'A Nod to Fall' Mantel

I don't know what it is this year, but I'm having a really hard time embracing Fall.

Maybe it's because we never really had a summer here in the Pacific Northwest - my hydrangeas never even bloomed!

Maybe it's because I'm just not in love with the orange and red fall colors.

Whatever it is, though, I just could not bring myself to put out my usual Fall decorations this year.

So instead, I am giving just 'A Little Nod to Fall' on our mantel this year.

Who knows, maybe as the season progresses I'll bring out more of the orange and red stuff, but for now, this is as fall-ish as the mantel's gonna get.

I wanted to create a subtle fall display that didn't scream FALL. To achieve this, I layered together natural textures, warm hues, and a variety of vintage finds.

I found a small, weathered old window at an antique shop and had some mirrors cut at Lowe's that I glued onto the back.

The FALL banner was made using white cardstock paper that I cut into small rectangles with rounded corners and stained using a tea bag that had been steeped in water. Then I cut out the black letters on my Cricut and glued them on. To hang it, I just taped twine to the back of the papers.

Many of the pieces used on my mantel were things I already had around the house...like the little #3 tin planter with an Ikea faux plant inside, old books, and a white pumpkin bought at Michael's on clearance last year.

The wooden spools were from an antique store and the wooden pumpkins sitting atop were from Ben Franklin last year...and a goofy picture of me in case you were wondering what I look like :)

Jacob and I made the  weathered wood square thing in the backdrop using some pieces from our old deck...anyone know what that thing is called??? I saw one in an antique store and tried to replicate it at home...I even have a tutorial I wrote on how to make it, but just don't know what it's called...is it part of a fence? A gate? A trellis?

Our fireplace is gas-burning, but I still love the cozy look of a container full of wood sitting next to the fireplace. These logs are from a bunch of maples Jacob cut down in our backyard this summer.

 Isn't she purty?

 

Linking up to: 

Feathered Nest Friday @ French Country Cottage 

Catch as Catch Can @ My Repurposed Life 

Flaunt Your Fall @ Chic on a Shoestring Decorating 

Feature Yourself Friday @ Fingerprints on the Fridge 

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest 

Shabby Shares Link Party @ Rustic Crafts 

SNS@ Funky Junk Interiors 

Creative Genius Link Party @ The Creative Paige

Deck Furniture

Our new deck finally became usable by the end of August and I thought,

"Ya hoo, this is the best time to get new deck furniture because it will all be on clearance!"

How wrong I was.

If only I had started looking for furniture just a few weeks earlier...

I spent a good chunk of a day going to Lowe's, Home Depot, Pier 1, Target, Walmart, Fred Meyer, World Market, and Molbak's and found nothing. Nada. Zip.  

Not even a crappy piece of plastic outdoor furniture was left.  

Everything was gone to make room for all of the Halloween and even some Christmas (!?) stuff.

Back at home, I decided to check out Pottery Barn online, just to see if anything was still available and on sale...

I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw their Chesapeake Dining Set. It was exactly what I had been looking for, it was in stock, and on sale!

But then I realized that while it was on sale, they also charge a delivery surcharge of $75 in addition to another 10% of the purchase price, adding another $142 to the price {which I was not willing to pay}.

It was a total letdown, causing me to stew for the remainder of the day.

Then my sister-in-law suggested I call around to the stores to see if they had it in stock so that I could avoid all of the shipping costs. 

Duh. Why didn't I think of that!?

I soon learned that the closest Pottery Barn did have it in stock and that if I wanted to purchase the floor model, they would give it to me for an additional 40% off. Score!!!

So the next day, we raced to Pottery Barn to pick up our gorgeous new table. 

While in the store, we also fell in love with the coordinating bench and its red cushion, and since it was 40% off, we couldn't resist snagging it too.

Since the table and bench were a total splurge for us {even though they were on sale}, we decided to shop for chairs elsewhere and hopefully get them for a cheaper price than the PB Chesapeake chairs.

Thankfully my hubby is a very savvy internet bargain shopper and found almost the exact same chairs for only $50 each (Pottery Barn's were $100/ea on sale!). He purchased the red/white striped cushions from PotteryBarn.com, which were on clearance.

They turned out to be a bit lighter than the table, so we plan to sand them down and re-stain them to match the table. A task I'm totally willing to tackle since we saved so much moolah.

As for the red umbrella, that was a lucky clearance find at Lowe's for $40 :)

 One of my favorite things about the new table is that is can extend to seat 10 people {we're still waiting for a few more chairs to arrive for that though}!

Our outdoor dining furniture is now nicer than what we have inside the house! 
As you can imagine, we have been eating every meal outside lately :)

 P.S. A great place to find inexpensive white dishes is Goodwill...I just scored these white plates {in perfect condition} there for $1/ea {Target sells the exact same ones for about $5/ea}! Just give them a good sanitizing run through the dishwasher and they're good as new :)

Need some help decorating your home? 

Check out my affordable Redesign Services!

A Big, Sprawling Deck (Deck Rebuild)

I've always dreamed of having a big, sprawling deck. 

A place where the whole family could sit outside, relaxing as the sun warms our skin. 

A place where we can enjoy meals together as the warm breezes rustle through our hair. 

A place to sit and enjoy the sounds of the birds chirping while watching the kids playing in the yard.

However, a big, sprawling deck was not an amenity that was included in our new house.

Instead, we were graced with this tiny little thing...

(and an unfinished yard full of weeds!)

An itsy bitsy little deck only big enough to hold a chair or two, a BBQ, and a toy for the kids. 

And heaven forbid we try and put more than 3 people on it at a time!

Our plan from the beginning has been to rebuild the deck and extend it to the edge of the house and bump it out so that it is wider as well, thus tripling the size!

So after lots of planning and researching (luckily, the hubs is a civil engineer!), Jacob put the plan into action about a month ago. 
I helped out when I could (those dang kids keep me pretty tied up), so the poor guy had to build almost the entire thing by himself. 
And that's no easy task when you are building something that is suspended 15 feet above ground!

The old deck came down...

(Lots of cool, weathered wood pieces for future projects!)

And the new deck frame went up...

Then decking was laid...

After rebuilding a large wood deck at our first house years ago and having to re-stain it every single spring, we decided that the next deck we built would definitely be made using Trex. 

Trex is a wood-alternative made of 50% recycled plastic grocery bags and 50% reclaimed wood and it requires no sanding, staining, or painting EVER.

Unfortunately it's about 3 times the price of wood decking, but luckily Jacob was able to get a smokin' good deal on it through a contact at work.

We also made the decision to go screw-less, meaning no screws are visible on the decking. Instead, we secured the decking to the joists using Tiger Claws, which are hidden deck fasteners.

It turned out fabulous, but boy, were they a total bear to install! 

About a third of the way through installing the decking, we almost threw in the towel and used screws to finish, but we ended up persevering and are so glad we did!

To attach the decking to the 'claws', you have to repeatedly ram a sledgehammer against a 2x4 board to bump them into place.

Not only was that physically exhausting manual labor, but it was frustrating as well. 

Every time Jacob got one end of the board set into place, the other end of the board would pop off of the clips. So I ended up holding the boards in place while he wailed away with his sledge hammer. 

Once a board was in place, Jacob would hammer the clips into the next board and I would follow along with the drill and screw them in. 

It took forever and a day to complete. And it was super HOT out.

After the decking was (finally) completed, we installed all of the railing. The addition of the white railing (also Trex) really gave the deck the wow-factor we were after.

And that's where we are today...

We still need to add the stairs that lead from the deck down to the backyard. 

The two long white posts (see picture below) are part of  where we plan to build a pergola over the top of half of the deck to provide a little shade and a place for me to hang some plants and other cutesy stuff :)

Something kinda like this one...

Source: Just Beachy

Even though it's not completely done, we are already enjoying the deck immensely, trying to soak up every last bit of summer.

Linking up to:

Simply Designing: Simply Link {Party}

Sat. Night Special @ Funky Junk Interiors
Catch as Catch Can @ My Repurposed Life 
Sundae Scoop @ I {Heart} Naptime 
Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

The Making of a Gallery Wall

The giant blank wall that sits behind the couch in our family has plagued me ever since we moved in...

What do you hang on a big wall that won't look end up looking puny?

Do you center your art above the couch or center it on the wall?

How do you jazz up the room and give it some personality?

After contemplating these issues for quite a while and spending a lot of time staring at the wall,

I finally decided a gallery wall would be the perfect solution.

It fills up the wall,

it doesn't have to be perfectly centered any which way,

and it gives us the opportunity to infuse our personality into the room through the use of different pictures and prints.

                                                                                     Source: None via Erin on Pinterest

                                                                                    Source: potterybarn.com via Erin on Pinterest

                                                                   Source: ourhumbleabowed.wordpress.com via Erin on Pinterest

But, MAN ALIVE, who knew gallery walls took so much planning!?

I started out by getting 2 Ribba frames from Ikea to hold two pictures I had purchased from Art.com (using a 50% off certificate from Groupon!) a while back.

 Close-up of Nautilus Shell Spirals by Eric Kamp

Harbor I by Amy Melious

From there, I cut out a bunch of newspapers that were the same size as the various sizes of Ribba frames from Ikea and started experimenting with placement on the wall.

I also knew I wanted to incorporate some non-framed elements into the gallery, like the faux clock face I made a while ago and a metal Schweppes clock face I found at an antique store, so I cut out newspaper circles too.

For weeks, I had various sizes of newspaper taped all over the wall.

I would place them and then look at it for a few days, then readjust, the look at it some more, then readjust, and on and on...until I was finally happy with the overall shape of the gallery.

Then it was off to Ikea to purchase the rest of the frames.

I took all three kiddos with me, thinking I could just drop them for a little play session in Ikea's Playland while I zipped through the store to grab my frames. After getting the kids all pumped up, their shoes off, and standing in line, I learned that kids have to be 3 years old AND potty trained to be left to play. 

Uuuugggghhh.

How did I miss that little tidbit of info!?

My kids are 3 months shy of their 3rd birthday and only one of them is potty trained.

So I begrudgingly drug all three of my toddlers, who are in the midst of their terrible twos, all through Ikea with me. Thank goodness for Ikea's Swedish Fish candy that I was able to use as a bribe for good behavior :)

But I digress...

Now the frames are all hung on the wall, waiting to be filled with gorgeousness. 

I'm not in love with how the lighthouse picture in the middle (taken during an East Coast road trip in the Outer Banks) looks, so I am planning on replacing it with a different picture of the same lighthouse, but in color instead of black and white. 
Like this...

I had wanted to incorporate the print below into the gallery, but after having in printed out at Kinko's, I realized it doesn't fit well into any of the frames, so am not sure if I will be using it after all.

                                                                    Source: simpleblueprint.typepad.com via Erin on Pinterest

As for the other pictures, we are scheduled to get our family pictures taken towards the end of the month, so hopefully those will turn out good and we can use some of those to fill up some more of the frames.

Here's one more look at how the gallery wall currently looks...

 

I'm still working on Jacob, trying to convince him to let me paint the entertainment center white...