Early Fall Kitchen Decor with Plants

Hi everyone! I am so excited again to be sharing some early fall kitchen decor with plants with my fellow bloggers! I know, a post two days in a row? What is this world coming too. I realize that my posting and newsletters have become less frequent. I am trying to pick it up again, now that we just celebrated our one year anniversary (birthday?) at the shop. It’s been a crazy year. Things are going well enough that there’s something to do every minute of the day. It’s hard to break away sometimes, but I know I need to keep trying. Being here with you guys is like coming home.

Ok, enough mushy stuff! This early in fall, I do minimal decorating, but one thing I try to do is start bringing all of my plants inside before the weather really starts to turn. I like to bring in touches of orange, this year I am really into rust color, and am trying to find drapes that color for my living room.

Even though in the past, I like to put small pumpkins on my sill, it was still a little early, and the store doesn’t have them yet.

It’s funny how much it has changed in a few years!

This year, I brought in Coleus (you can see how to propagate those here.), and am propagating my Pothos plant.

 

I love adding vintage wood cutting  boards to my fall decor for some warmth.

Apples are always a good, edible, decor item too!

I added a basket under the kitchen island for all of our dishtowels and cloth napkins.

I love how handy they are!

I’m going for a fairly neutral fall decor for a few weeks, but I am feeling some color creep in!  Come cooler weather, then I will bring in the pumpkins. Are you a neutral fall decor person, or do you love color?  I’ve really changed up our livingroom and can’t wait to share that with you. Make sure to visit the other bloggers joining in and showing their early fall decor!

Ella Claire | French Country Cottage | Craftberry Bush | Rooms For Rent

Jeanne Oliver | Nina Hendrick Design Co. | Shades of Blue Interiors | Zevy Joy

Dear Lillie | Home Stories A to Z | Beneath my Heart | Boxwood Avenue

Nesting with Grace | Jennifer Rizzo Design Company | Julie Blanner | Thistlewood Farms

 

 

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French Country Cottage Decorating Book

I always love getting a new book in the mail! Especially one with beautiful photography, and decorating ideas, like this french country cottage decorating book.

(This post contains affiliate links)

Very recently, I received Courtney Allison’s new book , French Country Cottage, in the mail!

It was so exciting to open up the pages, and see how lovely, and inspiring it was. If you don’t know Courtney, she writes at the beautiful blog  French Country Cottage. Courtney has been a part of my Holiday Housewalk since the beginning, and I’ve always loved her home, and her beautiful photography.

Her book reflects everything about her French Country Style, reading it is like getting a personal tour of her home. The pages are filled with gorgeous arrangements, that she uses in her everyday decor. I’ve always loved the elegance of French Country decor. My gram’s buffet in our kitchen is in that style.

I really love having fresh flowers in my home. Since I’m in the Midwest, I try to have flowers growing that I can cut from my yard from spring until late fall.  In spring, I start with Lilacs, and move into Zinnia’s, Roses and Coneflowers for summer.

Once early to late fall come around, there are plenty of things to pick from like tall grasses, Sedum, and even Wild Goldenrod growing on the south side of our lot.  I have some in a vase on my mantel now. Even some of our weeds are pretty in arrangements. There is just something about fresh flowers that bring life into a home. In winter time, I don’t have fresh flowers as much, but I love buying a bouquet or two for myself when I can, especially fresh, silver-dollar eucalyptus. I have in the last few years been planting plants and bushes I can use for a winter cutting garden, but some of them take a few years to be able to trim.

The pages of Courtney’s book make me want to get on a plane, go to her house (stalk much?), sit on her patio, and eat cheese and drink wine with her… I might just do that!

You can find Courtney’s book,  French Country Cottage , here on Amazon.

 

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Give Old Chairs A Fresh New Look with Paint

I love how paint  is the great transformer! It has the magic to take change something old, and make it brand new. I found some really great  Ethan Allen swivel chairs on a garage sale page from probably the 1970’s or 80’s. I used the HomeRight Super Finish Max Extra, and a paint with primer to give the chairs a fresh new look with paint for my dining area. I wanted chairs that were a bit more substantial on the end of my table, and these were perfect.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

I started by prepping my chairs to paint. You can find the complete instructions here on HomeRight.

I love how old Ethan Allen furniture is so well made, and so timeless. When I first started blogging years ago, I used to paint furniture. This was a piece I made over and glazed. It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since that post!

After the chairs were painted, I let them cure for at least 48 hours. It gives the paint a chance to harden. The thing I love about the HomeRight Super Finish Max Extra is that there isn’t any paint thinning that has to happen. It can go right from the  can into the sprayer. It makes it easy for a quick furniture refresh. The chairs took me about 30 minutes to paint start to finish.  After the paint is cured, they can be coated with a polyacrylic to increase durability.

I fell in love with this color by Ben Moore. It’s called Patina. It’s a great  muddy terra cotta color when it dries. I thought it would be a nice pop of color for my dining area. I love how it looks with my dark green hutch.

 I love how easy it was to give the chairs a fresh new look with paint.

Since my table is an actual vintage MCM table, I think smaller chairs would look better.

Theses “new” chairs are a little smaller than my current ones, so I am thinking about finding other vintage chairs to go with it, or something with a smaller scale.  I might even look at going with a fun material like metal. Wouldn’t gold wire chairs look amazing???

 

 

This post has been sponsored by HomeRight, opinions are entirely my own.

 

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$100 Kitchen Island Idea- Repurposed Sewing Table

Using vintage furniture is a great way to add character to a room. I am excited to share this $100 kitchen island idea with you.

We had been using an old desk as our kitchen island for a few years, with a marble slab on top. While it worked, I always felt like it was a little large for our cozy kitchen.Of course, I wanted something new, but didn’t want to spend a lot.

Here you can see the old island. The slab on top only covered part of it, and food would constantly get trapped underneath. At one time the top was painted, and I painted a faux marble top. That was great for a while, but then as time went on, the paint was chipping, and it just got kind of gross.

I’ve been looking for quite a while. I wanted something that was 37 inches long, but only 20 inches wide so our marble slab would fit right on top. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, so when I came across this vintage sewing table on Craiglist, I felt like I found a unicorn! It was the perfect size for what I had been looking for, and it was wood, which was even better! At $100, it was the perfect price point for a repurposed kitchen island!

It did need just a little bit of love. I gave it a good clean up, and sanded off the old finish.

 For a protectant, I gave it a few coats of white wax. I love sanding a piece of furniture, revealing the wood underneath, and waxing it to bring out the natural beauty.

If you’ve ever wondered if you should finish a piece of furniture with paste wax or polyurethane, this post is for you.

To give it height, and make it more mobile, I flipped it over, and and drilled holes in the bottom of the legs to add casters.

You can find different sizes at Home Depot. This way it can be easily moved out of the way to clean the floor, or for parties if needed. After I added these, I realized I wanted locking wheels, so we ended up taking them off the old island and swapping them out.

After that, I placed our marble slab on top, and my $100 kitchen island was ready to go!

I love that the slab fits right on top, so that food will stay where it is supposed to.

I might even look into getting a slightly bigger remnant slab of marble. This one I scored on a resale site years ago. Though if we get a bigger slab, we will need to find away to secure it.

I love how much it opens up the kitchen, and even thought it’s slightly smaller, we didn’t lose that much prep space. Not too bad for a $100 kitchen island!

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Board and Batten Bedroom Wall

Last year, when we finally gave our master bedroom a much needed makeover, I realized I never shared with you the details our board and batten bedroom wall. I came across the photos when I was moving everything to my new phone. I’m so glad we did it, it was such a great, inexpensive architectural accent (and I love how it looks in our bathroom!), especially since we have a small bedroom (11 ft x 13 ft).

Here is a peek at our master bedroom before the makeover.

I knew I was going to paint it white to lighten it up, but I wanted to add board and batten to bring some interest to the smaller space. I apologize that the pictures aren’t the best. It’s amazing how much better the photos are on my new phone in comparison!

I started by buying the board, which was a thin, pine lath about 2.5 inches wide from Home Depot in 8 foot lengths (so I could get it in the van.). As you can tell, I didn’t even really prep the room, because that’s how I roll, totally unprepared.

I added the “top rail” first using a level, and my brad nailer.

Even though I didn’t really tarp the room, but at least I spackled the holes in the wall first, and took the curtains down. I did throw and old cover on the bed, I consider that a win.

Then, I measured the wall and divided to to get the spacing I wanted. I think I ended up at about 12-13 inches apart . My vertical boards were cut to length, so they fit between the baseboard and the top rail.

After they were put up with nails and construction adhesive, I caulked any gaps, and then primed.

It took about 3 coats of Benjamin Moore Simply White paint  after priming to completely cover the blue, and even out the difference between the boards and the wall, but once it was done, it looked so good, like it was one piece!

Once curtains were hung back up, it just makes a nice, subtle, accent.

The rest of the walls were painted in Orchard by Benjamin Moore, which is a really light white-gray.

 I really love how the light color brightens the room. It has an eastern exposure, so it can get really dark at certain times of the day. This way it stays bright all day long.

I think a board and batten bedroom is such an affordable way to elevate your space. It’s really more of a time, and patience with measuring thing.

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