Fall Decor

Yesterday was my day off of school so I spent the Tuesday doing what I always do on Tuesdays.  Housework.  But, this Tuesday was special.  It was the first available day that I had so I could pull out all of my Fall decorations!  Yay!  There was a show I was watching over a year ago and one of the characters were talking about how much she loves Halloween...but not because of the candy or trick-or-treating.  She loved going door to door only so she could see inside people's homes!  While it sounds a bit creepy, I have to admit that I actually enjoy peeking into people's homes too!  Don't get me wrong here, I'm no peeping tom.  But when a fellow blogger opens up her home to show us around, I just think it's so neat!  I like looking at the lighting in their home, their little knick-knacks they have around, the color of their walls.....  To be fair, I'll show you a few rooms in our house too.  For now, you'll only see the rooms with our Fall decor.

Well?  Come on in!  Kick your shoes off, and stay a while!

Welcome to our living room.  Here on the table is a little pumpkin glass.  Isn't it cute?

Behind you, you'll see this beautiful orange glow.  This will be leaving after Halloween since it's more Halloween-y than Autumn-ish.  But we'll enjoy it while it's here.

Here, walk with me through the dining room into the kitchen and I'll show you the other side of the house.

My lovie brought me these flowers last week when I was stressed about a bunch of tests.  He's so sweet.  I stuck them in a Fall container and they're sitting right above my sink so I can enjoy them while I wash dishes.

Here's our kitchen table with our Autumn placemats and a little centerpiece that has scented cedar chips inside.  Mmmm, apple spice.

In our family room, we have this funny little basket of Fall vegetables.  I guess they aren't that funny, but they remind me of a little "incident" we had last year with them.  I'll have to fill you in on that later!

Here are some Halloween lights that I put up around our window that overlooks our pool and patio.  The weather was so beautiful last night, we ate outside.  There are the boys eagerly waiting for me to join them so we can eat!  Notice our windows are open as well.  Nothing like a Fall breeze blowing through the house.  Aaah.  (The center window's blinds are down because of the stained glass in the window.  It occasionally falls down and the blinds have always caught it.  I'm a bit too nervous to raise the blinds in case the suction holding the stained glass decides to let go!)

I'm gonna go fix us some vanilla carmel tea, which you'll absolutely love.  I'm so happy you stopped by!  Come join me on the patio.  We'll sip our tea and listen to the owl as dusk creeps in.   Oh, how I love this time of year!

And the answer is.....

As we were driving down our street, what did we see?

Two big, nice pieces of furniture.  Shelves with drawers and cabinets.  And on the front of it?  Paper, that read, "FREE."  Ohmygosh!  Hubby and I were SO excited.  Actually, I think I was more excited than him.

You see, I LOVE furniture.  I love wooden furniture.  Especially with cabinets.  Even more if it has drawers.  And is in good condition.  Or not.  If it's not, I'll refinish it.  I'm working on a few projects now, actually.  I'll get to those later though.  So there are these two huge shelving structures sitting in our neighbor's front yard.  Carl and I parked the car, unloaded the dolly, and rolled across the street to pick up these treasures.  My mind was racing at all of the possible places in our home that these beauties could go!

Truth be told, if I had seen this furniture in a store, it would not be my first pick.  In fact, it's really not my taste at all.  But..... as much as I love furniture, I love practical, organized storage items even more.  And have I mentioned I love furniture???

Carl and I ran up to our neighbors door (the ones giving away the furniture) and knocked.  An older man answered the door and I must've sounded like a child on Christmas!  I don't think I took a breath in between my words as I quickly said, "Hi my name is Lindsey and this is my husband Carl and we just wanted to say thank you for the furniture, we're taking it with us and it will have a good home!"  Noticing we appeared on foot, our confused neighbor asked if we had a truck to help us out.  I didn't realize I forgot to say we are his neighbor and we lived so close we were going to push the furniture home, so hubby explained that part for me.  Sometimes I get so excited that I forget to look at things from another person's perspective.  

So, Carl and I decided that one of these treasures would go in our bedroom and replace our rickety, old bookshelf that is highly likely to come crashing down any day.  The only thing is, this new one is about 3 times its size!  It's going to look a little bulky, but it'll be organized.  The other cabinet will be put in our living room.  I love having an organized, put-together home, so when I had the chance to swap out this DVD shelf:

From Blogger Pictures

I went for it!  Notice how it's all crammed together, and the stuff on top looks cluttery?  It's also next to impossible to dust because everything is balancing itself out and with removal of one item, it could all come crashing down.  I realize this new one looks huge in our living room, but it actually tidies it up A LOT!  You'll have to take my word for this because the picture just doesn't do it justice.

From Blogger Pictures

Inside the bottom three drawers are all of the DVDs and Wii/ Playstation games of our household.  The top shelves are still pretty empty, but give me a few days to print up some pictures, and they will be looking good in no time!  As for the middle section, if you pull on the knob, it folds out to a desk.  We won't be using it as a desk but instead we will use it to store things that belong in the living room that may not look the nicest.  For example, right now we have my snuggie in there (Yes, I'm a snuggie owner.) because that darned thing is next to impossible to neatly fold and hang on a quilt rack.  Also, we have our keyboard that controls our TV (we don't have cable but instead use our television as a giant monitor for a Mac mini that we watch hulu shows on.  Have I mentioned we're a bit thrifty?).  So, everything is neatly tucked away.  What do you think about it?

Have you ever found furniture on the side of the road that has made your day?

Our Mantle

Hubby and I recently inherited some furniture from his grandma who passed away in June.  We inherited two big bookshelves, a mirror, some paintings, and a beautiful antique desk.  (I think it's beautiful... hubby has a greater appreciation for less furniture and more space, darn minimalist!)

We brought all of these items into our home on Saturday.  With our trailer full of stuff, we're driving down our very own street and what do we see?

You'll just have to wait to find out!

Till then, here's a picture of our family room mantle with it's new-to-us, from Carl's grandma, painting.

From Blogger Pictures

I love watching our house develop more into our tastes and decor as time goes on.  What do you think?