Hello, and welcome to those of you coming from The Space Between blog
In the interest of honesty and full disclosure, I am NOT a fall kind of girl. When the days grow shorter and the nights grow colder, I begin to get a bit SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Please tell me I’m not alone??? When Kelly Elko of Eclectically Vintage asked me to participate in her 2014 Fall Home Tour, I was hesitant. Click here for the tour of Kelly’s home, then read on below for mine.
I love summer – oh, how I love summer. And you’ll never here me complaining about the heat. BRING IT. But the cold? It’s just really hard on me. Cold weather just makes me want to curl up under a blanket and get absolutely nothing done. It makes it hard for me to produce, and I’m the kind of girl who likes to produce, work, achieve – you get the picture.
Oh yeah, and I also hate football. So there’s really nothing for me in the fall. Dead leaves, bulky clothes, and football. Yay, team. You won’t see pumpkins, corn stalks, or hay bales in my fall decor. Instead, I embrace fall by changing a few of my pastels to jewel-tones. I ramp up the emerald and sapphire and add in a heavier dose of gold to warm things up. I also add in my collections of woodland animals, because they need to come inside from the cold. Ok, so here we go with my Fall Home Tour:
This is the “fall” version of my living room:
I know, it doesn’t feel very fall-ish, but maybe you should see my “summer” version:
See? It’s all relative, isn’t it? The main things I switch out in the fall are my rugs, pillows, and some lamps and accessories. I have a prop closet where I have some storage space to cycle out my things and to keep it feeling fresh.
Yes, that’s a unicorn with a golden horn on the wall. Don’t judge.
Among the many things I tend to collect are these vintage trophies. I never won any as a kid, so these aren’t mine. But for some weird reason, it makes me happy every time I look at them.
This is a chair that I painted with chalk paint last year – not just the wood frame, but also the upholstery. It’s one of my favorite chairs.
My fireplace mantel is an ever-changing vignette of books and collected vintage items.
I have lots of books, and I stack them here and there – on shelves, mantels, tabletops, and little stools. All over the place.
This table is in the entry of our home. The pillow on the victorian chair is from World Market’s Woodland Retreat Collection.
I love my owl lamp – it was originally brown, but I painted it with chalk paint, too.
I often rotate some art pieces with the season. I like to tuck small art and postcards in the corners of mirrors, like this one.
I have a mixture of painted and natural wood finishes in my dining room. Too much dark finished wood looks dreary to me.
I applied a flamestitch shelf liner in the back of my antique hutch, which really lightened up the interior and makes my dishes more visible.
This old tole chandelier once hung in a rental home we have. Rather than hanging it, I use it as part of my tablescape.
There’s rarely a rhyme or reason in my tablescapes. I just use what I like and experiment with the interplay of color and texture.
World Market was so kind as to give a $200 gift certificate to all of Eclectically Fall Home Tour bloggers to help us “fall up” our homes. Did I go for a little bit of this and a little bit of that? Nah. I saw this kelly green desk and lost my mind. Had to have it. It’s the perfect desk for my girls to do their homework in their “new’ homeroom den (the room my younger daughter is moving out of into Mr. Man’s former office). I blew my gift card on that, but it was worth it.
I also bought a couple of pillows – you saw the other one in my entry, and this one sits on the desk chair. I just love the patterns in World Market’s Woodland Retreat collection.
Thank you visiting my home! If this is your first time here, I typically blog about interior decorating, paint colors, and home staging and would love to have you visit again or subscribe to my free emails for lots of decorating tips and tricks. Also, we’re currently giving away a Dyson DC59 Motorhead vacuum – it’s lightweight, powerful, and CORDLESS. Check out this post to enter. Only a few days left in the giveaway!
Make sure you check out the other fabulous fall tours on Eclectically Vintage by clicking the image below!
Happy Fall, Y’all!!!
I totally hear you. I HATE to see the leaves fall. I’m a summer girl myself. (I think part of my dread comes from spending too many winters in the midwest…;) I’m relieved for professional “permission” to not drape my home in leaves and burlap.
Yay, so glad someone else understands!
Your home is gorgeous in any season and I love your fall touches! That green desk is amazing – and I got the same fabulous bird pillow!
P.S. I’m not judging that unicorn – in fact, I want my own now!
Around here just about everyone goes into Fall depression. We live in the snow belt. Not to upset anyone but when there was talk of warming we ll looked at each other and said….you mean there’s hope? Then last winter hit and we said yeah, right. Anyway, I LOVE your home. It has so much personality!!!! That’s one thing that is so missing in home decor. I have to look at homes in England to see that interesting homey look.
Totally agree! While I enjoy the cooler weather, fall just reminds me that winter is coming. And even though I am 50 years old, I still get the same feeling I did as a kid knowing that summer was over and I had to go back to school!
I share your sadness at the end of summer and disdain for the shorter days and cold weather. The only difference is that I do like football so I at least have that to look forward to. I’m so impressed by all you swap out seasonally. I’m doing well to restyle my entry chest and dining room table.
Hey Kristie, I am so not looking forward to winter. Fall is pretty but winters in Ohio are so freezing cold. Ugh! Your home is gorgeous. Thanks for showing us around. I do have a question for you. Every home I see on pinterest or bloggers homes have white woodwork and trim. In mine I have trim and crown molding stained in Fruitwood. Kinda a medium brown . I have the same color stain on my oak hardwood floors. There’s no way my husband is going to paint everything white. Not gonna happen. Lol. I’m at a total loss of what colors to paint my walls. I have kinda a cottage, rustic, mixed with modern vibe going on. Any advice on wall colors would be sooo appreciated
No beige or tan . Stressed about paint chips in Ohio. Lol.
Really? Not a squirrel, not a leaf, not a basket of mums? Mother Nature herself is telling you to embrace this spectacular change of season. Come on girl! You can do better than this!
For someone who doesn’t like fall (I believe you), your lovely color-rich touches do a very convincing job of making your home rejoice in the season! I love the green lamps in your living room and the blue upholstered chair in the dining room – the vibrant colors of nature are so satisfying and soothing somehow. The postcard tucked into the mirror is so sweet – little beauties like that make me smile. 🙂
I used to dread Fall too, when I lived in the Northeast. I knew it meant freezing cold days were coming soon. However, for the past 20 years I have lived in the Pacific Northwest. Now I LOVE the fall weather – even though it means lots of drizzly days and dark cloudy skies, it doesn’t get very cold here. I love the smell of the wet brown leaves and hearing them crunching beneath my feet. I love to cocoon in front of the fireplace, read, and play board games, with the wind and rain pelting my windows. I feel like a little animal, safe and warm in my nest. It is funny, right before I read your post, I was just saying to my husband, “I am so happy the Fall weather is coming!” I can’t stand the hot weather – it sucks the life out of me. To each his own, right?
Just a hunch — I bet you have a Spring or Summer birthday. My theory isn’t foolproof and there will probably be a hundred comments to prove me wrong, but I think people have a special affinity for the season of their birth – apart from the fact that nobody loves February and we all love sunny resorts – I think a lot of us who love to see the leaves change and the fireplace on were born in the colder months.
You are right! I have a November birthday and I LOVE the autumn. It is my most favorite time of the year, even though I am a gardener. I enjoy putting my garden to “bed”, adding dormant perennials, and dreaming about next year’s garden plans. The “smell” of the season makes me giddy.
YES!!! Finally someone who understands!! I too suffer with SAD. My brother and I actually, but while he’s still at home in New York, life circumstance tossed me in sunny Florida where I found luv, stayed, married and am raising kids.
The Sunshine State has been a blessing! Well, other than today… over cast and drizzly 🙂
But I too have tried to pump up myself to enjoy the shorter days with pumpkins and orange.. russet and the like… Nope. So I paint a lot of things white… and do a neutral Fall.
Know you are not alone… WE may be few.. but we are here.
Hugs, Gee
OMG that was hilarious!! I too hate anything but summer, well I love spring because it means that summer is coming and I’m sure I’d love fall a bit more if it didn’t only last 2 weeks here and then go immediately into a LONG winter!!! I burn my pumpkin flavored candles and put out a small white pumpkin for décor inside and a few mums outside and that is it, I don’t even decorate for Halloween. I’ve even put out less and less for Christmas each year, which I used to love but it seems our winters have gotten colder/longer so I now associate the holidays with raking and shoveling! And I cannot get into football to save my life, I’ve tried and not happening! I’m going to go hibernate now!
I am the same. I HATE rust colors, gold, orange – just feels like death and so depressing. Like you, my fall and winter colors are deep, rich jewel tones.
Now I’m a fall girl all the way! So I’ll make a deal with you…. you can have my summer and I’ll take your fall!I love your art work!!! So beautifully collected.
Ha! The instant I read “kicking and screaming” I knew exactly where you were going with it. I might have used those same exact words a time or two at summer’s end!
When the weather finally cools down (way too hot to think of autumn quite yet), I’m finally resigned to the change of seasons. Eventually the warm earthy colors of harvest season seem not only appropriate but welcoming as I try to keep warm!
I’m with you Kristi about the fall weather! Thank you for sharing your gorgeous home, it looks nice in both seasons! Love all of the personal touches that make it yours 🙂
In michigan,we need that orange,brown and tomato red look.
Seasonal affective syndrome is caused by a problem with the melatonin seratonan cycle. Daylight turns off the melatonin. When you don’t have enough natural light, the melatonin keeps being produced. There are two approaches that have worked for my family members. We have purchased Costco’s Go Lite. It is small, like a little lighted make-up mirror, and produces full spectrum light. My adult daughter eats breakfast in front of it, and my adult son has it on his desk at work. The other method requires exercise, such as a walk, in the morning, in natural light. The light has to actually strike your pupils. Try walking toward the sun, ocassionally looking at the sky. The light touching the eye switches the melatonin to cycle. By the way, this is genetic. Watch for symptoms following the change to standard time.
OK, I’m odd man out. I adore fall and all that comes with it. Not saying I love what follows, but I do love COZY winter days and evenings with fireplaces and good books… However, life does have to happen, and getting out in the cold is not fun… Kristie, I love that your home is NOTHING like a staged/model house! (As we know, staging to sell is completely different from decorating to live in and love.) It’s all your own and so full of interesting pieces, personality and history. My house is kinda the same…would never pass as a staged home and I’m glad. When I have to sell, there will definitely be lots of changes. 🙂