fall decor

Before the month was over, I wanted to document our fall decor this year.  I kept it very simple with stuff that we already had and of course, pumpkins.

Our mantle is pretty similar to how it looked like at our old house.  I won't show you how the fireplace looks like because it's full of H's toys!

I found this mirror at Home Goods and moved the one we had into our guest room.  Will need to do an update on that soon too.

We have a sitting area just by the staircase that I've been meaning to mention on here. 

And outside, I went a little pumpkin happy, but who doesn't during this time of the year?

The picture below was taken earlier in October when the mums were still alive and blooming.  It's now dying a slow death (what's new).  Luckily, Thanksgiving is almost here so I can get rid of them!

I can't wait to decorate the house for Christmas.  I was thinking of buying a real tree this year but have absolutely zero experience on how to maintain one.  I'm also not the best plant keeper so we may just invest in a good fake tree that will last us a few Christmases.  But if you have any tips on how to keep a real tree alive and kicking the whole season, let me know!  It's such a great tradition to go as a family and pick out THE tree every year. 

new home | entryway

After we got back from vacation, all of a sudden I had the itch to start decorating again.  No room is completely finished except for maybe the entryway.  Here's what we've got so far.

The console table was from Home Goods and it fits perfectly in the small wall space to the right of our front door.  Everything else (minus the orchid, which doesn't last and am having to buy a new one every month) are stuff that we already had.  The mirror was from our guestroom in our old house.  

Oh and we had our walls painted before we moved in back in January.  The wall color throughout the main areas were painted with Behr paint color matched to Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter.  It's a "greige" (gray/beige) color and looks different depending on how the light hits it.  In these pictures, it looks more gray.  Below is a picture that was taken on our first night at the house.  Here, it appears to be more beige.  We really love how neutral it looks and was exactly what I was going for!

And that's the first sneak peek into our new house!  More to come.

our first home | formal living + dining

Since we're moving, I wanted to feature our first home for memories.  Also to show off how awesome our house looks in these pictures, taken by a professional that our realtor hired.  He made our house look ginormous in these pictures! 

First up are the two front rooms, the formal living and dining.  You've seen these rooms several times before, but thought I'd start from the front of the house and work our way to the back. 

As soon as you walk into the house, the first thing you see is this. 

This is how it looked like when we first got our keys back in September 2009 and walked in for the first time as homeowners (well that's a lie - this was the day after).

I think the first thing I bought was that rectangular mirror which I found at Ross.  I was so excited when Paul bought me the console table for my birthday.  I've been hinting at him for months that I found the perfect console table at Target. 

I found this picture of Paul painting the first coat on with Behr paint in Desert Camel.  A few weeks later (if not A week) we changed it to Sherwin Williams in Camelback because the previous one was a little too yellow.  Lesson learned:  see if you like the paint in natural light first before continuing on to paint the rest of the house. 

Here's the formal living room and dining before:

We even had my family over for lunch one day and had them choose their top two favorites.  We ended up choosing a Behr paint that my Dad really liked (hi Dad!).

Our awesome makeshift blinds.  We put them on there when we painted the room and never took them off.  It was like this for almost two years.  Goodness.

 

And here it is now, as you've seen it lately on this blog.

Don't mind the blanket on the couch.  We forgot to remove it before the pictures.  That's Bailey's favorite spot, her go-to place when she wants to get away from us.

I've been meaning to put some artwork and a bench on that bare wall but never got around to it.  Maybe in the next house.  I think we put most of our hard work (and money) into this front room.  There was a lot to fill up and we basically started from scratch.  I am probably most proud of this room, and I hope I can duplicate this in the next house, if not make it better.

Up next is the kitchen.  I hope you have a good weekend!

deck the halls...

I've been meaning to change our theme this year, but never got around to it.  So we stuck with the same red, green and gold theme.

Our tree is two years old.  I got it at Garden Ridge for I think $79!  It stands at 7.5 feet tall, and pre-lit, although the lights on one side has never worked.  This year, more lights have died on us, so I had to put two strings of lights on the tree instead of one.  I'm not sure if you notice but there are more lights at the bottom of the tree than on the top.  Paul realized this after I'd hung all the ornaments, and I was NOT going to mess with it.  It does make me cringe a little knowing that the lights aren't equally distributed, but there's always next year.  (Ahh, i shouldn't have told you.  Now you're looking at the top of the tree right - RIGHT?)

I kept the same ornaments and the same ribbons as the past two years.  Except we may have thrown away some of the red and gold ones with glitter detailing by accident last year, so I bought some new ones that looked a little similar.  We have some ornaments that Paul made when he was in elementary school and they're so cute!  I did throw away the swirly, glittery sticks that I used last year and bought new ones this year because it had almost no glitter left.  I stuck them in random spots and put more around the top of the tree to emphasize the star. 

Didn't really change a whole lot with the rest of the room.  We had to move our studly chairs so we could put the tree in front of the window.  I replaced the pillows to red ones that we already had to make it more festive.  Our side table is the same, except I added this gold reindeer that I found at Goodwill and filled it with decorative pine cones. 

Our dining table looks a little blah.  I'll try harder next year.

Here's another close up of my pine cone topiaries.

Oh and here are our chairs!  They came in over Thanksgiving weekend.  The cushion is nice on your bum, and they're as solid as the table.  Now we just need to get some head chairs.

For our little console table in the entryway, I put some pine cones and extra ornaments in a cloche and a tall vase.  I wanted real branches to put in the vase, but had no luck finding any large pieces in the backyard.  So, I just bought these at Michael's.  I found this candle on the Square in one of the antique stores.  I don't know if you can see it, but it's called "The Smell of Christmas."

This is our mantle in the family room.  You can't really do too much to it because it's not very wide.  It's always a challenge having to balance these two lit trees and garland.  Everything is the same, except I added ornaments on the garland.  We really need to get new stockings!  I got Paul's stocking for him one Christmas, and then when we got Bailey in 2007, I made her one, and made mine too.  As you can tell, I gave up when I got to mine.  Those are supposed to be bells next to my name.

We had a girls' night a few years ago where we decorated our own wreaths.  I've been hanging mine up on our pantry door every year. 

Next Christmas, I'm thinking about changing our theme to green, blue and gold.  All I really need are blue ornaments and I can reuse my green and gold ones.  They go on mega (Jamie Oliver style) sale after Christmas, so I'll see how much is left. 

The house just looks a lot better with Christmas decorations.  The neighborhood looks more cheerful when houses are glowing with Christmas lights.  I wish it was Christmas every day!