Fall Mantel

Boy it seems like the seasons pass quickly these days! I can't believe we're on to fall already! I'm not complaining. It happens to be my very favorite season. I guess I've probably mentioned that before, but I can't help saying it over and over each year. I've had the autumn decorations out for a couple weeks now. My kids love fall as well, and they had been begging me to get out the decorations. I thought I'd share some of them with you today and then link up to the fall mantel party going on at The Lettered Cottage.

So let's start with the piano that serves as my mantel. Let me warn you, I'm not known for my subtlety when it comes to fall decorations. OK, here goes.






Lots and lots of nature elements. Leaves, acorns, birds, berries. LOVE.

Perhaps you can imagine my husband's reaction when I asked the neighbors if I could have their old screen door when they removed it. They were happy they didn't have to haul it off somewhere, I was happy to have a nicely weathered screen door, and my husband considered calling the casting folks at Hoarders. I really love it, though, and I think he's even coming around to it.

But the piano is not the only spot to get cozied up. The front porch is still a work in progress, but here are a few bits.

The caddy on the table was a find at a local barn sale.



The big pumpkins we grew ourselves! It was my first time growing pumpkins and I'm thrilled to have something to show for it.

The large black tool box came from the barn sale as well.


And lastly, back inside, here's my hutch. The large bread bucket was my great grandmother's. The old scale I picked up at the same barn sale last fall. The rusty metal star I picked up this year at the barn sale. It's actually a tree topper, but I loved it so much I convinced myself I could start using it now!






One last thing. You may have noticed a little stinker trying to sneak into my photos. He may be a stinker, but he's a darn cute one!


Linking up to :

Guest Room...A Work in Progress

Remember when I mentioned way back here that I was redoing Kennedy's room as a guest room? We were planning to get going on her new room in the basement and figured with company coming we might as well get her moved out of the room and get it ready for guests. Well, since then we've had my niece and her kids come for a visit, my sister came and stayed with us for a few weeks, and my parents were here for 10 days and just left this morning. So I've made some progress on the guest room, but haven't quite got the finishing touches on it yet. And now school has started back up and Kennedy's bedroom still isn't finished so she's going to have to move back into the guest room for a while.

So this is what it looked like before.



Kind of a typical tweenie type room.


Here's where we're at today:






I painted the room in two different colors, planning for an eventual chair rail and wainscoting. I went with lighter colors because this room does not get a lot of natural light except first thing in the morning. Painting the trim white went a long way toward remedying the brightness issue.

I bought this lamp at Goodwill for a couple bucks.


It was dirty and dingy and had a tube in the center that had a little light in it so the base would glow when lit. The tube was ugly in there but I could see the potential of the glass lamp base. I wasn't sure about the frosted roses on the glass at first, but after I took out the tube and washed the glass, I decided they were actually pretty. While I had the entire lamp disassembled, I spray painted all the metal parts with oil rubbed bronze. If the glass wasn't a bit amber, I was going to paint the metal in brushed nickel. But it was amber, so I went with the ORB. I rewired the lamp and reassembled it and fell in love! I think it's gorgeous. I am still looking for the perfect shade for the lamp, but this one will do for now.



The headboard is an old door I bought at a Lands End Prop Sale. I love this door and I've used it in a few different places in my home. I knew that someday I would probably want to use it somewhere else again, so I did nothing to the structure or patina of the door. I just anchored it to the wall.

The bedding I ordered from ebay. When it arrived, the colors were not as faded as they looked in the picture online, but they seem to have faded a bit with a couple washings. I had considered washing them in some bleach when they first arrived, but decided against it. I'm glad I did.


So at this point, I'm trying to decide on artwork for the walls. I took a series of photos at the State Capitol recently, and I'm thinking about enlarging, printing, and framing those to use in the room. Hopefully soon I'll have the finishing details in the room and I'll be able to share it with you in its entirety.

I'm linking up to:
http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-before-and-after-new-light.html


You Are Talking Too Much!