Christmas Time All Year

Some of my favorite things about this time of year is the glow of Christmas lights everywhere! I love the way a town square looks “all aglow”, and I often wish that lighting like that could be a permanent fixture. Fifth avenue in Naples Florida has palm trees wrapped in lights year-round and the oak trees have large lighted orbs hanging from the branches. The street always looks inviting, and it always feels a little bit like Christmas even in the middle of summer. This time of year, the Christmas mood is going strong and much of that Christmas mood is created by the lighting at night. The house glows with the warm lights of the tree and though it is time to think about taking down the tree, is there a way to keep a little sparkle and gleam? In the world of decorating there are ways to keep that sparkly low-lit feeling in the home beyond Christmas time. Let’s peek into an Ivy model to see how the “Christmas glow” can keep going all year long somewhere in the heart of The Villages.

  •  Focal point
The Ivy model has one large wall that is shared with the dining room and the living room. These homeowners are from Baton Rouge, and they have collectibles that they want to display. They decided to create a beautiful fireplace with a bookcase surrounding it. I think many people hear the word “custom” and they imagine that anything custom would be super expensive but if you know how to do it, you can save money, and the project can remain affordable.

  •  Creating the Wall Unit
The wall unit takes up about one half of the shared wall. One half of the shared wall is the amount of space that the living room takes up, so we made it to fit the living room furniture layout. The way to save money in a project like this is to buy the cabinets from a local big box store. The cabinets will be stock cabinets, and they will be white cabinets because big box stores keep these cabinets in stock all the time. These cabinets will create the base. The wood worker who created this wall unit framed out the space for the fireplace unit and then attached the cabinets to the framework. He then built the bookcase on the top of the cabinets and then created a custom framework around the cabinets. The bookcase was created according to the height that the homeowner requested. The fire box was purchased online and arrived very quickly. Most fireplace inserts that can create heat will require a dedicated circuit to operate. A dedicated circuit will require a licensed electrician to install.

  •  Stone surround
The homeowner chose to use stone as the surround around the firebox. This area is custom so it can be covered with stone, or it can have wood working details and it can be painted white.

  •  Paint
Once the wall unit was complete it must be painted. The entire bookcase was painted the same white as the white cabinets. The paint that was used is Emerald paint from a local retailer and it requires thirty days to dry and cure. After thirty days the paint is hard as nails and the wall unit was ready to be dressed for Christmas. This bookshelf was started on October 30th, and it was finished and painted by November 11th. It was left unused for thirty days and then it was ready to accessorize by December 11th.

  •  Lighting
The most important part of creating a wall unit with display shelving is the ability to light it up. How the bookcase is lit is as important as the bookcase itself. The shelves of the bookcase are chunky and there is a lip on the top and the bottom of the shelf. The lip hides the lighting that runs in front of the shelf. When you look at the bookcase, all you see is the light not the source of the light. Each box on the bookcase is very well lit. The lights are on a dimmer so that you can make them very soft for a warm glow. Once the Christmas lights and decorations come down the bookcase lights will offer the same type of lighting and look that you can achieve at Christmas.

  •  Light and heat
The beauty of an electric fireplace in Florida is that you can choose to have heat or not. The heat can come on at the touch of a button and it can cut the chill faster than turning on the central heat. In the summer you get the soft glow of the fireplace without the heat. For those of you who say you cannot have a fireplace in Florida, I would say those are rules that you are making up for yourself but there is no written rule that says we cannot have fireplaces in Florida.

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