I’m teaming up with a bunch of my favorite Canadian bloggers again today for another installment of the Canadian Bloggers’ Home Tour, graciously hosted by Christina from The DIY Mommy and Shannon from AKA Design. 🙂 These are always so much fun, and I love being able to go through from home to home, and from blog to blog and see what other people are doing to get their homes ready for springtime. I always get some great ideas and a good dose of inspiration too!
If you’re just arriving here from the last stop on the tour, The Learner Observer, Welcome! I’m Courtenay! I live in a 120-ish year old farmhouse in Southwestern Ontario with my husband Chris, and our two kids Kennedy and Jack. We’ve been here for almost 6 years now and we’ve been slowly updating our home room by room during that time. We’ve done a few updates to the dining room super recently, like last week, so I decided to play around in there and focus on that room for my part of the tour.
When I think of spring, my mind immediately jumps to Easter and I start to get excited about filling my home with bunnies, eggs, flowers, and lots of fresh greenery. I’ve been looking at some other spring home tours lately and I realized that most people just do a little refresh of their homes using fresh flowers and maybe a few brighter colors and fun patterns, and you know, happy springy things. So that’s probably what I was supposed to do for this spring home tour too, but I’m throwing caution to the wind and going full-blown Easter!
Ha. Couldn’t help myself. 🙂
So here we are in our dining room.
We just finished installing these laminate floors (read more about those here) as well as this new chandelier.
Since our house is so old, it actually didn’t have any electricity at all when it was first built and things were added here and there as needed over the years, kind of willy-nilly. This room didn’t have a light fixture at all, I guess because it’s so bright and sunny here anyway in the front of the house, but my husband Chris was able to install this chandelier (with a light switch! Ooo!) for me last week and I’m pretty excited about having a dining room with a real live working light in it now. The chandelier is simple, but perfect for our farmhouse and it’s exactly what I’ve envisioned in here for the last 6 years.
A lot of the other rooms in our home are a little turned upside down right now (um, and always) with other projects going on, so this was the perfect spot to concentrate all of that fun bunny-riffic Easter stuff.
If you stopped by my Easter home tour last year, you probably will recognize a lot of the same decor items. Almost everything is old and I love that because I always enjoy seeing how my favorite bloggers re-use the same items over and over again in different ways. That’s what everyone does in real life anyway, so it’s a great way to get new ideas that you can actually implement in your own home!
We have a larger farmhouse table in our kitchen, which is where we usually eat. This dining room gets used more for fun family meals for holidays and it’s the perfect size since it’s just the four of us. The rest of the time it’s pretty much just an extension of our living room and we use it for coloring or crafts or playing on the computer.
The bunny at the center of it all was a Winners find (like the Canadian version of Home Goods) last year. He’s great because he’s such a classic, but I can change him up a bit by putting different things in his basket each year.
I found the little green glasses at my grocery story for $2 each this year, but everything else on the table has been well-loved for many years.
I made the runner from some favorite polka dot fabric that I already had in my stash and I found the big clay bowl at Pier 1 about 10 years ago. Actually, I think that was probably one of my first home decor purchases ever! And I’m still using it! Good job, me! 🙂
The dark Easter baskets came from Michael’s last year. If you’re looking for some nice big Easter baskets with a handle like this that are more on the inexpensive side, definitely check out your local thrift stores. I see them there all the time! So much better than those flimsy, tacky Easter baskets that you buy next to the Easter candy!
The pussy willows, fake eggs, and silver bunnies all came from the dollar store. I painted the bunnies silver a couple of years ago and they’re still going strong!
That fun little bunny silhouette sign is new project of ours from this year. We’ve got a quick tutorial on that one coming up soon! Spoiler alert: It was super easy!
This Egg Hunt sign is also new this year, from Michael’s. I had a coupon so I think it was only $11 or something like that. Way less than you could make it for with those metal letters. I love the idea of just taking down a picture or two from your walls and replacing them with signs that are appropriate for whatever holiday you’re celebrating. It takes a bit of the guesswork out of decorating and really brings your holiday decor to life when you have holiday items in such prominent places around your home. I’m going to try to remember this trick for next time! 🙂
I was pretty sure that the bunny sign and this cheerfully decorated room were going to be pretty much it for me for springy decor stuff because I plan to start working on gardening projects this year as SOON as it gets warm enough outside to do so, but then inspiration struck and I ended up making this wreath as well, which I’m pretty happy with. So I have that to go on the front door as well now! You can find the super simple tutorial for the tulip wreath here!
So that’s what’s going on for spring/Easter decor so far around our house!
If this is your first time here, I’d love to have you come back for a visit now and then! I put up new posts here 3-4 times a week and I try to share a fun mix of decorating and renovating ideas, homekeeping/organizing/cleaning tricks, clever recipes, and gardening ideas. If you enter your email in the box at the top of the page (on a desktop computer), I’ll send you a little note by email each time I put up a new post, or you can follow me on facebook and instagram.
Have you started decorating for Easter at your house? Are you as excited about spring as I am? 🙂
Don’t forget to visit all of the other homes on the tour!
MONDAY
AKA DESIGN – LIFE IS A PARTY – LEMON THISTLE – CLEAN AND SENSIBLE
TUESDAY
BROOKLYN BERRY DESIGNS – AMIDST THE CHAOS – THE HAPPY HOUSIE – PMQ FOR TWO – ELLIVEN STUDIO
WEDNESDAY
SATORI DESIGN FOR LIVING – SUBURBLE – SO MUCH BETTER WITH AGE – POP OF PRETTY – THIS LITTLE ESTATE
THURSDAY
THE DIY MOMMY – A PRETTY LIFE IN THE SUBURBS – WOMEN IN REAL LIFE – KIM POWER STYLE – THE LEARNER OBSERVER
FRIDAY
THE CREEKLINE HOUSE – LOVE CREATE CELEBRATE
This post contains affiliate links.
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.