decorating – ARTFOODHOME.COM

Well, it’s that time of year… time to put up the Christmas tree! Have you ever had a tree fall over after you’ve decorated it? In the 20 years that we’ve been married we’ve had two trees topple over… devastating consequences… the first tree had lots of glass (beautiful) bulbs… only a few of the glass bulbs survived… it happened as soon as we finished decorating it. It was beautiful. We went to bed and CRASH! Ugh… hours of cleanup and then cement blocks to keep it from falling over. Over the years we finally gave up the cement blocks. Do we REALLY need those big heavy things? Nah… We decorated the tree and a few days later CRASH. Tree toppled… water was everywhere. We had one of those big heavy duty stands that seemed (at the time) to hold about 90 gallons of water! We UNdecorated the tree (sigh)… and moved it to the sunroom… if it floods in there all is well… then we put a little cup hook in the moulding and have tied the top of the tree to it. You can’t see it, but it’s keeping the tree from taking a dive! That (and the cleanup) is the downside of a fresh tree. But the smell, ahhhh… I guess it’s what you grow up with. We always had a fresh tree, so I can’t think of anything but.

Whether fresh or fake, Christmas trees and their beautiful lights can give off such a nice warm glow. I love that! The bonus is that we can see the Christmas tree that’s in our sunroom, but it’s in a cooler room away from the fireplace!

Enjoy your tree! Catch you back here tomorrow!

: Image via circa.com

One thing that can make or break a room is good lighting… Just my opinion. If you have nothing but bright light it gives the room a cold sterile feeling, if all the lighting is dim, it looks pretty at night but its difficult to see. All overhead lighting isn’t my thing, but if the light is on a dimmer it can work. We don’t have a huge house. We don’t have a table near every chair. We have lots of places to sit, but you can’t see well enough to read, knit, etc. in every seat. We think we’ve found a solution… Remember (well, maybe you don’t but I DO), those tension floor lamps that went to the ceiling, with lights hanging off of it? You could turn on one or all one, I think back in the 1960’s (wow, sounds like I came over on the Mayflower, doesn’t it?) ours had three lights. They’ve made a comeback (or perhaps they never left?), in a new sleek style. This image is of the ZIYI TENSION POLE LAMP. We are fortunate to have a Circa Lighting in Charleston! We can walk in and touch and feel and actually SEE what the lighting looks like and whether or not it would work at our house. This is on our list one day. Not sure where we would put it, so far we have many possibilities…

If you ever get a chance to check out Circa Lighting, do so! We always deal with Matthew and he is a pleasure! It’s so nice to talk to people so knowledgable about what they sell!

Their website is a good one! Go to www.circalighting.com to view all their lighting, they ship for FREE! You can’t beat that with a stick!

Don’t forget to check out my photo blog at http://almostdailypic.wordpress.com – until tomorrow!