wreath I'll give you, my readers, a discount and you'll only pay $45... or you can just watch for the next class at Michaels and maybe you can make your own (but you might have to wait for next year for that).

Would you believe me if I told you the pink was John's idea? Because it was! Well originally he had said red but we already have red on the tree and who says all the different things in the house have to match?!? The flowers were a couple of extra ones from the wreath decorating class I took that I found another use for.

Christmas Wish List 2017

Now that we've got a house coming up with a Christmas Wish list was easy... we've got more than enough space!

An office chair.  I thought I liked one from JYSK then I sat on it and rethought it.... I'm still looking for the perfect one so check back for an update?

Jodi Picoult's newest book... assuming she has one (every year she has had one for me to ask for but I didn't see a newer one than "Small Great Things" when I wrote this... which I've already read).

I really, really, REALLY want a better vacuum and next time they go on sale at The Bay I have every intention of taking every gift card we have for that place and using them all on the vacuum.  So gift card's to The Bay.

Speaking of gift cards we are always spending money at home renovation stores (Rona, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, etc.) so gift cards any of those places would be appreciated

A friend gave me a pair of moccasin slippers a number of years ago and they've worked great (especially the years I only lived in a one story place) but now that I'm going up and down stairs more often I need something that fits me properly and isn't slipping off my feet the first couple of steps I take on the stairs.

Mitts.  I feel like I always ask for mitts for Christmas because I use them well.  This year I'm going to ask for ones that might last me longer and keep my fingers warmer (and still look oh so stylish).

We've got more floors in this house than in the condo that want to be smelling nice and I currently only have one plug for wallflowers at Bath and Body Works.  For now we could use one more probably (I like the more discreet looking ones like this).  I've got a few scents to go inside but I wouldn't say no to more... is it weird to put a different scent on different floors?..  I haven't decided yet so just in case it is maybe 2 of the same scents... I don't recall which ones I like but typically not seasonal ones or food items.  Once I had a blue one that I really liked but I don't recall what the scent was.

Speaking of Bath and Body works... I exclusively use their hand soaps thanks to a certain aunt of mine.  I'm not fussy about what the scent of those is... I like them all!  I also like candles and their perfume... which apparently they don't have a lot of?  This is news to me but I know I like this scent.

Now that we have a laundry room that isn't also a bathroom we've got space to spread out!  I like the idea of a laundry sorter/bin thing for in the laundry room and this one by Neatfreak seems like a good idea.  The individual bags lift out so even if we just keep that hamper upstairs I would only need to carry one bag at a time down to the laundry room.

We could also use another laundry basket.  Now that it isn't about 10 steps from the laundry room to the bed where I sort the clothes I seem to drop a lot of clothes while going up all the steps.  A laundry basket for clean clothes would hopefully keep me from having to back track to find all the missing socks I dropped along the way.

Maybe if I had a clothes drying rack like this one I would keep my clothes off of the deep freeze, washer, and dryer when they are laying flat to dry.

One set of the oh so cool sounding Dragon Cutlery from Ikea

While you're at Ikea picking up some cutlery, and a drying rack you may as well pick up a couple of these boot trays for us (2 please).  Also, while hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at our place I came to realize that we only had 2 trivets and I wouldn't mind more (and these ones are hopefully slightly better quality than the dollar store ones I currently have).  One large trivet and 2 smaller ones  would hopefully be enough!

Not a big fan of plain coffee over here but I am a fan of adding special syrups to my coffee to make it taste SO much better.  I haven't ever tried the sugar free syrups and if they have sucralos in them I'm not sure I want to... so make sure my syrups are packed with that tasty tasty sugar!  You can get them at a lot of places (I've seen packs of 3 or 4 at Winners; Marshals probably also has them which means Home Sense and Home Outfitters likely have them as well) These ones are all from Bed Bath and Beyond (which I've heard has some of the better prices for them).  They didn't have a lot of options online when I made this post and they might have other options now but I know I would like hazelnut, vanilla, and caramel and I'm open to other flavours as well!

This oven mitt.  We only need one as we got this exact one for a shower present as well (it would just be nice to have a mitt for each hand).

I found these canisters at Marshal's about a month ago.

I like both of these designs (there were other ones... but these are the ones I prefer). You could use the prices for size references... I think one of each size would be perfect if you could find them!

Finally, I think Christmas is the perfect time to get new pajamas.  These ones look pretty much perfect and I'm a size medium.  But don't pay their regular price for them... I feel like they are constantly on sale (when I typed this out they were on sale for $29.95)

And that should pretty well do it...

About the Carpet

We've got 5 different colours and kinds of carpets on our 2nd story... and all should really be replaced since I'm sure despite vacuuming them exactly 100 times they likely still have bits of the ceiling we scrapped stuck in them.

Anyways, take a look at our carpets

We've got white in the master bedroom

Across the hall we've got our "brown room"

Next to that is our "pink room"

And across from that is our "blue room"

And yes, because I know you're dying to know that is how we refer to the rooms on the 2nd floor... because why refer to the bedrooms as what we are using them for when we can refer to them based on the colour of the carpet.

I spoke a while ago about how we wanted to replace the carpet prior to moving in but since we didn't end up selling our condo we decided against it (and to be honest, when we were considering quickly putting in carpet we had less than a week before moving in)

The plan is to replace all the bedrooms with the same carpet... I'm not sure how we will refer to the rooms after that... probably according to their old carpet colours so that anyone new coming into our home will be super confused when they can't find our beloved "pink room".

And those 4 carpets aren't the only ones upstairs... we've got one last one for the hallway and stairs...

Can you believe that there is only 2 other types of carpet in our house?  Both of those are in the basement (one you already know is in our basement bathroom)

Our plan for the hallway is to continue whatever flooring we decide to use on our main floor (it won't be carpeted) up the stairs and onto the hallway.  It's a high traffic area and likely to get ruined faster so may as well put something durable down.

The plan is also to get rid of all that wood trim, baseboards, and doors and make it all white.