home sweet home: easter

I've always loved celebrating every holiday! Life is short. Celebrate the big stuff. Celebrate the little stuff. 

Looking back on pics from last year is always fun and I love adding a little more decor  year after year (especially when I snag it on major sale when the holiday is over. I always do this!) 

Here's a glimpse of our little home sweet home this past weekend...

bowl + bunny salt & pepper shakers from TJ Maxx // Pat Conroy Cookbook was a gift for Chad for Christmas since he loooves lowcountry food and cooks way more than I do

salt all over the butcher's block. note: this is not a perfectly styled photoshoot. nope, just real life! HA

rug is from Lulu & Georgia // dish towel from Wal-Mart // happy easter sign + bird from Hob Lob

I usually have fresh flowers on the breakfast table, but my sister gave me this plant a few weeks ago and I'm so proud of myself for keeping it ALIVE! ;)

had to frame a pic of the boys and the Easter bunny. First Easter bunny pic ever...

Love these MudPie napkins a friend gave me for Christmas!

No, my place settings are not perfect either but this is how we roll on Easter Sunday // the vase was from TJ Maxx + faux flowers from Hob Lob and I keep that out basically all Spring & Summer // the bunnies were from Hob Lob too

eggs that me and the boys dyed go perfect in these little bowls I scored from Ballard Designs outlet a few years ago

and we are loving our new rug from RUGS USA. It doesn't shed, is super soft and will hopefully hold up much better than the lighter ones we've had in the past. I love the bright colors and even though it's not a perfect match to our World Market ottoman, it still goes well. It definitely brightens up the room. Always a good thing, in my book!

Up next: Easter recap! 

breakfast nook before & after

I've blogged about how much I love our little breakfast nook. The two bay windows in our home are some of my favorite features. Here's how it looks about a year ago when we got our new table in place, but before we got our buffet table over in that empty space to the left ...

Backstory: Chad and I purchased a black table & chairs set for $100 from WalMart when we got married for a small corner in our big kitchen at our old home (my dad's house we inherited and lived in for 7 years after he passed away). The kitchen table set was tiny enough for the space, yet just what we needed. When we moved into our new home sweet home my mother in law said they were buying a bigger table for their dining space and would give us their round solid oak table. SWEET! Except she knew the oak wouldn't match our kitchen, so she took it upon herself to slave over painting this table and making it oh-so-Pinterest-worthy. Seriously. She is amazing. 

The black chairs we had matched fine, so we just paired that with it for the time being and she said she would work on painting the chairs later .... (after I pleaded for her to just let me paint them myself, yet she insisted and you do not argue with your mother-in-law :) This just goes to show if you buy styles with clean lines and that you LOVE (aka I did love the $100 Wal Mart set. I really did) then you can incorporate into whatever decor you have and be happy with it no matter what.

Just before Christmas we added a gorgeous buffet table my interior design friend Sarah found for us + the Paris chalkboard from Ballard Designs to fill the empty space!

So from the very beginning, here's my inspiration post for our breakfast nook when we first moved in.

Now here's how it looks today! (ok, well the weekend of my sister's shower 9/25/16...)

my mother in law painted the oak chairs that matched the set, recovered the cushions with remnant fabric I purchased for a steal from the Williamston Fabric Sale and we can. not. thank her enough!

We love it.  The jute round rug was a Pottery Barn Outlet steal for $50 bucks. Not even joking.

I'd love to do roman shades in a fun floral fabric one day, but for now it's just not a necessity. I may not even want to cover up any of that natural light that pours in through those big windows. 

Amazing to me how simply switching the chairs brightened the space up so much more. Thankful for old pieces turned new and a breakfast nook to enjoy many meals & memories with our boys!

foyer refresh.

I have so much FUN to document from our weekend, but until I get all of my photos organized here is a post I drafted up a while back about our foyer. That's one thing about a house, it's constantly changing. Well mine anyways. I am content with some things and never change them (it's almost embarrassing) yet then there's other things I switch up all the time. 

For instance I'll probably never change the light fixture and mirror in our foyer, but I've already changed the look of the table / decor / knobs fifty million times. Ok, so not really but...

Here's how it looked when we were building and freshly painted. Blank slate with a big ol' ugly air return to the left that we needed to "hide" but not cover if that makes sense.

The foyer table I use we had at our old house in the laundry room area. It's actually a file cabinet console from Home Decorators Collection, so the drawers are super deep and hold tons of linens, party supplies, extra dining platters, etc. The baskets I found at Ballard Designs Outlet and the mirror from TJ Maxx (one of my most favorite purchases ever). I changed out the knobs on the console to dress it up once we moved in. The knobs are from Hobby Lobby. The lamp we also had at our old house and I just stuck it there. This is how we had everything at Christmas...

and here's our foyer for Spring!

Yes, the lamps look a little wopsy and I need to fix, but they were a steal from Kirklands! The wooden dough bowl was a steal from a trip to market and I just fell in love with it. Um, there's some on Pottery Barn website for $199? Seriously? I don't think I paid over $40 bucks. The moss balls and frame I think came from HomeGoods.

The elephant I found in my dad's shop YEARS ago and the umbrella stand is from Ballard Designs Outlet (if you can't tell, um I go there a lot. Almost every time I go to market!) 

This rug was on clearance at Pottery Barn Outlet and ties in with our dining room curtains. I really don't think it was more than twenty dollars. However, the best accessory is what's sitting on top of it :)

of course I had to get these sweet little legs in the pic.

lights on lights on lights...SWOON!

It's a pretty big space and one day I'd love an even longer console table for even more storage, but for now it does the trick. Hides the air return and still allows flow. Also done on a budget, as everything purchased in this photo was on SALE or from somewhere like TJ Maxx or HomeGoods. That, my friends, makes me love it even more!!

spring home refresh.

Spring means Spring cleaning, organization, and adding in a bit of new in the McClain casa! It's refreshing to change things up a bit. Also it means finishing up some projects I've been meaning to do for oh, a year now.

First up, I think one of the easiest way to refresh for Spring is to switch up our sofa pillows. I already had these blue velvet pillow covers from Ikea (of all places!) so when I met the sweet owner of Wheaton Whaley at a trunk show I did in Greenville, I knew I had to have her make some custom pillows too. Check her out on Etsy. I loved the fabric I picked, then the trim she suggested. They look great with our blue velvet Marcelle Ottoman from World Market we've used since we moved in. I will admit I don't leave these out all the time (hello Capri suns and snotty noses. We live in this house, like LIVE, LIVE so when it's just the boys pillow fighting and laying around, mmmm I may put these up and bring out my other old Ballard pillows)

I had no idea what to put on this end table. Charlie knocks everything off anyways, but I purchased this seahorse lantern for somewhere else but ended up sticking it here with a pic of the boys for now...

Fresh flowers on the breakfast table are a must.

and for the parties we've been having lately, I set up this gold tray (from Target on clearance years ago) as a makeshift bar on our buffet table.

Most all of these items I had or were gifts (like the adorable gold dot stemless wine glasses my friend Beth scored for me for my birthday from the Target $1 section - along with lots of other goodies of course :)

I finally finished our guest bath with a gold & glass shelf I had purchased on clearance at TJ Maxx over a year ago + old antique items I found in my dad's shop + dried hydrangeas a friend's mom gave me. It's all about repurposing random items you already have. This is the most difficult room to photograph since no natural light so bear with me.

I swear the shelf is straight, I just can't take a straight picture.

The gallery wall I won't say is 100% "finished" but for now it will do until I find the kind of frames I need for my old photos. It's sort of like an eclectic collection of photos found in my dad's shop.

wall color: "In the Midnight Hour" by Benjamin Moore

Freshen up with a new monogrammed hand towel from Ballard Designs aaaand done.

Speaking of gallery walls, I finally took the plunge and spruced up our boring hallway with a fun gallery wall I've been collecting/prepping for years too. Added a runner rug I forgot I even had purchased from Ballard outlet and voila! I only wish I had done it all sooner. So easy. Will share in a separate post next.

What are your favorite ways to "refresh" your home for Spring?

decking the {new} halls...

Since our new home was definitely our second biggest and best gift this year (our sweet Charlie bug being our BEST, of course) I thought I would share a few snapshots of it decorated for Christmas. Well, decorated the best we could this year I should say.

We always had a real tree at our old house, but I knew we needed a slim tree in the new and wanted to go ahead and invest in an artificial. I should have done this when they were on sale after Christmas LAST year, but I didn't so womp womp. I got this 9ft flocked slim tree at Wal Mart and loved!

The bow on top is a little crooked after looking at this pic and it may sound crazy that we put the tree in our foyer, but we have so much baby stuff (jumparoo in corner, walker, etc...) that we didn't put it where we had originally thought this year. I kinda liked it in the foyer. It was out of the way, yet being right there at our living room we could still enjoy it. We could actually see it from four rooms in our house: living room, kitchen, dining room, and our master bedroom! Small house perks ;)

Little pops of red and green in the kitchen. Next year I'll have to work on this mantle a little more. This year I just ran out of time (and $). Hope to score some things on sale now after Christmas!

This wine glass is a fun craft we made at girls night one night! I also got a few pieces of the Lenox "12 Days of Christmas" that I'd like to continue to collect. 

I don't know if you remember me saying our buffet table we ordered came in a lot more green and a lot less blue that anticipated, BUT it has grown on me and especially here at Christmas I. LOVE. IT!

The chalkboard was another Ballard Designs Outlet steal. The boxwood wreaths were a set from Zulily years ago and that little creamer and sugar set was something my mom bought for me way back in high school to put in my hope chest. Did any of you have one of those? This was the first year I actually pulled it out and displayed/used. Such a keepsake.

Our breakfast nook...

Love these fun MudPie plates from several years ago...

We didn't do too much outside. Our wreath is always purchased and sent to us by Chad's sweet (and amazing!) aunt Sallie. It started as a tradition by her husband, Brian (Chad's mom's brother) who for years brought fresh trees and wreaths for everyone all the way from the Appalachian mountains (they live in Boone, NC). He passed away from cancer a few years ago, but Sallie so graciously keeps this tradition going. The amazing smell of this wreath just instantly puts you in the Christmas spirit.

The pre-lit topiaries were a major score years ago from Home Decorator's Collection. There's sooo much more I want to do on our front porch for Christmas's to come! You know, when I don't have a 5 month old and a brand new store to also purchase new decor for and decorate. Whew. 

My mom brought over her large nativity scene for our foyer table and it is gorgeous, but I couldn't help but to put out our tiny nativity scene that I purchased the first year we were married.

I thought I would hang our stockings with stocking hooks sitting on the entertainment center, but it didn't look quite right so I hung them with command hooks just randomly all over. I also thought I would be able to monogram said stockings AFTER I purchased them from Ballard, but I was wrong. I haven't found anyone that could do it, so I plan to order small wooden monograms and spraypaint them gold for everyone's stocking. That'll work!

real life view while taking these photos...

The wooden monograms on everyone's stockings would mimic these I have had for years...

We had interior french doors in our old home, from the living room to sunroom that I hung these monogrammed wreaths and displayed our Christmas cards on every year. I am glad we had more doors to do the same thing because it's seriously my favorite! We've gotten so many cards now (hooray!) that I have displayed them all over our entertainment center too.

I used gold/brown/leopard ornaments from our old tree that we paired with light blue and just replaced the blue with light green to go with the decor of the new house (well, especially foyer and dining room). That's what thing I did stock up on end of season last year...ornaments! I love how it turned out...

We've enjoyed our Christmas decor for weeks now and I can't believe it's already time to take it all down. Out of all the decorations, this may be my favorite because it showcases our BEST presents under our tree...our boys!

"But the angel said to them: do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people" -
Luke 2:10

I'll share the boys' tree and playroom next!