Seaside Christmas Home Tour 2020

I’m so excited to welcome you into our seaside Christmas Home Tour! Come in for some easy coastal inspired Christmas decor plus a virtual holiday housewalk with friends.

In a time when so much is different and good cheer is needed, I’m so honored and humbled to be taking part for the third time in Jennifer Rizzo’s Holiday Housewalk. Can you believe the tour is 10 years old!!!! If you want to start the tour from the very beginning here is day 1.

If you’re coming by from my friend Lucy’s home over at Craftberry Bush, welcome! Isn’t Lucy’s home just gorgeous?

Welcome to our seaside Christmas home in coastal New England. If this is your first visit to our home we live in a 1927 Dutch colonial in Scituate Harbor, we can walk to the beaches, Front Street, beautiful shops, and restaurants. Santa arrives each year to visit the harbor by boat!

Seaside Christmas Home Tour

I like to keep my decor inside and outside classic to go with the cottage feel of our home. You’ll see I’ve also used a lot of blue and white – that color combo mixed with fresh greens says Seaside Christmas!

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Decorating the Exterior for a Coastal Christmas

For the past few years I’ve used these beautiful garlands and wreath from Balsam Hill. I love how easy they are to put up and they look great every single year. This year I decided to go with simple burlap and gold ribbons from Michael’s.

My urns are vintage and those are faux trees from Front Gate. I’ve had them for a few years. Poppy wanted to help welcome you all to our home!

Can you believe she’s 10 this year?!? She loves posing. I tried to get my family to take part in the tour but all my guys are camera shy this year. Ha! Ha!

The deer was originally from Lowe’s and we’ve had it since the boys were very little.

One thing that’s different out here – is the white lights! We have candles in every window but we decided sprinkle some white lights in our window boxes. In the boxes I’ve used a mix of real and faux greenery and white birch branches. The birch branches are from Trader Joe’s. The flickering white candles inside our home are from Balsam Hill.

I’m also really excited that the bushes we planted when we first moved in 7 years ago are now big enough for Christmas lights!!!! Under the bushes are crushed shells but they almost look like snow in these photos.

I’m not sure if you can see how magical it looks at night, but in person it looks so beautiful! That warm glow is so much needed right now.

We got the string lights from Lowe’s and couldn’t believe they were $2.99 a box! We bought a bunch.

We always decorate the weekend of Thanksgiving so we were in a flurry trying to get the house done in time for the housewalk. I’m so excited for you to step inside.

Seaside Christmas Touches in the Living Room

I’m still decorating our front hall, so let’s start the tour in the living room. You’ll see we have dark woodwork throughout our home which I love. It adds so much warmth. I’ve painted the walls a creamy white and love using white slipcovered furniture for that truly coastal and relaxed look.

A few years ago, we refaced our fireplace with fossilized ocean flooring and added the gas fireplace. We love it so much. It instantly adds ambiance and a focal space to our sitting area.

I love the wood mantel which is original to our home so wanted to figure out a way of keeping that intact but updated the look with stone.

The mantel is decorated with a frosty garland, mini fairy lights, wooden houses from Target and beach treasures!

Coastal Mantel

Starfish, flickering candles, ornaments and driftwood mingle on our mantel for a truly collected look.

I love finding shells and seaglass on the beach with my kids. We search all year long, even in winter.

We love sitting by the fire with coffee and the kids open their stockings right here.

Cozy Sitting Area in the Living Room

Our tree is decorated in blue and white – my favorite colors! We put the tree here last year after hearing from my friend Jeanne Stewart (who grew up in our home) and said that’s where they always had the tree. The tree is from Balsam Hill and you can see more about it here.

I’ve added a few other ornaments this year including this one from Buttonwood Books. Minot Light flashes 1-4-3 and people say it means I love you! I also added simple white starfish. I decided not to put a star on top of the tree as I just wanted simplicity.

You can see the whole room here:

As you can see, I have our normal pillows out and kept the general decor quite simple. I found this lamp at Native in Scituate Harbor a year ago and still love it. Marie imported four lamps and I have the only blue and white one.

Furry blankets, brass candlesticks and flickering white candles make our living room feel cozy for Christmas. The felt trees were from Target a few years ago.

Would you believe that this table isn’t really galvanized? Luke built this table and I created the faux effect with paint. Luke’s planning on building me a live edge table for here soon…

I just bought that candle from Buttonwood Books over small business Saturday and it smells so good! You can also get them online if you’re not local. Here’s the cedar fragrance.

For the tree I got a spray on fragrance and it really smells like the real thing!

Classic Christmas Decor for the Living Room

Let’s stroll to the other side of our living room. We love cuddling on the couch and watching Christmas movies.

I really love house plants so tried to keep some of them out even at Christmas.

Another Frasir Fir candle. I love the ceramic pot. I took an ironstone bowl from our dining room and filled with with a bunch of Christmas ornaments. It’s a quick and easy way to give a festive feel.

You’ll also notice the faux fur blankets in here. We’re all obsessed with them. Luke and the boys gave me the white one for Christmas last year and my mom gave me the navy blue one. Everyone fights over that one, including Max:

But Max usually wins…

I’m happy to share both those throws are on sale!

Through the french door is the boys’ playroom BUT it’s such a mess right now. Well, it usually is. I guess that’s what a playroom is for, right?

The bar cart is decorated for Christmas with a giant pine cone, fresh greenery from Trader Joe’s, and, you guessed it, another candle.

We love to mix up cocktails or serve some spiked homemade eggnog.

You can read more about the bar cart here and more about that beautiful fish print by Jeanne Stewart here.

A Rustic and Warm Dining Room

Our dining room is south facing and gets wonderful light. We have the dark woodwork in here but also an antique Welsh Dresser and a farmhouse table my husband built from reclaimed heart pine. You can read more about the table here. Our white slipcovered chairs are by Ikea and I have cleaning tips here.

Since autumn I’ve been dreaming about creating a tablescape devoted to gingerbread house cakes. I got Conor this cake pan and knew we had to create something magical. I’ll be sharing the recipe and some tips soon, but here’s how the table came out:

Rustic Gingerbread House Tablescape

Conor and I spent the majority of Saturday baking these sweet little gingerbread house cakes.

We also dried orange slices. I’ll share more about these in a later post.

We loaded the pine table with faux garland and several faux branches. Then piled it high with fresh eucalyptus, mercury glass ornaments, dried orange slices, dried hydrangeas from our yard, and real and faux candles.

I mixed and matched wooded cake stands and ceramic.

It really looks magical. Perhaps something you’d find in an English cottage in the woods.

My oldest makes hand dipped candles. You can see one here. We’re going to make more later today so I’ll share a tutorial on that soon.

The Welsh Dresser is decorated with lots of greenery, faux candles, and baubles.

My ironstone is vintage and I love adding pieces here and there. I use it for family dinner as well.

The chippy cabinet in the corner was a yard sale find I painted with Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint. Can you believe I got that for $20?!? This is also decorated quite simply.

And here you can see the full dining room and some with the candles flickering.

I played with the gingerbread cakes and did another tablescape with them which I will share next week. 😉 They were just so much fun to play with. Conor is decorating them to his hearts content today while John and I dip candles.

I hope you enjoyed coming into our home for the Holiday Housewalk. I’ll be sharing our sunroon, entry, and kitchen next week. If you’d like to see how our home looked on previous home tours you can see them here:

Classic New England Christmas Home Tour

Holiday Housewalk 2018

Before I send you on to the next house I wanted to thank you for being here. This year has been hard for all of us. It has made me realize the importance of time – time with friends, time with family, the importance of traditions, and the need for hope. I’m wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. More than anything this year I’m hoping for peace and love. I’m craving time with my family to just be us. Sending you all so much love from our home to yours!

Next up on the tour is The Golden Boys and Me! I can’t wait to see how she’s decorated her beautiful home.