French Country Christmas Tabletop Tree

Tabletop Christmas trees have become some of my favorite trees, especially when they have French Country flair.  This year the main tree in the house is a tabletop tree in a metal champagne pedestal urn. Cannot get a tree container any more French than that! 

The tree sits in the living room atop the blanket box that serves as a coffee table. Not that I ever serve coffee from the blanket box/table. Coffee Table is a description that doesn't really describe the small tables in front of sofas in this time period. In my house. 

French Country Christmas Guest Bath

Often the French Country style guest bathroom in my house is one of the first rooms decorated for Christmas each year. A small room needs only a few additions to change everyday decor to holiday decor. 

and... 

Voilà 

Christmas magically appears! 

Well, not magically... it does take a little effort... but the results bring such a magical feeling. 

Smiles and dancing eyes beholding beautiful sights. 

Add a fresh evergreen wreath, a vase filled with flowers, a set of Christmas-y towels, and a seasonal print on the wall, and the guest bathroom is ready for the holidays.   

Here's how my French Country bathroom is decorated for Christmas. 

French Country Christmas | Eiffel Tower

A Paper Post 

Each Christmas I ponder ways to include French Country decor as I decorate for Christmas. This year, an Eiffel Tower photo taken on a cloudy, dark day was inspiration for creating a glittering gold framed Christmas print. 

The finished multi-media print in gold with silver German glass glitter is not a typical print for Christmas. Yet, glitter on ornaments, Christmas cards, traditional holiday prints, artificial small trees, and artificial greenery add sparkle to Christmas decorations. Likewise, silver glass glitter lends a holiday look to the iconic symbol of France. 

Read how a throw-away photo of the Eiffel Tower was transformed into a beautiful French Country Christmas print. 

Blue Wedgwood Tabletop Christmas Tree

Wedgwood blue Christmas ornaments on an artificial tabletop flocked Christmas tree are perfect to use all around the house. Over the years, the tree has added Christmas cheer to my bathroom vanity, an entry hall table, a living room side table, and the top of the pine chest at the end of the fireplace. 

Through the years the collection of blue Wedgwood ornaments was expanded to include white Wedgwood ornaments to create a stunning blue and white Christmas tree. 

Christmas Red French Country Bathroom

Nothing says Christmas like RED! Add a touch of red color and instantly everyday decor becomes beautiful Christmas decor. By changing two items in my French Country inspired bathroom and adding red French Country decor, my bathroom is now decorated for Christmas. 

Four red Christmas items grouped together make a bigger impact than scattering the four items around a room. Having all four red items together creates a focal point that draws everyone's eyes directly to the window area of the bathroom, including from the adjoining bedroom. Only later does anyone notice another spot of red... 

Bathroom | New French Hardwood Flooring

New French Oak Light House hardwood flooring in the bedroom and adjoining bathroom made a beautiful change to how the bathroom looks. I am already starting to decorate the bathroom for Christmas, but realized there should be a post showing the bathroom with its new solid oak French floor before sharing the holiday decorations. 

The new flooring flows seamlessly between the bathroom and the bedroom with no raised door thresholds. Nothing on which to stumble in the middle of the night trips to the bathroom. 

Custom French Country Wood Paneling

Custom made paneling for the exterior walls of the master bedroom in my post and beam house adds extra insulation to the French Country inspired home. 

When we built our post and beam house in the countryside several years ago, I priced having solid wood raised paneling installed in our bedroom and in our dining room. The cost of one eight foot wide by eight foot tall paneled wall was out of our budget, much less installing about seven times that amount of linear wall paneling. 

Fortunately, the Long Tall Texan had woodworking experience and the tools needed to make custom raised panels instead of paying a cabinet maker to build them. He built the custom wood panels during the first couple of years we lived in the house. That was the first time he tried his hand at making solid wood wall paneling, and he did a fantastic job. 

French Country Bedroom | Hardwood Floor and Rug

Replacing wall-to-wall carpet with Wide Plank French Oak Light House ¾" Solid Hardwood Flooring and a 9'x12' Capitola blue variegated rug is a beautiful renovation to the master bedroom. The new flooring is the latest addition of French Country style to my post and beam country house. 

At first sight the bedroom may not look different from before replacing the carpet with a hardwood floor and rug. The blue and white color scheme is the same, the furniture is the same, and most of the room's decor looks the same. 

Take a step back to see a larger view of the room to see the difference. 

French Country Hardwood Floor

French country hardwood flooring for the master bedroom was an unexpected beautiful solution to replacing wall-to-wall carpeting. While searching for pale periwinkle blue and white carpet, I found a gorgeous variegated blue and white RUG that was exactly what I wanted in wall-to-wall carpeting. Then up popped a promotional advertisement for Wide Plank French Oak Light House ¾" Thick Solid Hardwood Flooring for a special buy price! 

All at once, the past 5-year search for new carpeting transformed into a fast-tracked ordering process for solid hardwood flooring and a 9x12 rug. 

Since the bedroom, closets, and bathroom had to be emptied from all of their contents to install the new flooring, the new hardwood floor project is also an excellent time to clean the rooms from top to bottom, to repaint the walls and trim work, and to refresh the decor. 

French Country Inspired Conservatory

A rustic French Country conservatory photo inspired building a sunspace attached to our kitchen when we built our house many years ago. With each holiday or new season new inspiration provides ideas for updated decor and plants in the small sunspace. Most recently, my May bulletin board display sparked ideas for decorating the sunspace with a more traditional conservatory look than usual for the sunspace. 

Glass cloches, boxwoods, and ivy wreaths are what I envision would be in a traditional conservatory whether French, British, or American. 

Bulletin Board Inspiration No. 7 | Conservatories

A Paper Series Post 

The latest bulletin board displays a collection of conservatories that inspired my home's sunspace. Dream rooms are different for different people, and one of my dream rooms has always been a conservatory.  

Conservatories can be formal, rustic, large, small, attached, free-standing, garden rooms, or grand salons. Budgets, gardening zones, and personal styles are the major factors in the ultimate design for each person's dream conservatory. 

French Lavender Indoors for Spring

What better way to add Spring color inside than with a pot of French lavender? The navy blue bulletin board with blue and white rabbits for Spring and Easter inspiration is still on display at the end of the fireplace. As much as I love the bulletin board arrangement as it was, I love it even more with the addition of a pot of lavender bursting with blooms. 

French lavender on the pine chest at the end of the fireplace is not unusual at my house. Over the years potted lavender inside has added both color and fragrance to the same space since lavender is one of my favorite plants. 

Bulletin Board Inspiration No. 6 | Navy and White Rabbits

A Paper Series Post 

The latest bulletin board inspiration features a gorgeous, fluffy white rabbit in navy and white. Rabbits are symbols of spring, and a clipping of a white rabbit on a navy bulletin board is a beautiful reminder of Easter.   

Bulletin boards often include a collection of clippings without a planned layout, but in my series of bulletin boards, I share suggestions and design principles for creating boards with a theme. Part of each post in the bulletin board inspiration series is how-to information for my boards to help you create your own boards. 

Bulletin boards are an easy, economical way to decorate for each season and/or holiday in the year. As I was creating this latest bulletin board inspiration for Spring and Easter, I began to wonder how rabbits came to be symbols of Easter and why Easter bunnies deliver eggs for Easter egg hunts. 

French Country Spring Kitchen | Blue Hyacinths

Early spring blue grape hyacinth bulbs were an easy way to bring Spring into my French Country kitchen while skies were still gray over the bare trees in the surrounding woods. 

Blue muscari bulbs, commonly known as grape hyacinths, are the perfect blue color to go with the blue walls, upholstery, and accent pieces used all over my house, not just the kitchen. The plants easily fit into a variety of flower pots and baskets, collected over a lifetime, for displaying inside before being transplanted into the ground outside after the blooms were past their prime. 

Birthday Flowers In Abundance

When your sister is a professional florist, there are always beautiful flowers for every birthday in abundance! And the flowers are in your favorite colors, of course. 

Spring birthdays mean beautiful flowers are always available for birthday party celebrations. The choices include more than the usual fresh-cut bouquets. Bulbs, flowering vines, and greenery topiaries are abundant in a variety of colors and styles. 

French Country Light Fixture | Dining Area

Finding a new French Country style light fixture for my dining area to replace an original fixture required searching for just the right style and size. Not to say everyone in all house styles don't search for just the right style and size. But, post and beam houses are beautiful open spaces which challenge designers, builders, subcontractors, and owners to conceal modern wiring, plumbing, and duct work to preserve the beauty of the open posts and beams. 

After several months, I found this gorgeous semi-flush, slightly rustic, antique gold metal light that meets all my needs and wants in a new ceiling fixture. Like many internet ordered items this past year, there was a shipping delay. But the light arrived just in time for installing on the day of a Christmas party to celebrate the holiday season with friends last November 30. 

Winter Tablesetting | Snowy Trees with Navy

Beautiful new navy coffee mugs with snowy trees set the scene for a Winter table setting filled with white, snowflakes, and trees. An easy transition from Christmas to Winter decor. 

Tiny white ceramic trees coordinate perfectly with the snowy white trees on the navy mugs.