Tour of Homes -- Check!

It occurred to me, as Dave and I spent hours that we'd normally dedicate to sleep on getting the house ready for the Tour of Homes, that I couldn't think of any other family with a toddler and a preschooler who had volunteered to have their home on display. I thought of it again, at 11:30 on Sunday morning (with guests who'd paid good money to see the house due to arrive at 1 p.m.), when Erik, completely oblivious to my frantic tidying, happily pulled pots and pans out of the kitchen cupboards. (Dave took the kids over to the other house soon after, where they could play for the afternoon without me constantly snatching potential messes out of their hands.)

I was frantic until 12:53 p.m. -- but then I unplugged the vacuum cleaner, looked around, and sighed with satisfaction. The transformation was amazing!! Most of the credit goes to Mari, who brought over her decorations and worked her magic. She has a great flair for decorating, and many of her decorations worked really well with the "rustic" style we were after.

The living room was really stunning -- the tree looks just phenomenal next to the old wood of the north wall. (Thanks to the Mikkonens for giving us the tree! We are delighted -- it looks so Finnish!) We hung our farm art by Laverne Alvestad in the room, along with Laura Schaunaman's "Savo Summer" print. The bench is one my dad made once when he did a workshop at the RVP1875 store (described at this site), which was then in Story City, Iowa -- no power tools were used in making it. The bench fits in well with the rustic look of the room!

Mari set up the lovely display at the end of the hall upstairs ... and doesn't this rug look FANTASTIC in the hall here? The colors work together so well. This is an inheritance from my grandmother -- it was one of her "special occasion" rugs.

We did do a bit of clutter-hiding -- I hung a sheet over the entrance to the storeroom at the end of the hall.

The closet of the west upstairs bedroom is for the moment set up as a kids' space. Erik likes it -- I think kids always enjoy cozy areas like that.

The rest of that room is set up as a project room for now. It's so welcoming! I've already done a bit of weaving, since the loom is now ready to go. (Dave made the loom for me one winter when we were still living in North Carolina, in the tiny house we rented then -- he worked at the dining room table between meals, since we had to clear off his woodworking stuff to have room to eat.) I had a slide show of photos running on the computer during the tour, showing the house in various stages of completion.


Mari hung a garland over the top of the bank of windows, then made the lovely paper heart ornaments to go in the windows. The candles are ours, from our time in Boone -- we had few decorations out there (we always went elsewhere for Christmas), but we did have candles in the windows.

Several people were impressed with the fact that because of the open area by the stairs, you can see the first floor from above -- most homes don't have a way to get a different perspective on your living space that way. I got a few waves from people peeking out the windows of the upstairs bedrooms!

The kids' room looks great! (Mary, note the curtains in the windows!) The floor got many positive comments during the tour. (Erik's playpen was moved to the other house so he could take a nap there during the afternoon -- not that that happened, with cousins to play with.)


Dave's sideboard (which he also made at a workshop at RVP1875, using no power tools -- I gave those workshops as gifts to Dad and Dave one year) fits in beautifully next to my favorite blue wall, and Mari did a lovely job setting up a display here, too, with Swedish straw horses above and baskets of vegetables down below.


And the stockings were hung by the fire with care ... And Joyce, notice the fabric curtain over my linen closet, to the right! (I'll need to add a better picture of it.) It adds such a nice, bright touch to that spot -- bifold doors would make that little transition space feel like a telephone booth, but there has to be something to hide the sheets and towels there -- the fabric curtain is just the thing!

Dave also had the addition cleared out for the tour, which Mom was really impressed by -- it had been Dave's workshop, filled with tools, wood pieces, paint cans, and other assorted detritus until 10 p.m. Saturday, when Dave started cleaning it. (I'd had him working on finishing trim before that.)

The kids were allowed recommence living in the house once the tour was over, as you can see by the rugs askew already in these photos, mere minutes after we all returned! But that's OK. It wasn't perfect even when people were going through -- I had forgotten the breakfast dishes in the sink! Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Dave did them at some point in the afternoon, along with the dishes we made while serving coffee and cake to the visitors -- Mom made the cake in honor of her birthday and Finland's independence day, both Dec. 6.

In general, the tour went quite well -- though I have a few regrets about it, one of which is that I didn't think to put out a guestbook, so I'm not sure how many people came. (Other regrets: I didn't have the slide show going right away, so a number of people didn't see it; also I didn't have the sign up saying that Mom's studio was also open, and I didn't remember to tell everyone, not everyone stopped over there.) But it was nice to hear all the people say "Wow!" ... Mari said she heard one person mention House Beautiful as they left.

And so ... now what? I've been focused on house stuff so intently and for so long that I've kind of lost my bearings of what else I should be doing! For now, at least, we've got Sofia's birthday and Christmas to plan for. There's still a lot of work on the house to finish, but we've declared a moratorium on house work until after Christmas -- time to relax for a while!