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18x18 Gold Travertine Tile Home Depot
With an backward tree, greenery molded into horse heads, a black-and-gold blush arrangement and affected ornaments, celebrated spaces will accommodate a blow of whimsy, elegance, composure and agreeableness to the anniversary Decatur Christmas Tour.

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A attitude in Old Decatur and Albany for 26 years, the bout set for Saturday accustomed an amend this year below the administration of Brenda Henson. A displace to Decatur from Gulf Shores six years ago, Henson fell in adulation with the celebrated district’s anniversary decorations and Christmas tour.
“The Christmas trees, applique houses, ornaments and garland, it is like a Southern winter wonderland. This is a adventitious for bodies to get to blink into these old homes that accept so abundant acceptation to the city. It is the absolute way to get in the Christmas spirit and account for decorating,” Henson said.
With hopes of alluring added bodies to the tour, Henson’s board broadcast the event’s focus. Forth with seven residences decked out in anniversary décor, the bout will affection two structures in the bosom of renovation. They labeled the additions of the Railroad Annex and Morgan-Haines/Zwilling Abode on Lafayette Artery Northeast as “Preservation in Progress.”
“The alone acumen we are able to advertise these old homes on this bout is because bodies accept taken the time to bottle them. ‘Preservation in Progress’ will accord bodies a attending at what goes into attention a structure. We plan on accepting the sites on bout afresh already they are complete,” Henson said.
Other new elements accommodate a commemorative affiche of a home on the tour, a decorating antagonism for burghal businesses, a Preservation of the Year accolade and a people’s best winner. For $1, the accessible can vote online for the best busy home.
The bout will booty abode Saturday, 3 to 8 p.m. Special contest accommodate concerts at Aboriginal Presbyterian and Westminster Presbyterian, carrying rides, a music and ablaze affectation at the Old State Bank and Christmas timberline decorating tips at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center. Tickets amount $20. Proceeds will go to the celebrated districts. Learn added at decaturchristmastour.com.
“The money aloft will go aback to attention and abating parks, such as the Ned Frazier Park in Old Decatur and Delano Park in Albany, spaces for the accomplished association to use,” Henson said.
Cartwright-Faulkner Abode
601 Line St. N.E.
Original features: Acme abstraction in the dining allowance and advanced allowance and broiler in the advanced room
Owners: Scott and Lindsey Faulkner, son Gann and babe Hattie
Gann Faulkner absurdly acicular to the ornaments blind from the Christmas timberline in the advanced allowance of the Old Decatur home. He motioned to the reproduction of Big Ben, a keepsake from a cruise to London, afore bound acrimonious out the Arc de Triomphe, the craven auto cab and the Sears Tower.
“I can acquaint you all the ornaments,” the first-grader at Decatur Heritage Christian Academy said as he angled bottomward to a applique abode blind from a lower limb. “This one is from the aboriginal time we fabricated a applique abode together.”
The ornaments on the Christmas timberline action a glimpse into the lives of the Faulkners, from the day Scott and Lindsey got affiliated and their 4-year-old daughter’s adulation for ballet to Gann’s allure with dinosaurs and the year the ancestors confused to Decatur.
“Every accessory is significant. Every accessory tells a story. We accustomed the hot air airship to admire our aboriginal Christmas here,” said Lindsey Faulkner, who confused to the home on Line Artery Northeast in 2013.
The home’s exoteric appealed to the ancestors — Lindsey was fatigued to the adamant fence and the magnolias, Gann to the squirrels and birds and Hattie to the structure’s applique abode look.
Built in 1890 by Mathew Cartwright, a Civil War soldier who fought at Richmond, Manassas, Chancellorsville, Antietam and Gettysburg, the one-and-a-half adventure Victorian cottage appearance a hipped roof, askew balustrade and Queen Anne appearance detailing.
“You can acquaint this abode has consistently been admired by the owners,” Lindsey Faulkner said.

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Since the Faulkners confused in, the ancestors pulled up carpet, refinished the balk floors, installed acme abstraction to bout the aboriginal in the blow of the abode and repainted.
After two years of decorating the home like a applique abode for Gann and Hattie, Lindsey Faulkner, an autogenous artist by trade, autonomous for a added sophisticated, old South attending this Christmas.
Garland with over-sized ablaze ornaments frames the broiler lit by candles, and white ceramics with a gold bound anticipate guests at the dining allowance table.
“I would alarm my appearance eclectic. I am an old body active in an old home. I adulation that I can accompany new life, a blow of the abrupt and modern, to this old space,” Lindsey Faulkner said.
Gunter-Meely Abode
643 Jackson St. S.E.
Original features: Balk floors, adhesive walls and moldings, fireplace, transoms, barb bottom tub and carrying house.
Owners: Michael and DeAnn Meely
DeAnn Meely struggles to name her admired decoration. Conceivably it is the backward timberline she can sit below or the red timberline with red ornaments and red lights — her admired color. Yes, she loves it all, from the Charles Dickens apple to the Radko ornaments to the hand-painted sleds.
For Christmas, the able painter adapted the Albany home she shares with her bedmate into “Santa’s best southern accessory workshop.”
The dining allowance now serves as Santa’s toy-making headquarters, and the carrying abode is area the blithe old man tethers his reindeer.
“We are activity to accept lights on the carrying abode and acquaint anybody to be actual quiet because the reindeer are sleeping,” Meely said.
This marks the aboriginal Christmas the Meelys will bless at the Jackson Artery home. In April, the brace confused from Arizona, area anniversary decorations accommodate chili peppers and cacti, to Decatur, the acreage of alive greenery and fruit.
Decatur’s arts association and the artistic activity of the abode drew Michael and DeAnn Meely to the artisan cottage with the L-shaped porch, advanced adverse gable and copse bank trim.
According to records, physician J. Leon Gunter congenital the one-and-a-half adventure home for his wife, Letitia.
The Meelys, who transported the backward Christmas timberline from Arizona to Decatur in their car rather than the aircraft van to ensure it accustomed safely, busy the broiler with candles, ache cones and greenery, set up four full-size copse and displayed all of DeAnn’s Santa-themed art.
The timberline in the dining allowance — aka Santa’s branch — is adorned with hand-painted ornaments of nutcrackers, angels, Santas and figurines that afraid on her daughter’s adaptable 19 years ago.
“Ornaments of amount are on my trees. Amount in the faculty of what it is account to you, not the price,” Meely said. “When I beautify for Christmas, I allotment allotment of myself. Christmas represents aggregate I love. I appetite to allotment my joy of Christmas with the community. There will be a blow of Christmas in every room. Well, conceivably added than aloof a touch.”

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Davis-Shubert/Thomas Abode
422 Sherman St. S.E.
Original features: Fireplace, decrepit bottle transoms and window.
Owners: Tony Shubert and Jack Thomas
Past home bout participants gave Tony Schubert and Jack Thomas one allotment of admonition — beautify the amplitude with items cogent to them.
“We were told bodies appetite to apperceive added about the owners instead of aloof seeing appealing decorations, so that is what we are activity to do. We are activity to allotment our lives with visitors to our home,” Shubert said.
They started by abstraction craven wire and bushing it with greenery to actualize a horse’s head, which serves as the mantel’s centerpiece. They bolter bottomward the admirable championship and assets admirable championship trophies won at Arabian horse shows. They plan on adorning a timberline with cowboy boots and horse ornaments and ambience up a horse buggy in the advanced backyard of the Albany home on Sherman Artery Southeast.
“Horses accept consistently been a adulation of Jack’s and of mine. They were and still are a ample allotment of our lives,” Shubert said.
Thomas, whose ancestor accomplished horses for the movies, grew up in the equestrian world. He showed his aboriginal horse at age 5 and spent the abutting 55 years training and assuming Arabians.
“Dad grew up in Morgan County during the horse-and-buggy day. Horses were consistently a actual important allotment of my activity and abide to be,” said Thomas, who retired from the industry aftermost year and now board competitions.
Shubert, who showed horses for 20 years, announces at competitions, including the adolescence civic championship, beyond the country. When Thomas and Shubert scaled aback their training, they confused from their Hartselle acreage to a address on the Tennessee River.
“Going from accepting all of this acreage to actuality in a address was difficult. Two years ago we started attractive for a house. We were at a affair at a friend’s abode and she kept pointing beyond the artery to a abode for sale. It was this house,” Shubert said.
The adulthood of the copse abstraction and floors appealed to the men. The two-story Victorian appearance a gabled roof with copse bank trim, barb bottom bathtubs, decrepit copse wainscoting, assumption handrails and decrepit bottle transoms aloft the autogenous doors. Forth with the horse elements, Thomas and Shubert acclimated greenery, gold bows and candles for the broiler and busy the active allowance timberline with Santa figurines fabricated by Thomas’ mother.
Fort Nash
522 Oak St. N.E.
Original features: Block windows, anniversary active by bottle artisan, bottle block Coca-Cola bar and two Coca-Cola fountains.
Owners: Carl and Kate Cole and son, Wynn
As a teenager, Kate Cole would drive by the Art Deco abode in Old Decatur and dream of one day active in the celebrated home with the angled walls, conservatory and alfresco walkway. Two weeks ago her dream became a reality.

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“The alone affair we bought for this home is the Stack 50 Table. Aggregate abroad came from our added home. It’s strange. “I feel like I’ve been affairs art and appliance for this home all along,” said Kate Cole, who accustomed Glee Sides for her artful advice.
The Coles will bless their aboriginal Christmas at the abode dubbed Fort Nash by aperture up the iconic Oak Artery Northeast anatomy to the public.
To comedy off the home’s Art Deco feel, Kate Cole called a black-and-gold blush theme. Atramentous and gold ornaments beautify the timberline and atramentous and gold accents arise throughout the house, from the conservatory on the capital attic to the block bar in the basement to the walk-out balustrade on the additional story.
While Kate Cole’s allure for Fort Nash dates aback decades, Carl Cole’s aboriginal consequence of the home was not as favorable.
He saw the architecture afterwards years of neglect. He saw it afore the backward Vivian Conatser-Turner adherent years to abating and renovating the celebrated space.
“This abode is what it is today because of Vivian,” Kate Cole said. “She brought this abode aback to life.”
One of Conatser-Turner’s renovations to the home included accretion the kitchen by accepting rid of a “cold room” area the aboriginal buyer stored fur coats.
Built in 1939 by the Nash family, Fort Nash, advised by Edwin Lancaster, the ancient arch of Auburn University’s College of Architecture, appearance solid animate frames, limestone, brick, adhesive and bottle block windows and travertine asphalt floors.
“They say not one distinct attach was acclimated in the architecture of this home,” Kate Cole said.
The three-story anatomy was so complete it accustomed acceptance as a bomb apartment — the city’s alone bomb apartment at that time. It was additionally the aboriginal home in the burghal with axial air conditioning.
The bottle block bar in the basement and Coke fountains on the capital attic and additional attic are a nod to the Nash family, who endemic Coca-Cola bottling company.
While the fountains no best allocate Coke, visitors are acceptable to allow in a sip of baptize from them.
In the home, accomplish abiding to analysis out the Stack 50 Table advised by Marcello Pozzi on the aboriginal floor, the block bar in the basement, the conservatory and the access hall’s ceiling, which appearance a sunburst.
Added sites
on the bout
McLain-Hopkins House, 651 East Moulton St.: A one-story folk Victorian square-frame abode congenital in 1915. Aboriginal elements accommodate the balk floors and fireplaces. Currently endemic by Chad and Darcy Hopkins.
Grant Artery Apartments, 1018 Grant St. S.E.: Originally referred to as the Garden Court Apartments, the three two-story barrio erected in the 1940s served as apartment for aggressive servicemen and women who alternate to Decatur from Apple War II.
Cartwright-Swims/Smith House, 709 Line St. N.E.: The two-story Victorian cottage congenital in 1900 appearance four steeply-pitched roof gable dormers. John Swims and John Smith own the home.

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Preservation in Progress: Morgan-Haines/Zwilling House, 316 Lafayette St. N.E.: Since affairs the home aftermost year, Chris Haines and Adam Zwilling counterbalanced the anatomy and repaired and corrective the exterior. Currently, they are renovating the interior, acclimation the balk floors and abating the aboriginal adhesive walls of the three-story Victorian home congenital in 1888.
Preservation in Progress: Decatur Railroad Depot, 701 Railroad St. N.W.: The celebrated railroad annex advised by Frank Pierce Milburn appearance a Spanish Revival style.

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