Hi friends! The blogosphere is chock-full of amazing fall home tours right about now, so a few of my fellow bloggers and I decided to band together to share what my friend Charlotte has dubbed our Lazy Girl’s “Faking it Happen” Fall Home Tour Blog Hop. (See the full lineup at the end of this post.) I usually don’t go all out with fall decorating around here. I love to decorate for Christmas, but as for fall I usually just toss some mums on the porch and scatter a few pumpkins and call it good. I tried to spruce things up for you this time though.
The fun thing about this fall tour is that we all decided to throw a little dose of “keeping it real” in the mix. You know, the mess that is really happening behind the scenes, which we often have to scoot out of the way in order to get a blogworthy photo? We’re showing you a little bit of that, even though I’m not showing you my half-dead mums on the front porch. But first… (Warning, photo heavy post!)
Welcome to our simple fall entryway.
So, funny story about those black and gold pumpkins that I love (I got them here). I brought them home and proudly plopped them on the entryway table and then had the following conversation with my husband:
Me: “Don’t you love my glam pumpkins?”
Chris: “Well…… (long pause) … They’re a little bit Hot Topic.” (Referring to the super goth store in the mall.)
Me: “No, they’re just a little edgy.”
Chris: (Stares at me.)
Me: “Isn’t everything about Halloween a little ‘Hot Topic’ anyway?”
He didn’t answer which means he totally thought I had a point and deep down he definitely loves the pumpkins.
*Update: He would like me to add that he did initially approve of the striped pumpkin, just not the studded one.
No home tour would be complete without a photobomb by Indy dog…
Dining Room Makeover / Tablecloth
Of course leave it to me to wait until after we hosted a bunch of family for a reunion before I set out a nice tablescape, but oh well, what can ya do. Another funny story — I decided I wanted to use our fancy shmancy wedding china for this photo shoot. Well folks, it’s only taken me nearly a decade to get it out of the box only to realize we have 5 full place settings, not 8, or even 6. We do have 6 dinner plates, but only 5 of everything else. #Fail. So ignore that place setting at the end of the table, will ya? Oh, and who needs silverware? (It’s the thought that counts, right?) At least I put some at one place setting. Everyone else will have to enjoy finger foods.
As for the decor, I picked up the mums and cute little white pumpkins at Trader Joe’s. The place cards came from Target, and I cut a strip of burlap for the table runner.
Our wedding China is Lenox Platinum Solitaire. The truth is, I love the idea of formal China and I’m glad we have some of it, but it really just isn’t practical during this phase of our life. I wish we had more opportunities to use it (aside from setting it up for photo shoots and sharing decorating ideas with you), but we have 3 little boys and we keep things casual around here. Maybe we should have registered for a lifetime supply of paper plates instead.
I swapped out the pillows in my mom cave (living room/office) for some black ones I had stashed away, and I love this faux fur pillow I scored on sale here. For now it found a home on my desk chair.
I also swapped out the roses in this vignette for a succulent, and tossed some metallic gold skulls in the blue bowl for a little creepy Halloween vibe. (My boys love these skulls for some reason.)
This isn’t really “fall”-ish, but I realized I haven’t shown you the new chairs I scored which are currently flanking my card catalog.
One of the ladies in our Atlanta blogging group scored a bunch of these bamboo chairs at a thrift store and I happily bought two of them off of her for super cheap. I had been looking for more seating for this room, and I haven’t decided if I’ll paint them a glossy color or leave them as is. I kind of like them as they are.
If you follow my blog then you’ve seen this already, but I made this pumpkin stand for The Home Depot DIH Workshop last month and shared a tutorial here. (The new chair in our family room came from here.)
One of our favorite things to do in the fall is to hang out by the fire pit and make s’mores.
We love these extension forks for roasting marshmallows, by the way. They’re awesome! Here are some similar ones
.
Fall in Georgia is beautiful, and we’ve enjoyed spending as much time as possible outdoors. Summer can be so brutally hot and humid here, so we’re enjoying the mild weather. And here’s another peek at the outdoor table I built and recently replaced the top boards.
And now, for the “keeping it real” portion of this post. As bloggers, we usually only show you the inspiration photos or before and afters, but you don’t always get to see the “true” behind the scenes. It’s kind of like when you invite someone over to your house, you always clean up first right? At least a little bit. Well I’m going to show you what my house really looks like 90% of the time thanks to 3 little boys.
Here’s our entryway after 2 seconds of the Jonah tornado. He crawls through and leaves a mess in his wake all throughout the house. This is directly across from my entryway table with the controversial studded pumpkin. And this isn’t even half as bad as usual.
Here it is a day later. See the progression and how it just keeps getting worse? Mail knocked off bench, check. Shoes dumped out of basket, check. Baby gate clearly not doing its job, check. (Bench tutorial here, by the way.) If you squint hard you might see the ghost of Indy dog as she walked in front of my tripod during a long exposure.
Here’s the mom cave — it’s clear who’s in charge of this room too. This was right before I swapped out the pillows and did some decorating for the photo shoot. You can even spot some dead roses in the milk glass vase on the table. Oops!
And I’m not even taking you upstairs for this tour, because it’s bad. Oh, P.S. check out the tutorial for a cute, fun Halloween wreath I recently posted if you missed that the other day.
Now, be sure to check out the rest of the bloggers on the Fall Home Tour!
DIY on the Cheap (You are here!)
Do you decorate for fall? Do you have any easy fall decor tips? Let me know!
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Ha, I love the progression shots! Your home is beautiful and shows so much love!
XO
Kristin
Thank you, Kristin!
Oh… I must no more about this Hot Topic you speak of.. Lol! I love the studded pumpkins though now I’m wishing I would have snagged some. Love your progression shots … this is real life after all.. I love all the pretty stuff too but it’s a relief to see some reality sometimes.
Thanks Lesley! I’m glad I could introduce you to the wonder that is Hot Topic. LOL!
OK. The studded pumpkin is everything. I’m a Hot Topic fan. Second… I didn’t even notice the crap in your mom cave because I saw pom poms. That’s how easily distracted I am. And table settings are over rated. It all looks great! 🙂
Thanks Charlotte! I definitely told my husband he’s going to have to get over it because the studded pumpkin is here to stay. And I’m so glad the pom poms distracted you from the baby clutter! Maybe I should just add pom poms to every room to distract people from the horrendous mess.
Haha I love your guys’ convo in the beginning. It’s when my husband says things like that, that cause me to return everything because after he says it, I can’t unsee it. He once told me that a dress I bought looked like the pattern on some chairs in the lobby of our college campus and I never wore it again. I digress, your fall touches are just lovely!
Thanks Joy! That’s hilarious! I would wear the heck out of that lobby chair pattern dress. LOL. I ignore my husband’s comments just like he ignores mine when I make fun of his clothing/hat/etc choices. I think he has learned to embrace the Hot Topic pumpkin.
This was cracking me up…your 5 place settings, the goth pumpkin…so funny and completely adorable. I LOVE those bamboo chairs! So jealous! Your house looks gorgeous, as usual 🙂
Haha! Thank you, Heather!
This is great! I love it because I’m about to start my own blog and I’m thinking there is no way my house can look that beautiful all the time. Glad to see how some bloggers actually live. Thanks for the tour.
Congrats on your upcoming blog! It’s a lot of fun. And trust me, my house is a wreck at all times. It only looks nice in the little section I happen to be photographing at any given time. Maybe one of these days I’ll get a housekeeper since there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to actually keep a clean home! But until then, we live with chaos.
Thank you for sharing your lovely home at the Thursday Favorite Things blog hop. xo
Thanks so much for hosting! I had fun checking out some of the other posts that were linked up.
I am going to have to steal that little spiked pumpkin!! so cute! All of your spaces are gorgeous though… even with the shoes… 😉
Thank you Bee! I’ll be sure to tell my husband that you like the pumpkin. 🙂