It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... Holiday Home Tour

I promised a few friends back in the US that I would publish a post with pictures of our apartment in Geneva some time ago.  I never got around to it, and now that our place is all decorated for Christmas I thought the time was as good as any.  So enjoy this virtual tour of our apartment, all dressed up for the holidays.

If you know me, you know that I love interior design and decorating.  Creating a place that feels like home in Geneva has been important to me.  It is one of my "love languages."  The first step in creating our new home, was selecting the place itself.  When Randall and I came to Geneva back in April for our house hunting trip we saw tons of different places - lots of apartments (some much bigger than the one we ended up with), a few houses, some in the city center (where we now live) and some further out.  Our apartment, was actually the first one that we saw, and right after we saw it I had a feeling that it would be the one.  It just felt right, like this was a place that could be our home.  Even though it is an apartment that is over 100 years old, and our house in Cincinnati was a brand new 3 story home, there are a surprising number of similarities that made it "the one."  It has tall ceilings and crown molding, a neutral gray and white color palette as the base, an open kitchen & dining room (at least relative to other places that we saw), and a laundry room that had enough room for a craft space for the girls.  When we visited we quickly took measurements so that we could decide which furniture to bring from the US and what to put into storage.  I am actually amazed at how well everything fits into our apartment, and how little we had to buy (with the exception of light fixtures ... don't even get me started on light fixtures as that story could be an entirely separate post.  For those who have not lived in Geneva, when you move into an apartment or house you are greeted by bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling).

So without further ado, welcome to our home in Geneva ...

The entry room/office:  The entry is huge and at first I was worried that it would be wasted space.  However, it doubles nicely as an office and our large Restoration Hardware desk fit perfectly on the wall below the mirror that was already in place.  This room also serves as a gymnastics space and soccer field for the girls ;)

The Living Room:  The living/family room is spacious and I love the ceiling detail.  Our furniture from home works well in here.  The only thing I don't love is the fact that that the TV is off to the left and there isn't a feeling of symmetry.  If I find a pair of shelves that I really love, this may be something we invest in.

The large painting was done by our Cincinnati neighbor and very talented artist, Jamie VanLanduyt.  We commissioned it for our family room in Cincinnati and I love it equally much in this space.

The Dining Room:  We are actually using our outdoor concrete top dining table from Cincinnati, here in Geneva.  Since we don't have an eat in kitchen, our dining table here gets used for 3 meals a day and we were afraid that our nice dining table and cream colored upholstered chairs would not hold up to that kind of use.  So they went into storage in Cincinnati and our outdoor table moved indoors.  I did purchase the French bistro dining chairs from Serena & Lily before moving to Geneva as I had been eyeing them and thought they would work well in our European apartment and the bonus is that they are also easy to clean.  

The dining table all decked out for one of our holiday parties.

The Kitchen:  I love that they opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining room as this makes the galley kitchen feel much larger and really opens up the whole space between kitchen, dining room and living room.

The Master Bedroom:  I love the calm feel of our bedroom.  I also love having both a fireplace and balcony in our bedroom.

The painting in our bedroom is the first piece that we purchased from Jamie.  I just love the colors and motion in this piece.  

The Girls' Room:  Kenzie & Lexi's room might be my favorite room in our apartment.  I love the big window, the light, and the fact that Pop Pop built a custom window bench which fits the space perfectly (based on very quick measurements taken during our house hunting trip).

The Guest Bedroom:

The Playroom/Extra Guest Bedroom:  This room also gets a lot of use as it houses all of the girls' toys & their beloved dollhouse that Pop Pop made for them (modeled after our house in Cincinnati).

The Laundry/Craft Room:  The girls use this space constantly.  For the holidays I am displaying our annual Christmas photo cards on their art wall behind the craft table... where did my babies go?

Happy Holidays from our home to yours!