SPOOKY SHOPPING

A couple of things that have me in good spirits over the last few days is that it finally feels like fall here in Texas and it’s October!  There are so many fun things that October brings from parties to pumpkin patches but mostly Halloween!  When it comes to Halloween I love the candy, dressing up and trick or treating with my boys!  And this year all of the Halloween décor has really caught my attention.

I have never been much into decorating for the different seasons, with the exception of Christmas, but this year is different for some reason.  I have decorated for fall (see post here) and on my agenda this weekend is getting the house decorated for Halloween!

Last week I was out doing a little shopping and snapped some pictures of the cute decorations out there and I thought I would share them with you.  It definitely gave me a lot of ideas for my own house and how to create similar looks at a much lower cost.

It all started when I received the magazine from Grandin Road and this guy was on the front cover.  He belonged in my Dining Room!  

I began flipping through the pages and saw all of these black and gold pumpkins.  Isn’t the gold glitter dipped one fabulous?!?  And the rhinestone skulls are so flashy and dramatic!

While I was at Pier 1 I found a lot of black and silver, which is quite striking with the contrast.  The spider web table runner is super cute and I am crazy about the black tree with silver and black skull ornaments! 

And they also had décor with bright, vivid colors!  Check out the skulls below…aren’t they eccentric?  And I just love how playful the black cat and spider are!

The last stop was Pottery Barn…oh what an adoration I have for this store!  But I don’t always love their prices so I will be DIYing several ideas from here!  One thing Pottery Barn always seems to do is keep their seasonal décor up with the trends like this black grapevine pumpkin with burlap leaves.  And the antiqued glass pumpkins are so polished and classy they won’t limit you to using them for Halloween only but can be used for all of the fall decorating.

This is obviously a very popular trend…another black tree to hang things from.  It just needs a haunted house and a spooky owl!

Speaking of haunted houses…this is my favorite thing I saw at PB.  I can see having several different sizes of them and creating a little haunted village!  Can you guess what might be going on my mantel?!?

Since I am doing all of my Halloween decorating on a budget I won’t be getting place settings this year but when I get to that point I hope they still have these martini glasses!  They are so creepy but cute!

Hopefully you guys got some good ideas for Halloween decorating in your home and I hope you share them with me.  I will show you what I did in our house next week!  Have a great weekend!

THE NORRIS'S NEW LOOK: ENTRY, DINING & LIVING

What do you do when you have a room that already has all of the furniture and several other things but you want it to feel up to date with the trends?  The Norris’s had this obstacle in their Entry, formal Living and Dining Room.  So in addition to designing the Master Bath remodel and designing the Family Room and Kitchen I also completed a minor facelift to these spaces for them.

The furniture and rugs in the Dining Room and Living Room were all staying so we really just needed accessories and to update the gold paint color. 

Just by painting the walls Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige it helps the room feel fresh and more spacious.  As for the centerpiece on the dining table, I wanted to keep it somewhat formal so I chose a crackled glass, oblong vase and smoky crystal candleholders.  The burlap table runner adds texture and keeps it on trend.   The back wall décor was replaced with plates of varying sizes and shapes.  This is definitely one of my favorite features in the room!  Since they are white they add a lot of brightness yet still keep the vintage feel of the room.

Along with the furniture in the Dining Room, the mirrors and wall frame that were on the back wall belonged to her grandmother so it was important we use these in the room.  The area over the bar cart originally felt bare and empty so I decided to make this a gallery wall.  I hung a combination of new wall frames with some of her original ones.  The shadow boxes hold a pair of her grandmother’s leather gloves and a handkerchief of her grandfathers.  What a story this entire room tells!

In the Living Room area she needed more lighting so we added a marble and iron console table to hold two crystal lamps.  Above this table is where we hung the large, antique mirror that originally hung on the back of the Dining Room wall.  The two gold garden stools tie in the gold from the mirror and keep it feeling up-to-date.  And new pillows with a modern print finish off the room!

Now for the Entry makeover.  It started with a red accent wall, outdated art and quite a bit of clutter. 

They wanted it to flow with the other rooms and needed storage to keep their belongings hidden.  I used a mirrored storage chest and replaced the art with a decorative wall mirror to reflect the light and make that room feel larger.  The hooks on the wall are a great place to hang keys and dog leashes.  But let’s talk about the most dramatic change in the Entry…the accent wall!  I selected a stencil from Cutting EdgeStencils, which is a great company that makes stencils with numerous patterns and styles.  It is a great way to make an impact to your room!  We used the Kitchen paint color as the background with a dark gray for the pattern so it had a lot of contrast and pop!  Isn’t it absolutely AMAZING?!?

What a difference!!  I love to see how much a room can evolve just by adding a few new items and accessories and making other small changes! 

OUTDOOR ILLUMINATION

Over the course of the summer I have been diligently working on getting the seating and dining area of our backyard patio updated so that when the fall weather rolls into Texas we can have a nice outdoor spot to relax and also enjoy some meals with our friends and family!  We already had the furniture but it needed some definite love and attention.  Since I am doing a minor facelift and not completely revamping the patio I did a lot of projects to make the changes come to life.  You may remember me posting about how I went about painting the outdoor coffee table but this space required more than just painting some pieces of furniture to make it feel nice and new.

So I began thinking of ways to freshen it up a bit and one of the first things that came to my mind was lighting!  Outdoor lighting can make a huge impact and help your patio feel like an actual room.  And for me that was the goal…for it to be an extension of our interior gathering spaces.  I am obsessed in love with café, bulb lighting so it was a MUST that we had some hanging from the pergola and I opted to use this in the lounge area.

So now…what do I do for the dining area?  My dreams obviously consisted of a beautiful chandelier but the pergola is 14-feet high and does not have wiring (and we know adding it is NOT in the budget) so I had to think of something else.  Being a girl I naturally opted for candlelight…it creates such a calm setting and dare I say even kind of romantic!  I didn’t just want to use candles as the centerpiece on the table though…I wanted some kind of hanging candle chandelier (similar to the one below from Pottery Barn).

Pottery Barn Veranda Linear Chandelier

My creative juices started flowing and I decided to do a hanging shelf with several candles of varying heights.  It’s DIY time!!  Off to the store I went in search of my materials.  I ended up at Hobby Lobby and found this piece of raw wood!  It was perfect for my project!  And while I was there I picked up the candles for it.

I already had this rope at the house so I decided I would drill holes in the four corners and string it through them.

I bought some brackets and “S” hooks from Lowes to hang it from the pergola.

And here is the final project all put together!  As soon as I get some good nighttime pictures I will show you.

Not bad for a DIY project huh?  It was less than $20 (without the candles) and is a great look that adds warmth while keeping the feel of the outdoors!  My husband even likes it so it can’t be overly girly!

KICK BACK AND RELAX

Happy Tuesday!  I hope everyone had a nice relaxing weekend.  Last week I shared with you the renovation to the Norris’s Master Bathroom.  Quite a drastic change right?!?  Well, today I am going to show you the facelift we made to the place where they kick back and relax: the Family Room and Kitchen.

The Family Room started off with gold walls, heavy furniture pieces and cluttered accessories.  Although the room is large the oversized, dark furniture made it feel quite cramped.

Other than wall décor and table accessories the only other thing that needed updating in the Kitchen was the drapes.  There is no dimension because the panels and Roman shades are the same color and therefore come off very flat and boring.

The first step of the room update was to change the wall color in the Family Room so they were painted Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige, which is a calming, neutral taupe.  For the furniture we opted for a large ivory sofa and chair with two smaller gray accent chairs.  As I noted earlier the room is large so it needs substantial pieces, but since the pieces we selected are lighter in color and less bulky in shape it helps to keep the room from feeling small.  And the gray accent chairs add a nice pop of contrast.

On the wall with the media cabinet we removed the shelves and hung mirrors on either side of the TV to add some weight to that long wall.  The patterned rug adds movement to the space while also tying in all of the colors used.  By simplifying the pillows and accessories it makes for a more tranquil and organized space and was also a great way to bring in the blue-gray color from the walls in the Kitchen. 

Speaking of the Kitchen, we hung simple wood wall art and put pitchers of fresh flowers on the table.  The Roman shades were exchanged for woven roll-up shades and the original drapery panels for ivory velvet panels.  They both add great texture and brightness to the room.  So not a ton of changes made but just enough to make a difference and make the room feel complete!

Here are the before and afters one more time so you can really see the difference.

Family Room - before

Family Room - after

Kitchen - before

Kitchen - after

Do you think it was updated to a lighter, brighter and more relaxing place to kick your feet up?

WINE CELLARS FOR THE HOME

In my hometown of Grapevine, TX this weekend is the 29^th annual GrapeFest, which is a wine festival in historic downtown Grapevine.  The atmosphere of a festival is so exhilirating to me...I love walking up and down the street, playing the games you cannot ever win and eating the so-bad-for-you-but-so-good food!  And I’m no connoisseur but I do love a nice glass of wine so I also enjoy partaking in the tastings from the different wineries.

All of this wine talk makes me think about in-home wine cellars.  This is a commonly requested room to be built in a new home.  I have seen them in the basement, next to the Dining Room or Kitchen and also in the area located under the stairs that typically can seem like it is wasted space.  And they can be beautifully designed around whatever style you would like, whether it be traditional and rustic or minimal and transitional.

And depending on the size of the room you can make it a place to lounge and entertain.  What a great idea to use part of a wine barrel as a table!

So what do you do if you want storage space for your wine in your existing home?  If you have a blank wall that is deep enough to house the wine bottles you can do an elegant built-in like the one below.  I love the look of this but with my having two little boys every bottle would be busted on the floor and it would be used as a ladder!  Eek!

And if you don’t have the room and don’t want to renovate why not add a wine bar?  I did an earlier post on a coffee bar (seen here) but that could easily be changed into a wine bar.  In fact I may just transition mine for a party I am hosting next week! 

There are the obvious decorative accessories that can be associated with wine…corks, cute signage and wine bottles and glasses.  The use of the barrel tops and wine crates as wall décor is not only creative but also can be personal depending on where they are from.

Wine Barrel Plaques

And how cool is this wine room pictured below?  With it being completely open it is like a piece of art in the home.

I hope you all have a great weekend!  You can find me at GrapeFest tasting wine and eating delicious food!