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Fall Decor

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Amy

It took me awhile this year {or did everyone just start decorating earlier?} to get into the swing of fall…maybe because its in the 80′s here on the coast of Virginia and has been so humid it feels like we live, as we kindly say, in the “tropics”, Ugh!

Last year at this time we had just moved into our new home, and I could not wait to decorate my porch for Fall as you can see below. {That post is HERE}.

This year, I decorated inside first where at least my air conditioning makes it feel more “fall-like”. Starting in my Dining Room, I wound up pulling some blue accents in along with the traditional fall decor. Since I painted the ceiling blue in this room, I can’t ignore the tone completely, but I think it mixed in nicely.

If you follow closely, yes I had that simple wood box in my gift wrapping armoire–in case you recognize it–I just found something new to use instead for that space and I love how rustic it is on the more formal table in here.

I updated the tiny little dining room bar area with some fall touches as well.

Right outside the room is this little area in our front hallway. This little table just seemed complete with this wedding picture from many years ago {Wow, time flies!} of course, mostly because I thought the frame blended nicely. This may even be our last wedding picture floating around? They get taken over by all the pictures of the kids after awhile, don’t they?

Here is what I put together in our Family Room. I didn’t expect to do anything with my mantel this year. However, I found Layla’s mantel HERE to be inspirational and immediately wanted to use a similar concept in my house.

Christy made me some number vinyls last year, and the “3″ I have on the plate is just something that signifies our three kiddos. I found both this little ironstone pitcher and this milk crate in Maine this summer at some of my favorite antique stores. The crate is a lovely reminder all winter of our Maine vacation spot which is just down the road from Waterville.

I haven’t even dragged out my Halloween decor, but I suppose that is up next! Hopefully we’ll get some cooler temperatures next week to help us get in the spirit of things.

So let me ask, am I behind or did everyone just get on the ball earlier this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Autumn and Fall, Autumn/ Fall, Home Inspiration, Home Tours, Real Spaces | Tagged autumn, Dining Room, Fall, fall decor, mantel, Porch, pumpkins | 4 Comments

My Black and White Halloween Tablescape

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Terry

October is finally here! My boys and I have been decorating the house all week as we all get very excited for Halloween. My children really want to make the house as spooky as possible for Hallows Eve this year. My oldest son Gavin has been placing spider webs around the perimeter of my house and my youngest son, Lincoln, is enamored with my Frankenstein nutcracker. Needless to say, they are having a blast! My focus has been the dinning room. I wanted to create a spooky tablescape without spending a lot. I also wanted to utilize some of my existing decor like my black and white chargers and my polka dot table runner. My goal was simply to add to what was already in place and incorporate some spooky fall elements. I think I captured the essence of the holiday. What do you think?

Happy Halloween!

Check out those burlap flags I made. I love that burlap is taking off and my local fabric store is now carrying printed burlap. Aren’t those keys adorable?

This photo will become its own post as I created that cool Halloween bottle and matching glasses. This was a fun and easy craft project and it would be the perfect hostess gift if you have any fall parties to attend.

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Posted in Autumn and Fall, Autumn/ Fall, Halloween, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces, Uncategorized | Tagged black and white, Halloween, Hallows Eve, Orange, pumpkins, Spooky, tablescape | 3 Comments

Dressing Up my Front Table with Fall Decor

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Christy

**Don’t forget to enter our notecard giveaway HERE; the giveaway ends Tuesday, September 25, 2012. (GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED)**

I do love Fall, and Saturday was the first day of autumn so it’s officially here! I love when it’s cold enough that I can sleep with the windows open at night, although my husband and I are still working through some temperature control issues that remain the most serious threat to our continued domestic bliss. I enjoy having to wrap up in a blanket to sit on the screened porch, and the fact that I don’t even sweat when I walk the dog in the early morning! Fall means hot tea in the afternoon, a pumpkin spice candle burning on the counter, hot soups and comfort food for dinner, and most fun of all, changing things up to bring a little bit of autumn into my decor.

Here’s my front entry table, dressed up for Fall:

I have a mantel in this house, in fact, I have a really huge one, but hanging above it is my most prized possession–the stained glass window from the church in which my parents were married. So I never decorate the mantel itself, because it just takes away from the beauty of the window. So I content myself with decorating the dresser I use in my foyer for each holiday.

Here’s a picture of the stained glass window when it lived in the formal living room in our old house in North Carolina. I feel like even the simple Christmas decor in this photo was too much:

My front hall is painted a taupe-gray, and the white chippy dresser that I snagged out of someone’s trash is set off nicely by the wall color. A dresser in the foyer may sound strange, but it holds dining room table linens and even a few extra serving pieces. The painted mirror is from a thrift store (read about its transformation HERE) and cost me all of $8. The dried hydrangeas are from my neighbor’s bush back in North Carolina, and the gumball pinecones (does everyone call them that, or is it just me?) are from our back yard when we lived in Virginia Beach. Why, yes, thank you, the movers do think I’m completely crazy for having them pack and move dried flowers and pinecones when we move!

The dough bowl was a wedding present from some wonderful friends of my mom and dad’s who lived on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Sometimes it holds fruit in my kitchen, and sometimes it even holds bread dough, but it’s perfect for fall decor.

An apothecary jar holds mini pumpkins and gourds. Some years it holds pinecones, and some years I mix it up and use white pumpkins. This year I’m trying to use what I have, so these are faux pumpkins and gourds (I find that the real ones sometimes get moldy when they’re in covered containers–yuck!). A burlap strip cut off a feed sack brings a bit of brown into that piece.

The “Welcome Autumn” sign was on clearance at TJ Maxx last year for $2 and I thought it would be fun and add a little color to the wall. I had intended to try a burlap runner on the dresser top, but I seem to be running out of feedsack, so perhaps I’ll use canvas drop cloth material instead–it’s the right color, after all!

We’ll be posting some more of the fall decor in our three houses over the next couple of weeks. Happy Fall, Y’all, and thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Autumn/ Fall, Home Inspiration, Seasons | Tagged apothecary jar, autumn, Burlap, Decor, dried flowers, Fall, foyer, front entry, front hall, pinecones, pumpkins | 14 Comments

More Fall Front Porch Decor–Just in Time for Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Christy

I’m really looking forward to Christmas, but I like to give Thanksgiving its due. That can be hard, sometimes, when the Christmas stuff is in the stores in AUGUST, but I love Thanksgiving, and I think it’s one of our country’s most meaningful holidays.

My Halloween decor isn’t very different from my Thanksgiving decor, because we don’t do the whole cobwebs-and-spiders thing for Halloween. We do carve pumpkins, and I put out luminarias (just white tealights in Ball mason jars) to line the sidewalk and the steps for the trick-or-treaters, but other than that, things don’t change very much at our house from October 31st to November 1st. No wonder, then, that I felt the need to jazz things up a bit today. Here’s how the front porch looks after I tweaked it a bit…

Can’t see anything from this far away? Don’t worry, the close ups are next!

My seating area is shown below. I have a glider, two chairs, and a little table. The glider is from Walmart (about 15 years ago) and the chairs were $5–for both–at a yard sale. I have to give them a coat of spray paint every spring. We love to sit on the front porch in the evenings with a glass of wine and watch the kids playing. My son and his buddies are usually throwing the football in the front yard, though, so one of us might have to jump in as referee.

I change the colored cushions out a couple of times a year. Obviously, the orange ones are in rotation right now, but the red ones will have their turn beginning the weekend after Thanksgiving. As we were sitting on the porch on Halloween, passing out candy, my husband asked me why we had so many cushions! Sometimes I’m not sure that he “gets” my vision! As an aside, I buy the cushions from a great Ebay seller (click here for a pillow giveaway), and they are pretty reasonably priced, as well as being completely weatherproof.

Below you’ll see my “window to nowhere” on the porch wall, and the hanging candle-lier (is that a word?). I usually light the candles when we’re sitting on the porch, and they get a color change to match the season, too. The white ones I had out this summer kept melting and wilting off sideways–we had a HOT summer in Nashville! The metal “B” is from an online store, and I added vinyl polka dots to match the cushions.

I have two of these pumpkin topiaries flanking either side of the front door. Usually, I buy the real Cinderella pumpkins and stack those as topiaries, but in this house there’s enough of an overhang that these faux ones won’t get wet. The black planters are filled with petunias or impatiens all summer

To the left of the front door, I have a basket filled with extra pillows (take that, honey! and the watering can. I’m not watering much of anything right now, so I filled it up with some sprigs from this cool bush with purple berries in our backyard. We back up to woods, and there’s a lot of interesting greenery back there.

By the way, I think I stole the pillows in the basket idea from Amy’s porch post. Even though she’s in Virginia and I’m in Tennessee, we decorate our homes in a shockingly similar manner, and if wasn’t for this blog, no one would notice!

I didn’t want to leave the mailbox out of the fun, so I put up a couple of grapevine wreaths and wove some of the unknown purple berry plant into them. My vinca died last week when we had a hard freeze, so I yanked them out and put a few mini pumpkins in the empty space until I find some pansies.

I think my next post will show the screened porch, but let me leave you with this picture as a sneak peak–I am so pleased with the very cool live decor I’m finding right in my own backyard!

Can you even believe those hedgeapples (aka osage oranges)? I just love them–and they smell so good!

Happy Fall, Y’all! Thanks for stopping by.

**Don’t forget to enter our giveaway for a pair of red and green polka dot pillows–perfect for decorating for Christmas!! Giveaway runs 11/21-11/27. (GIVEAWAY CLOSED)**