Halloween Home Tour

It's scary to believe that Halloween is only 5 days away.....see what I just did there? But really, where did October go? I can feel the rush of the Holidays creeping up and I feel like I need to get ready! Time to get organized and get busy! But before that happens I wanted show you how we decorated for Halloween. We switched up our Fall decor a bit and brought in some of our Halloween stuff to get into the spirit of the holiday. I would honestly love to just keep the white pumpkins and neutrals up throughout the Fall, but I have a feeling the three girls who LOVE to decorate for all the different holidays would not let that fly. But even so, I am trying more and more to keep even holiday decor more neutral in our home. For whatever reason, it just seems more pleasing to the eye and I am always happier with the result. So for Halloween this year I did mostly black and white, with a few pops of orange here and there. And I must say, I love the black and white.
I also included a few quick tips for Halloween decor so if you're needing some ideas, I hope these help. Ready for some Halloween inspo? Lets go!



Mr. Bones got turned into a witch for the front porch. I decided it would make him go with the witch theme I always put out there. I made that sign a few years ago and I love it so much. Every year I get so many compliments on it. Amazing how homemade decorations can become some of your favorites. You can kind of see I had to change "Two little monsters" to "Three little monsters". My youngest is 2, so we've had it around for a few years now.





I have kind of a funny story about this sign I just bought this year. I got it at Homegoods, thinking "Wow, this will be the perfect sign to go with the black and white theme I have going on". Brought it home only to find out that it said, "Trict, Treat" instead of "Trick, Treat". Yep, I was tricked. I don't know how I didn't notice it! And neither did anyone else at the store apparently! Or maybe they just didn't want to say anything so I would still buy it. Anyway, I had to pull off the tin letter "T" and re-arrange it back to make a "K" and then add some paint to finish it. But I think it turned out ok in the end.



I switched out our wreath on the front door with some spooky black ravens. I like how simplicity for Halloween can read as barren and creepy. I mean, this wreath took me maybe 5 minutes to make. Super easy!



Come on in and watch out for our Boxer, Tank. He's friendly, but he likes to jump up for a hug!



Yep, it's still 2:30 at our house....I have just been too busy to switch out the batteries on that big clock. Maybe I'll have it fixed by the Christmas tour. :)







I just put a couple of different pillows on this bench to make it feel more warm and Halloween colored in here and put some cut branches in this demijohn. I love the color contrast of the glass and the orange-y red leaves. So pretty!



We actually don't have any trees in our yard that turn this pretty color, so I had to kinda scout the neighborhood for an indiscreet spot that I could take some. Shh! Don't tell. But how cool are they as decor!? And they're free! Just don't get caught...



I painted the back of my "Hello Fall" sign that I had up on the mantle in the Fall Living Room Tour I posted back in September. It's a cool way to double up your decor. I'm not a professional painter obviously, but it's a fun idea because you can customize it with whatever colors you want. I just needed one more bit of orange in this space, so I thought this little pumpkin would be perfect.





We got some beautiful sunflowers in our Full Circle delivery this past week. If you follow my Instastories you would have seen me unpacking to the goods on Thursday mornings. It's been a really fun CSA to belong to. I just love being able to try so many different kinds of fruits and vegetables that I might not have otherwise tried. We tried Kiwi berries recently. They were really good! But I never would have picked them up in the store on my own, so I think that's so cool.





So for those of you who don't know me, I don't like spiders. I hate them. Despise them. Even the small ones. If they are in my territory, they will die. Oh. they. will. die. They can live outside all they want, but as soon as they come into my house, they're risking their lives because they have no business creepin around me and my babies. I have a flyswatter around at all times and pest control on speed dial to be sure they don't get in. Don't even think about it little spider the size of a dime! Anyway, I have no problem with a few fake ones at Halloween. And even though these fake ones are huge and freaky, I thought they were so cute on these embroidery hoops with lace. Might I even say, elegant? I would give a tutorial, but it's so easy. You just put a few different kinds of lace in the hoops (the hoops are cheap and you can find them at most craft stores) and then stick the spider on. Done! Easy, cute and perfect for my black and white Halloween theme this year.





Then there's this guy. Haha. Again, creepy, but kind of cute because I know he's fake and fuzzy?





These little votives are a quick and easy DIY too. Just glue some black lace to some cheap votives and done. Spooky and pretty Halloween decor.



Here's another sign that I made and I just love. I just painted a board with black chalkboard paint and then wrote on it with a chalk marker.



Then in the kitchen I did both black and white and some orange too. I feel like you always have to have a little fun in the kitchen with colors.



White or orange pumpkins in a bowl or vase is always a quick and easy idea to decorate with. Just be aware that real ones can rot if they don't have any air circulation. So don't be putting them in a pretty cloche for example. Fake ones would be better for that.





I realized as I was putting this post together that if you have followed me for awhile, you probably haven't seen the new changes in our kitchen. We recently took out the ugly white microwave that hung over our stove and replaced it with that range hood. It looks so much better in here and it really opened up the kitchen. There are a few more things that we would love to do to the kitchen, like paint the cabinets and install subway tile. But little by little, it's coming together.











Another change we made in the kitchen is we replaced our kitchen faucet. Our old one was white and pretty worn and gross. It was so nice to be able to choose one that we liked. I never really show this spot in our kitchen because I don't really like it and the lighting is always bad. But I wanted to show you the new faucet because even that small change made this space so much better! One day we will have subway in here and maybe I'll get around to making a new window treatment for it, but in the meantime, here it is.





That's the end of our tour for today. Hope you found some fun Halloween inspo! Now I'm off to finish the girl's costumes.

Side Yard Reveal

Good Morning Friends!

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen in my Insta-stories a few months ago where I took you on a tour of our side yard and gave you a short "before" peek of what it looked like before we worked on it all Summer. It has come a long way from the forest of weeds that it started with when we moved in. It still has a little bit of work to be done, but now that it is Fall we won't be doing any more work on it until next Spring. So I figured it was probably time to show you what we've been up to. It is so nice to have this extra space in our yard. It makes our yard seem so much bigger overall and it has given us a beautiful quiet spot for resting and relaxing. I don't have any real before photos of the mess it was before. In fact, these pictures make it look better than it actually did because we had already cleared away so much of the weeds, but anyway, it gives you an idea. Plus here's my adorable pudgy first born daughter.....who is 7 now. Who happened to like the weeds.

BEFORE:




I can't even. Those cheeks! I forgot how adorably chubby she was!

Anyway, here is what it looks like today. Welcome to our very own secret garden!

AFTER:


Follow the path next to the garden...





Look out for little fairies...



They like to snuggle on the daybed and read fairy tales.



I'm trying to figure out what to do with the bottom of the daybed because it looks so bare. I can't really do a bed skirt because it will just get gross, but I was thinking we maybe add some stained wood to go all the way around under the mattress like a frame...I don't know. Ideas?





Next year I plan to add a trellis behind the daybed to add a bit more privacy and grow some clematis or jasmine back there. My dream is for this area to be covered and overgrown with plants and green.





I want to try and find a side table or garden stool for this space at some point. I did a lot of searching online during the Summer and I just didn't find anything that I really liked that much. This old crate works great in the meantime.



There's my awesome fig tree! If you remember I had a little sproutlet that didn't look like it was going to make it and I ended up just replacing it with a more mature tree. It must like where it is because it even produced figs! Like a lot. And they were huge! Some of them were almost the size of my fist! I'm serious. The first one I picked I was afraid to eat because I got it into my head that it couldn't possibly be that big on it's own so there was probably a slug in it......there wasn't a slug in it. But I was still too weirded out to eat it. Anyway....figs. From MY garden.

That beautiful purple flowered bush on the left is called a Heliotrope and it smells amazing. We had actually bought two of these plants for a different place in the yard, but they weren't quite big enough for the space and my mother-in-law informed me that they are annuals....meaning they won't come back next year. My plan was to get plants that I can plant and then forget about so I want to try and find something more permanent for next year. But these have been really cool to see this year. They had a really rough start too, so I'm surprised they lived! The day we got them it was super hot and they wilted completely, but then after baby-ing them for a bit and loading them with water, they miraculously came back to life. It was a small miracle, I'm telling you.





Then over here I had planted a bunch of little seedlings. Poppies, bachelor buttons, sweet peas, edible flowers. The sweet peas grew, but they never blossomed, which I'm pretty sad about because I wanted them! And the seeds in the pots had waterer error issues. So I finally just put some little pansies and ferns in them. I don't know why, but I love the look on ferns. They have such a unique look. I am going to move them out of the pots eventually and into the ground, but I haven't really decided where.



Then that guy on the right is an olive tree who doesn't seem to be to mad about where he is either. It must have been all the hot weather we had over the Summer, but I'm not sure how he'll like our Winter!













And this.....is my spot. Mine and Riley's. We like to come out here for a drink together after the girls go to bed and catch up or more often not. say. anything. And I really liked coming out here in the mornings over the Summer before the girls woke up. I would bring my cup of coffee and scroll through Instagram or do some writing. It was the best. Ah, the lazy days of Summer. How I miss them already. This is directly across from the ladder with the potted plants. It's kind of hard to see because it is tucked away behind a corner of the house. But that's what's so good about it. It's all tucked away and private. There is a large tree in our front yard that creates a kind of canopy over it too. It's magical.



Looking back that way you can also see a glimpse of our new fence that we got over the Summer. We replaced the old rickety white picket fence and got a higher one. It's so nice and our yard feels so private now.





This girl here is the chubby baby in the first photos. My sweet oldest. How can she be so old?



And this is my baby Everly, saying "Goodbye friends!"

Hope you enjoyed the tour.