Falltime, Now Over
Note from Steve: Rachel finished this post awhile back but was waiting on some pictures, which I’ve added. All of our Christmas stuff is up by now, which we’ll take some pictures of soon!
As you can tell by our absence, we’ve been a bit busy this fall! (Steve will post later on the big projects he completed in short order; as always, I get to post about the fun stuff.) We hosted three nieces, Steve’s brother and his wife, and Steve’s mom for the weekend surrounding Halloween for the Marine Corps Marathon (Go Reid!). Then, for the week of Thanksgiving, my parents, brother and sister came up to enjoy the Old Rowhouse (if you’ll remember, my family came up for Thanksgiving last year, but it was no vacation — we worked 12+-hour days and then crammed into our one-bedroom apartment for a turkey feast.)
This year, we mostly just enjoyed the house and tackled a few small projects.
I digress. Before these lovely guests arrived, I decorated for fall. Fall is our favorite season of the year, so while I shy away from other seasonal decorations, I can hardly wait to get out my orange and sage candles, leaves and other manner of foliage-themed decor. Since I’m taking that decor down now to make way for Christmas, I thought I’d share a few pictures of how it turned out.
The inspiration:
contemporary living room design by seattle interior designer It’s The Little Things…
The Reality:
The leaves, berries and garland cost just a few dollars at a craft store. The candles I’ve had for years (now I use them with a votive inside to keep their shape). The candle holders were a birthday gift from my Mom from Crate & Barrel. The mirror is relatively cheap, plastic-backed thing we inherited with the house, and it works just fine!
I purchased large wooden block letters from a craft store, then realized they were making my project way too expensive. So, I traced them onto cardstock and promptly returned them; cut out the letters and then sprayed them with my awesome heavy-duty adhesive spray and dipped the letters in vats of glitter. Voila!
I purchased inexpensive fall fabric at Joann’s and whipped out a sideboard runner (backed with felt), and matching living room pillow covers with the leftovers. Last time I made a sideboard runner, I backed it with the same fabric, but realized that the seam showed perfectly on each side of the runner. Since I didn’t have enough fall fabric to use it as a backing (and it’s sort of a waste, too), I made the top portion a half-inch larger and very carefully sewed it all together like a large tube. Then, when I ironed it out, the fall fabric curved nicely around the edges and no one can see the backing!
My favorite addition for a runner is the tassel on each end — a very inexpensive way to make it look finished and less homemade.
