Behind the scenes....the Holiday Open House

Every year as we wrap up our Holiday season, we wonder how we can  possibly top what we've just done...how can we  find cuter ornaments, how can we come up with any better ideas for next year...no way...it's going to be impossible!

Then we go to Atlanta for our major January shopping trip,where all of  next season's themes are figured out.... the blood starts flowing...the ideas start coming, and the cute stuff starts appearing before our eyes and Voila! We know it's going to be another killer Holiday Design House.

I thought it might be fun to give a little insight into what goes into creating the house and let you know how its coming along.

This year we bumped our opening back a week because its almost a nervous breakdown trying to take apart the October Design House and take it to the level of our Holiday open house in three weeks. As it stands, our families are not fed and no laundry gets done at home until this puppy is done.

As we have mentioned in previous posts, the ornaments, garlands, and such are all purchased in January.  Amy and I also start purchasing vintage auction finds, sleds, skates, tobaggens, skis all throughout the year and stow them away for this event. The boxes start trickling in in July. Kim and Diana try to keep up with the unwrapping and pricing during the summer as they know all too well that its like a slow moving freight train that's coming straight at them with delivery after delivery after delivery.

Next when it becomes apparent that the freight train is winning we bring in the high school recruits all lined along long tables, laughing, eating and pricing Christmas bears, balls garlands....

Meanwhile Amy is formulating her game plan and themes for all of the rooms. She starts assessing her color palettes to see what tones work  well together, what walls need to be painted, what antique elements need to be brought in and what other layers she will need to complete the look.

Some rooms are no brainers like "letters to Santa"...we found a killer life sized Santa who sits at a desk and gorgeous ribbons with letters to Santa printed on them....soooo cute.

 

Once everything is set, furniture, trees, lighting, the ornaments start coming into the house...once they start rolling in Amy personally styles each and every room.( because she is ridiculously good at it!) ..it will take her one full day per room...which is two weeks!

Holy Crap Batman!!! right about now we have a come to Jesus meeting and she delegates out the spaces she will not be able to get to...such as the barn, , front porch, bathroom, outdoor areas...and we start to figure out how to get these areas up to par with the beautiful house.

 This year we will be hosting 60 extra vendors that will stretch from Lucketts Store on over to the Design House so that should make all of this even more awesome than usual.

Click this link and check out how the house is looking so far.

We hope you'll come visit us November 8-9-10  10 to 5 

see ya then!