Hello! Can you relive there’s officially only two weeks left until Christmas! Every year I safe I’m going to shop early for all the Christmas presents and just sit back and enjoy! This year was not one of those years, I’m finally wrapping up my Christmas shopping and wanted to share my Holiday Gift Guide.

We’re paring down our Holiday gift giving to each other keeping it simple and focusing less on gifts and more on creating memories as a family together. Last night after Avery’s Holiday School performance, I made a mini Christmas Bucket List.

My list includes walking tour of houses with love all lit up at night with hot cocoa in hand, family movie on Christmas Day (we do this every year and love it) Making cookies with the family on Christmas weekend and baking pies on Christmas Eve. We’re also participating in Gift Drives during the Holidays and gift kids presents from their wish lists. Under our tree we won’t have a million presents instead we’ll have memories we hope our kids will cherish forever.

Below is a paired down gift guide for everyone of your list Her + Him and Kids and Teenagers.

SHOP THE GUIDE

SHOP THE GUIDE

I’m working on a few blog posts, I hope to end the year with on Katrina Blair, but if I don’t get around to sharing, I’ll be back to posting full-time in 2019 and I’m always on Instagram and IG Stories sharing!! You can find me on Instagram @TheKatrinaBlair Happy Holidays!

I’m so excited about new living room update. Over the past year I’ve been making a little tweaks here and there to my living room. It all kicked off when Hasani and I added built-in bookcases to our living room which was an amazing addition.

The bookcase brought in much needed hidden and vertical storage and helped make our small 1950’s living room feel larger.

One thing I wasn’t loving is how off the our drum shade was looking and feeling in our living room. Over the years the drum shade had accumulated a layer of dust making it look yellow and no matter how I tried to clean it, in the above picture you can see how off the light was looking.

The light fixture was killing the entire vibe of my living room. I began my search a few months ago, looking for something that would be more sculptural and lean towards mid century modern, but feel modern. Check out this recent post for modern lighting ideas for the living room.

I’m a huge fan of layered lighting in living rooms to help set the mood, in our living room we have a central light, recessed lights and lamps. The more lighting options I have the better! I’m so in love with our new light fixture, it has a modern glam vibe and looks so stunning our living room.

The lamp looks high-end without the sticker stock. Friends, are you sitting down, I found this amazing light fixture on Amazon for under $ 105.00 bucks! The Grammercy Light comes in a few different finishes and glass glob styles and down-rod extensions.

Since this light fixture is hanging our living room and we have standard 8 ft ceilings, we opted to use one six inch down-rod to keep the light fixture close to the ceiling.

The light looks so include and was easy to install, however this light does require a little assembly and the right light bulbs. Attached the globes on to the light fixture can be a little tricky so they’re glass and you want to make extra careful. But ones you get one glob on the light, the following ones go fast.

I’m a big fan of even lighting especially in living rooms, I don’t like crazy shadows. The frosted globe lights provide nice even lighting. The light fixture is bright, so use a dimmer! Honestly all the lights in your bedroom, dining room and living rooms should be a on a dimmer! Our center light is on a dimmer switch so we can easily control the brightness.

My least favorite thing is light bulb shopping, its a nightmare! And light bulbs are so expensive now, its crazy! For this light bulbs, I used LED Dimmable Light Bulbs (LED Dimmable are a must, yes they cost more) I’ll update this blog post with the exact light bulb we used to save you the trouble of going to 3 different stores like I had to find the right size light bulbs!

In addition to adding the light, I wanted to add a ceiling medallion to give some oomph to the light fixture and add dimension. I went with a white 16 inch medallion, that looks so good! I still need to caulk around the light fixture so everything lays nice and smooth. That’s tonight’s DIY Project!

SHOP THE LOOK

Check out my recent blog post for more modern lighting ideas for living room, here. I’m loving this light and how pretty it looks in our living room, it makes me so happy!

What do you think of our new light fixture and do you also finding shopping for light bulbs to be a nightmare?