Ho, Ho, Ho and mistletoe, and suddenly its 2012

Oh the weather outside is frightful (actually it's amazingly beautiful), la la la, la la, la, la la, hm hm, hm hm hm hm hm hmmmmmmm....
wait... what happened to Christmas? Somehow it came and went and we kind of missed it. We did not have time to make cookies and spend endless hours in front of the fire stringing popcorn, sipping toddies, and communing with dear old friends. Sigh. Maybe next year, although it seems I said that last year and the year before. We did manage to have some fun, and get somethings done all at the same time. We made a big push in the two weeks before Christmas and accomplished a multitude of little things that had been on the list, and also began a few larger projects.

The Monday following Restoration Art our tile for the center hall arrived. We spent a day installing the marble threshold for the front door, laid the underlayment over the subfloor, and began what we thought would be a fairly straightforward and quick job of setting the tile. Boy were we wrong! In all it took seven entire days and once again I have acquired a slight limp in my right leg due to kneeling on the floor for hour, after hour, after hour.

A few days into the job I realized it would not happen for Christmas, so we tabled it until the 27th.

Tabled is actually a good way to put it because we turned our focus to that which we had asked Santa for.... a table for the dining room. The table top was built from the original ceiling joists that once held the ceiling for the dining room. When the second story was added over the rear section of the house, the engineer felt the old two inch by six inch by twenty foot old growth redwood joists were not sturdy enough for today's standards, and they were replaced. They have sat in a pile in the back yard for over two years.
Charly of Exceptional Wood Products in Geyserville, the town just north of here, picked them up and created a fifty four inch wide by ten foot long table top and delivered it three days before Christmas. Two coats of tongue oil and three coats of wax, add some antique radiators for the legs, fourteen rented chairs, dishes, napkins, flatware, and a pair of over the top candelabra, and...

Voilà, Christmas dinner!

Daylight view just after we finished setting the table

Magical and ready for guests.

Eighteen in all feasted at the first sit down dinner in the house. It truly was an amazing evening.

 Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way....  And suddenly before we knew it was here, Christmas was over. Between Christmas and New Years Day we went back and tackled that tile floor in the center hall. It took us all week to finish it, all that is left is a short waiting time and then we can seal it. But I will tell you it is breathtaking in person!

As a parting shot for 2011 I wanted to share a picture of the fireplace finally finished and burning. These sorts of projects take so long to complete that I sometimes fail to post the finished product. So next Christmas we shall while away the hours in front of it, stringing popcorn, sipping toddies, and spending much needed time with dear old friends.

Now all we need is some furniture... details, details!

Happy 2012 everyone!