Country Home in Vermont

A few months ago I was contacted by Country Home magazine to see if my parents would be interested in sharing their Vermont farmhouse for the Winter 2019 issue. They were on board, a date was set, and so I traveled to Vermont for the photo shoot. Vermont hadn’t had any snow since December but the day before the shoot, several inches of wet snow fell turning Vermont into a winter wonderland.

While I tried to prepare my parents for what a photo shoot entailed, I think they were still surprised by the amount of time, props, and moving things around that goes into getting those beautiful shots. Don’t get me wrong, the pictures I share of their home on IG really are what my parent’s home looks like! It is cozy, warm, and tidy.

We had the talented Karen Lidbeck-Brent style the shoot and Kritsada photograph various rooms and the outdoors. Rugs were moved while fresh flowers, food, and plants were arranged, and magically it turned into a simple Vermont Christmas. Luckily, because it was so cold (18 degrees), the outside Christmas wreaths still looked fresh! No angle or detail was overlooked.

After two days, all of the equipment was packed up, hugs and goodbyes were shared, and we had the house to ourselves again. One of the benefits of having talented, artistic people rearrange things, is the ability to see things with a fresh eye and an open mind. With our creative juices flowing, my mom and I implemented some new ideas and even got my dad on board to let us revamp his tiny office.

My dad’s office is compact. I remembered a desk and lamp I saw sitting in the barn last summer, and thought they might work perfectly in this space. I love when you shop your own things! My parents have an assortment of vintage rugs they’ve collected over the years, so this was easy. My dad found the file cabinets ($7 for the pair) at a tag sale. The beautiful old cabinet in the foreground was found at Stone House Antique Center in Chester, VT for a song!

We swapped the cabinet and file drawers, moved some art, and used a small barrel to corral his plans and drawings.

On the antique cabinet are a few of his favorite things… an old football from his youth, a set of old books (a gift from my sister), and a very loud horn that he used to honk to wake us up on weekends when we didn’t want to get out of bed!

Next we swapped out the large entry hall rug with the living room rug. A small change with a big impact!

Next we tackled the little mudroom off of the entry hall. I traded a mirror out of the powder room that was more in keeping with the rustic look.

We traded out the Christmas decor on the dining table centerpiece for bleached pinecones, votives, and assorted nuts. Fun fact about this dining table…my dad designed and built this table last year out of kiln dried pine. The two inch thick top with the breadboard ends is made up of three boards. When he began to put them together, he noticed they were slightly warped and bowed. He took them into the garage and drove his tractor over them to flatten them out!

A successful antiquing outing at Stone House Antique Center scored an old bench that makes a perfect side table for the living room sectional and some gorgeous blue fabric that my mom is having made into pillows for the two leather chairs.

Sadly my trip is coming to an end, but I’m left with many more wonderful memories. Today we are warm and cozy inside with a fire blazing, enjoying the changes we made and watching the snow begin to fall again….