Sunday, December 6th - Welcome to decorating on a dime!

 Our first snowfall came and went, but a second one arrived about a week later. It's mostly still here so it does tend to put you into a Christmasy kind of mood. Helps to take your mind off all the nasty stuff going on in the world, and especially in our own back yard, so to speak.

We are into our second week of Code Red, which means tighter restrictions for everyone. We were anxiously awaiting an announcement on Friday that we would be going into Grey zone, which would mean total lockdown, but fortunately that hasn't happened .. yet.

It has certainly been a very challenging year but hopefully we will come out of it soon, although it's not looking too promising. So instead I'm trying to focus on the positives.

As I had mentioned before, I'm using some of the downstairs apartment. The dining room isn't finished, as I had hoped, but one morning I was looking around the empty living room and thought, we can turn this room into a Christmas dining paradise. (okay, in my mind at least!)

There's an electric fireplace in the living room so I set up a tree (generously on loan from Patti - long story as I did bring one from PEI).  The next thing I needed was table and chairs. Good thing I work at a thrift store. Besides our stand alone store with clothing, housewares, etc we have a furniture store in the mall next door. Let me tell you, it's a very dangerous place for a bargain hunter like me! When all was said and done I secured a table long enough to accommodate the eight matching chairs for $70. Meghan was kind enough on her day off to bring a truck to the store to carry it home and inside.  Now I'm all set.

The kitchen downstairs is pretty much finished. I fashioned an island to give me extra work space with next to nothing. I found a dresser at the store for $12 cause the top was scratched. No problem as I was going to put something on top anyway. Some leftover paint from Patti served to spruce the whole thing up. My neighbour had this lovely piece of wooden counter top with beveled edges in his shed. It has some water damage so there are some marks that won't sand out but all in all it works. That cost me a loaf of homemade bread and a dozen butter tarts.

I found a range hood for the stove as there wasn't one, online for $5 and a microwave for $10 so I'm pretty much set. The other side of the kitchen has a floor to ceiling bank of cupboards that holds a lot of stuff. Very efficient for me. 

The living room window

One of the things that I really love about the downstairs are the windows Both the living room and kitchen have gorgeous stained glass.

The kitchen window

So I've been using the kitchen to do my baking for Christmas. We had our volunteer day last week at the store  and all of our cookies were happily consumed. Three of us each made 10 dozen cookies and they were pretty much gone by the next morning, so a success.

Now that most of my baking is done, and the tree is up, I think I'm ahead of schedule. My shopping is done and everything is wrapped and under the tree. I thought it best to get everything done earlier rather than later as red zone restrictions now mean standing in line outside of the store waiting to get in. It was fine in the summer when it was warm but not my idea of a good time now that it's cold. 

My last day to work at the store before we shut down for the holidays is December 18th, which is also the day that James comes home. It will be great to have everyone together again.