Merry & Bright Blog Hop {Kitchen/Dining Rooms}

Welcome to our 3rd and final installment of our Merry & Bright Blog Hop series…Our Kitchen & Dining areas. If you missed out on our previous two weeks, click below to catch up on all the loveliness….

Week 1 {Entryway}

Week 2 {Living Room}

We’ve spent a lot of time in the living room already, so let’s move on over to the heart of my home…:

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The Kitchen

I’m continuing the same theme of a Scandinavian Christmas in my kitchen. A color palate of cream, green, black and using lots of woods and greenery in this space to keep it nordic. Our home is open concept, but I tried to make it cozy even with all the openness…if that make any sense?…lol. It’s sometimes hard to do this with open concept homes, but I think we pulled it off okay…

I spent hours and hours designing every detail of this kitchen…down to knobs style, cabinet style, crown mounding, how many drawers …every detail was all drawn up on my own sketch pad..so when it came to showing our cabinet guy what we wanted, it made things a breeze. And our guy did an amazing job at basically making my dream kitchen come true!

At the center of our kitchen it the Hood Mantel…it was something I’ve dreamt of for a long time and I just love decorating it for holidays, especially for Christmas. I added a wooden antique oval frame (this is actually the back of it displayed..the front is gold painted). I attached some DIY orange slice ornaments to it. The star of it, is my little Danish wooden rocking horse. I purchased this on my recent trip back to Denmark …at the most beautiful castle, Egeskov Slot . Added some mix of faux and real greenery with pine cones as well. It makes me happy this little horse, and reminds me of my old home. And who doesn’t want something that used to live in a castle?! …lol.

Moving on to beneath the mantel you find the stove, with some small spots for Knick knacks and such….

A little candle to keep the hygge alive. I’ll delve in more to what hygge is later on….

I love this little spot to keep these mugs…it works as our hot drinks station…hot cocoa and marshmallows for when the kids get home from their long trek home after school. Or it even serves as their hot chocolate station on cold winter mornings before school….all day…everyday..lol. They love hot chocolate!

These candle sticks burn out FAST in the winter evenings….so a collection of replacement candles are good kept handy, in this little DIY wooden box…they have their spot here on the counter. I have plans to add some writing on it eventually to make it look antique’ish…but I was in a crunch for time y’all…ha ha..

I found this little wood box at an online craft store…I just added a stain to it and than some black ribbon. It’s perfect on this cake plate with a bit of fresh cider pine, cinnamon sticks, clove oranges and a hazel nut or two.

I spy with my little eye…cookies…

Canisters full of homemade Danish Butter cookies have their spot here. You know those blue tins of butter cookies you can buy all around? The ones with all the cute pictures of Denmark on them? It’s a big deal in Denmark at Christmas to make your own versions of these yummy treats…so I did my annual round of baking for the holidays and gathered them all together here. Mind you, they where awfully tempting…for the entire family…lol..these canisters didn’t stay full for very long! Everyday I find a little stool by it with the jar left open…evidence of a cookie thief…I have 4 of them…well..5 of them , if you count their Dad..

This corner over here was kept simple…I added a little DIY Christmas banner over my pantry door…it’s made out of Ikea dish cloths. So easy and waaaay cheap…like…these are only 0.79 cents a cloth!

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Kitchen Cabinet Hutch

Moving past the main kitchen you find my China Hutch. It’s a built-in especially designed to keep all my antique Danish China. Im an avid collector of Dishes and such and have been since I was probably 17 or so… it’s one of my favorite things…ever! Many of these pieces have been passed down to me from my mom and grandparents..but I’ve also added some to my collection through out the years.

-Royal Copenhagen, Bing & Grøndahl, Johnson Brothers and some Ironstone is what my collection consists of. Mostly antique pieces but also some new pieces as well.

The little white ceramic bell was handmade by my oldest daughter when she was in the 2nd grade…she’s on her way to Middle school now, so this has a special place in my heart.

Adding some fresh greenery to this little Hutch makes it fit for the holidays…

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Dining Area

Our dining area is more of a dining nook, it’s not formal and we’ve enjoyed it that way. Cozy and quaint with a round table to be the best efficient in seating as many as possible. We have in mind to expand it in the future, (perhaps when the space will be more needed when our children have their own families and we host them for large Sunday dinners). Oh my goodness…but that won’t be for a long time.

Embellishments to the Bakery Sign brings Christmas to this little corner…

Like my little Danish “Nisser” {Elves} and a large Tealight house.

Also adding fresh greenery to the chandelier brings warmth to this space…It smells divine too!

A few simple DIY pine cone ornaments (I made these a few years ago) are hung on each light with a little bit of extra ribbon.

One of my favorite features of the dining room design are the windows. There are 5 in total. My dream was to hang wreaths in them at Christmas…lol….and so that’s why we have so many windows here…I’m such a romantic…it’s ridiculous!..ha ha ha…and embarrassing at times..lol.

These are some wreaths I found for super cheap online for a Black Friday sale a few years ago. I added the plaid ribbon and some pine cones of various sizes to them. Also a Danish heart hanging in the middle brings Nordic design to the space, and keeps with my Scandinavian Christmas theme this year. It also helps to tie in my Christmas tree design to this space, as I have the same ornaments hanging on it over in the living room.

A fun Danish inspired table setting for our little round table.

I LOVE when people decorate their chairs! Keeping simplicity in mind I added a sprig of fresh cider pine and a ticking stripe dish towel/napkins to the back of these.

I added some Royal Danish Christmas Porcelain on this table, a simple runner, some greenery and pine cones …all surrounding this years Advent centerpiece

These Christmas plates are released every year …they depict beautiful scenes of Christmas’ past in Denmark…these are fun to eat our traditional Danish Christmas desserts on. Or in some of the older homes in Denmark they are hung on the walls. I Grandma {Farmor} has hundreds of them…hundreds…

I used my DIY Galvanized plate chargers for this table…I love how they bring some texture of metal into this space.

Lighting the Advent has been a tradition in our family every since I was a little girl. It’s part of the festivities in Scandinavian culture. We light a candle, one every Sunday leading up to Christmas Eve. The tradition in our family is that Sunday night, with all the light off in our house, (except for live candles and our tree), we take turns choosing a Christmas Carol to sing together. Than we finish off with a little treat. It sparks quite the magical Christmas spirit in our home. Once it was even snowing when we did this…Gahhhh. MAGIC! Throughout the years I have made various versions of the Advent Candle Wreath…This year when I came across this amazing piece from H&H I simply had to have it…because…well…I love the ADVENT tradition … And to be honest I was planning on purchasing a similar version in Denmark on my recent trip, but…you know…I would have to haul that thing home…and I was kind of running out of space by than ..lol! So I was thrilled when I saw this at Target.

Well …there you have my Christmas kitchen and Dining…..I’ve been so happy to have you stop by my home this holiday season! I hope you have found some decor inspiration for your own home, or maybe you’ve just enjoyed my endless ranting about Scandinavian Design…lol. Anyhow…thank you! It makes me smile to be able to share my ideas with y’all!

This picture below is not of my kitchen, but it IS on the way TO and FROM my kitchen. Even with all the decorating, trinkets and such I can’t fail to remember the reason for this season. I am so thrilled for this time of year, because we get to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for Him in my life.

I hope you stop by again….to my Creative Corner…its been a Joy to have ya!

oxoxo

Cat

{Room Source List at bottom of page}

The Merry & Bright Blog Hop continues below…

Country Girl Home

Camelot Art Creations

Crate & Cottage

Sweet Rose & Wren

Jones Sweet Homes

Old To New Blog

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 Room Source List

• Cabinet Paint color Benjamin Moore Cloud White
• Wall color Benjamin Moore Nimbus
• Kitchen Countertops River White Granite
• Wooden Danish Rocking Horse….Egeskov Castle gift shop
• Single candle holder….Ikea Vinter 2016
• Hot Cocoa Station…Sams Club
• Wooden Candle Box…Hobby Lobby
• Chalkboard Menu…World Market
• Cookie Jars And Cake Plate…Ikea
• B&G Seagull porcelain
• Royal Copenhagen Blue Flutes Plain Porcelain
• Royal Copenhagen Mega Mussel
• B&G Christmas Plates
• Black and White Stripe Table Runner….Target 2016
• Advent Centerpiece…..H&H
• Red Ticking Stripe Chair tea towels
• Bakery Sign….AntiqueFarmhouse