I am overjoyed to report that it was a big success and the house held up nicely. We had plenty of room for about 50 guests throughout the evening, never feeling crowded or overwhelmed. I love how much room there was in the kitchen to put out all the appetizers on the counters, desserts on the island, and even a special little coffee station on the buffet. In some kind of pregnancy memory lapse I didn't take a single picture. Not our lovely guests, the yummy food, the sparkle & glitter. Nothing. But, I did take a fewof the little details that were still intact during the day after clean up....
I covered the buffet with a runner made from brown paper, the kind that comes in a large roll, that we had left over from a construction project and turned it into a little Keurig coffee station. During the party I had peppermint mocha and french vanilla creamer on the coaster. The sugar bowl was a $.50 thrift store find and the little bowl to the far left for the spoons is a cute little Christmas dish that I got in a pollyanna exchange.
I used little placecard holders that my mother-in-law had given me in Christmas pasts to make little signs out of cardstock to designate little details (alcoholic punch, where to find water/soda, etc).
The basement was our biggest transformation. We unloaded our moving truck into the basement and it has been a messy variation of a storage unit since then.....
I don't even think there are pictures of it at its worse. At some point we were actually sleeping down there while the hardwoods were being refinished. I'm going to have nightmares just thinking about those dark, spidery days.
And the After.....It's also "after" the party so not quite as neat as tidy as it was at it's best.
We have future plans to patch up some holes, paint the wood paneling and eventually want new carpet. But it cleared out pretty nicely and was the perfect party spot.
We set up a long fold out table for beer, wine and snack foods and since it were the later party crowd ended up, I eventually brought down some of the dips and food for everyone.
Since my kitchen and upstairs is pretty traditional, I decided a little more fun was in order for the basement with silver, sparkles and bright colors. I bought ornament shaped foam decorations that come in blue, purple, green, and pink. Some were already covered in sparkles while others where plain, so I used glitter glue to add some special details. I punched holes in the top and used colored ribbon to hang them from the windows, tables, and even the fish tank. I think all the glitter helped distract from the remaining imperfections
"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."
~Norman Vincent Peale
That's helpful too.
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