This gorgeous hutch, decorated for the holidays, was an old, dated brown 80's hutch. Amazing what a bit of paint can do.

One of the pieces of furniture that makes me the most happy is my kitchen hutch, and I am staring at right now. Yes, this is the view as I sit at my kitchen table plucking away at my laptop. In fact, I didn’t even get up to take this picture. I just sat here in my comfy, fluffy white robe (the only thing still white in my home), coffee in hand, and snapped it with my iphone camera.

Do you remember what it looked like before? (If you haven’t seen the before, you really must click over to see the incredible transformation.)

Months later and this pop of blue still makes me thrilled every time I see it. Yes, it’s the little things. There’s just something about taking an old brown wooden hutch and transforming it that just does good for the creative soul.

Decorating for the holidays doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive. In fact, my goal is to always use what I have on hand, which is what I did this year as I styled my hutch in this most simple of manners – adding ornaments to bowls.

The past few years, I have been addicted to ornaments, and I’m so thankful that I stock up the week after Christmas. Yes, with creating holiday decor on a budget, (2010)  inexpensive ornaments add just the right touch for any one. Plus, it requires no special decorating skills, and my Real Life Christmas Home Tour on a Budget (2011) shows just that.

Add in a few other holiday touches and you can transform any shelf, book case, hutch or table in seconds.

When you look at this hutch, I hope you’re inspired by the fact that you can create something out of nothing by shopping just a few yard sales and thrift stores throughout the year. Purchasing nearly every item displayed, along with the hutch, second hand, I can attest to the fact that with a little patience, you can create the look you desire. I’ve been adding to my milk glass collection. Can you tell?

I nearly forgot to tel you my fun find just last week: the turquoise and blue glass ornaments. As we waited for our small town Christmas parade to begin, I popped my head into the only little “antique/junk” store that we have and I found a bunch of old ornaments. I told her I only needed the ones that were in shades of blue and she said, “Fill your bag for $1.50. Will that work?”

Ah yes, thank you, ma’am. 🙂 (Considering I had already scoured our Dollar Tree for blue ornaments to no avail, this was an unexpected little blessing.)

I find it a helpful tip to get a new set of eyes to see what you are missing. To do this, I just snap a picture and look at it. Once I loaded these up on the blog, it gave me a new perspective on what I still need to edit a bit. (So I am off to take 30 seconds to do that as soon as I hit “post,” but honestly, right now, it’s a “Good Enough Thing.”)

Have you gotten bit by the ornament bug?

If you still need ideas, see the above links for posts from last year. There are lots of ornament ideas.

(This post has been added to my sweet friend, The Nester’s Christmas Home Tour. Since my home pictures are still being uploaded, stay tuned for new post, new pictures… ;))