First 1900 Farmhouse Christmas Tour

Welcome to our first Christmas tour in our 1900 Farmhouse! You’ll find lots of photos of holiday inspiration and Christmas decorating ideas using cherished heirlooms and knitted accessories. Also glimpses of our mostly DIY renovated main floor!

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After working on the major renovation of our 1900 farmhouse for more than three years, we were able to move in spring of 2021, making this our first Christmas in our new home.

To say I was looking forward to getting down all our familiar Christmas decorations and seeing how they would fit in our new home is an understatement.

It’s definitely different from our ranch-turned-cottage where I had not only a mantel, but also two huge bookcases on both sides of the fireplace.

The last few years in the manufactured home we lived in while working on the farmhouse I got used to less spaces to decorate with no mantel and only one bookshelf.

And surprisingly, this old farmhouse doesn’t have a fireplace, stove, or mantel so I’ve had to stick with a single bookshelf and find other places to display Christmas decor.

(Curious about the lack of fireplace in such an old house? I was, too! We found out from a man who had grown up here that there was a wood stove – though it had to be a small one – in the original wall that separated the two front rooms. All traces of it, including the wall and the chimney going up through the second floor had been removed by the time we came along.)

While it took a bit longer to figure everything out this year, it was fun over the course of a couple weeks doing a bit here and there.

The one thing we did the day after Thanksgiving (I still wait until then to decorate!) completely?

Decorate the porch! I had been thinking about it for months, lol.

Enough chit-chat – let’s get to the photos (and the video – the only place you’ll see things lit up at dusk!).

Farmhouse Christmas Video

1900 Farmhouse Christmas Porch

All the lights are white and everything else is simple greenery.

I used black and white buffalo check ribbon to hang the wreaths and make a couple of bows which coordinates with the pillows.

This side of the porch shows a couple of vintage items from Brian’s family – the “deacons bench” that spent many years in his kitchen growing up and the old wooden sled he remembers using on the few days a year it snowed.

(And apparently all the cords needed to light up the porch, lol.)

The “JOY” crate I DIY’d a few years ago holds more greenery and a few battery-operated candles (love these all over the porch that go on automatically each day!).

Here’s the link to the set of outdoor candles with timer – they have a silicone seal so the batteries won’t rust!

There are more of the outdoor candles in the glass house shaped hurricane and you can also see the candle in the window – I added these to ALL the farmhouse’s windows this year and LOVE it.

(Oh, and can you spot the little dog that wished she could be out with me, but had to stay inside because I have to watch her all the time, lol.)

Driving up to our home after dark is so welcoming with these automatic lights in the windows, I’m planning to leave them up all winter.

I made a mistake and ordered dusk-to-dawn window candles, not thinking about the battery usage all night long PLUS the fact that many of our days are so dark and gray that they stay on during the day.

If I had to do it again, I’d buy a set like this with a timer that you can set for 6 to 8 hours to go on and off the same time every day.

The plants around the door are there all year – I added lights and a few candle holders plus a lighted garland on top of the door.

The “happy holidays” doormat is from Target.

Farmhouse Christmas Tour Inside

The first thing you see when walking through the door is the entryway bookshelf. I’m using it (like I have for the past few years) as our stocking holder as well as the place I was able to put my grandmother’s nativity set.

During the decorating, I realized we weren’t able to add electricity to this wall we created, so there are more battery operated lights that go on each day on a timer on the shelves.

I have flat top flickering flame candles like these, which look pretty realistic when lit.

The creamy white cabled stockings set the theme for this Christmas – I started knitting them in the summer to make sure I’d have enough time to get all five done.

I couldn’t find a pattern to match what I wanted, so I had to create one from a base plain pattern I found. Each is a bit unique because of that, ha!

Thankfully, I did get them done AND had time to knit a cable table runner, too.

To the left of the entry is the living room. Pillows, throws, and a simple coffee table tray with decorations is all I added here.

Pretty simple, right? And very similar to what I do every year for our coffee table/footstool.

Battery-timer candles, real and fake greenery, small ornaments and glittered pinecones.

The only other thing in the living room is the village I hand painted years ago on top of the old cabinet we use for our TV. It was the only place I could think of to use them.

Plus, all the tabletop trees I didn’t think I’d be able to use with fewer surfaces also found a home here – and now I know where I can use a few more as I find them.

At first I set the houses in a row, but you can probably guess that looked pretty sad – plus you could hardly see them when sitting down.

I grabbed some books and boxes to create “hills” and covered them with a piece of cream felt I had and it’s just what it needed to be seen standing and sitting.

Looking right, you can see the new wall we added (sort of added back, since this space was originally two rooms) that created a small entry space with a large opening to the dining room.

The tree straddles the area between the dining room and the living, and you can see it from both spaces as well as when driving up to the house at night.

I again used the faux cedar wreaths on our chairs (old Hearth and Hand, no longer available), and added real cedar boughs on the chandelier. I find the cedar is one of the longer-lasting evergreens inside.

I hadn’t been able to use a favorite large three wise men ornament since moving from our cottage, so I’ve been enjoying seeing it hang from our chandelier again.

The chalkboard I made found a home in the dining room, too, and to it I added the wool pom-pom wreath and garland I made a few years ago. It’s still one of my favorite holiday DIYs!

And you can see the cable table runner I mentioned that I knitted to match the stockings.

Once I placed it on the table, I realized that I didn’t want to cover it with a lot of greenery and things. So I used simple glass candlesticks, a few glittered pinecones, and just a few sprigs of greenery.

I will try to create a pattern for this runner for anyone interested – it was fairly simple (unlike the stockings…).

Here is a full shot of our tree this year. It’s a Noble Fir, which is my favorite type of evergreen to get (native to where we live).

It did have some yellowing parts that we turned to the back, but most of the trees did this year because of the extreme heat we had last summer.

I used all our ornaments we love – handmade, vintage, and store bought. Putting them on brings back such sweet memories.

I added a crocheted creamy white wool garland to coordinate with the stockings, runner, and wreath. I’m enjoying how it brings it all together!

Walking into the kitchen, you’ll see the stairs to the left which I was really looking forward to adding a garland to – the first stairs we’ve had since living in our Portland bungalow many years ago.

It actually took me about three tries to get it right – all using what I had – and in the end, it’s one of my favorite things about this new season in a new house.

At each of the garland swags on the bannister, I attached one of the 3-D music sheet ornaments I made.

I didn’t know where they’d fit and this ended up being perfect!

I made the garland last year using creamy white felt balls from Etsy.

At the base of the stairs is our coffee bar sink and cabinets. I am planning on a couple of shelves above the sink, but until then a wreath is the perfect nod to the holiday, isn’t it?

And this is a view of our kitchen most haven’t seen yet because we just finished the DIY stove hood a few weeks ago!

I added a wreath to the hood and a tray of small glittered “putz” style houses and bottle brush trees to the island.

Sweet and simple.

And that’s it! I didn’t decorate the bathroom or bedroom this year, I really do want to keep it simple and use just what we have and can store from year to year.

I hope you enjoyed our 1900 farmhouse Christmas tour – and I promise, we will have complete before and afters of all the rooms on the main floor of the farmhouse in the new year, so stay tuned for that!

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