Autumn is in the air! … and now it’s also in my living room.

Having recently painted (and fallen in love) with our (now) black mantel I could not wait to decorate it for Fall. And yes, I’ve fallen for it (ha ha, get it). No? Oh. Please just pretend you did (and sorry for the bad joke).

Anyway, here she is all decorated up niiiice (well, I think so anyway but I’m no professional…).

Since it’s a bit of far shot and the mirror is somewhat distracting let me zoom in to show the fun Autumnal elements!

The best part (well, in my opinion anyway) is that aside from the wreath which I just made (small supplies cost) everything else was FREE as I already had it on hand. I literally just brought it all out, dumped ‘er on the couch and began assembling until I was satisfied!

I got this glass pumpkin a few years back and have always loved it. I designed the mantel with it in mind and chose most of my colours playing off the ‘vibe’ that Mr. Pumpk was putting out. In the back is an opening for a tea light holder which adds a nice warm glow when lit.

I took some of the moss that I bought for the wreath (tutorial to follow in an upcoming post) and used it throughout the arrangement to tie my little vignettes into the wreath focal point.

I love the cozy relaxed nature that my ‘old’ and used candles offer. Having been lit in the past, they are all slouchy and organic. I love how they add to the warmth of this whole display.

Here is a close up of the right hand side. Those two frames were given to me by a coworker who was cleaning out her basement and thought I might like them. YES please! I have something in mind for the large one but before I paint it, it was the perfect hue for this display. The smaller bamboo one had no picture in it but I loved the wood that was simply the inside of the back. I left it this way as it added yet another texture. I personally think layering and texture are the keys to an interesting mantel (or any display really).

Here is the focal point wreath I made and as mentioned, I will have a follow up tutorial post. Not satisfied with the standard ‘Autumn wreath” (bright orange fake leaves and overly rustic) I decided to make my own! I wanted something simple and graphic and am really happy with how this turned out. And it was SO easy to make. Yay for easy.

Here is close up of the wreath. You can see the moss used here which I mimicked through the candles and other elements.

And here are a few nighttime shots with everything lit and aglow. YAY FOR AUTUMN!

Oh, and it SMELLS like Autumn in here too as these candles have the perfect Fall spicy scent. Love it.

There seems to be a bit of a rivalry going on at my house. Team Mantel vs. Team Bannister. It threatened to get ugly folks… but all is well that ends well.

Here’s how it all went down.

Banisters caught wind that Mantel had a painting party… but didn’t invite them (oh. oh. Drama). So, after a heart-to-heart (what, you don’t talk to your banisters?), I promised Banisters that they too could have a party of their own. And what did they want to wear? Well their LBDB’s of course!

Here is how Banisters looked before dressing up…

We have a few banisters like this around our house and I didn’t want to hear them whine too wanted to paint them all the same for cohesiveness.

Here is the signature drink that was served at the party, and a party goer partaking in a big sip…

Once drunk painted all the ladies banisters looked fantastic. LBB’s all around!

Oh, and for anyone following along, I used the RIGHT paint this time.

After we recently painted the main floor light the banisters just washed into the background. I feel it looks polished now. Black is the new banister.

Are you ready for the longest fireplace mantel make-over in history? No? Me neither. But that’s just what we have here folks.

After we finished repainting our main floor from an avocodo-ish green to a creamy bone colour our fireplace looked a little washed out all alone in the corner.

Don’t mind the painters tape, my brain works in weird ways. Take photos before Elaine… take them before. Anyway….

So, a little painting party was in order and black was going to be the guest of honour. My supply pile looked like this:

Okay, so we’ve been blessed with awesome neighbours and can safely say we love them. I think I can also say the feeling is mutual. What I can’t say though is that they love a good ‘peep-show’ from us. Yes. I think I can 100% commit to that statement. Not that we’ve asked… but just saying.

After we repainted our main floor we were left with this…

Holy freakin’ light Batman! 25¢ a peek people (and let me tell you we had no line-up and I didn’t see any open wallets).

So off to remedy this we must. Pre blinding light was your standard early 1990’s vertical blinds complete with faded fabric (a sheen fabric I might add – oooh-la-la), a hideous bowed valance and of course, the clunky weights at the bottom of each shiny fabric vane nastiness. Good times.

We had to remove said hideous bowed valance in order to paint. And in order to get the valance down the whole blind contraption had to come with it (how is that for bad design planning). That being said, there were no tears shed  (except of course from any poor neighbours who may have seen me in my summer nightwear) and I took this opportunity to do a MUCH needed update.

I entertained many options for a replacement but aside from going custom (bank breaker – you may have noticed those aren’t really ‘standard’ window sizes) I didn’t have too many options. The rest of our windows have nice white faux wood horizontal blinds so after a lot of searching and weighing our options we decided to go that route for the small window. We couldn’t do it in the large window without using multiple packages and I thought it would look messy. Plus that pane on the right opens so that was another issue to work around. And let’s be honest, who wants to open three sets of blinds on one window? Not me.

So for the large window we outfitted it with (wait for it) verticals! What? Verticals and horizontals side-by-side? Yes. Let me change you skeptics into believers.

But doesn’t vertical = hideous fabric accompanied by clunky weights? Nope! I didn’t know that you can now buy faux white wood vertical vanes but guess what? You can. And I did. Goodbye shiny fabric and stupid bottom weights. Hello clean streamlined vanes that match the rest of our windows. Thank you for stopping by.

Here is how Operation-Save-Our-Neighbours-Eyes went down.

We first tackled the small window to the left. Since we only needed a small width (about 21″) I bought the closest size to that and had Mrs. Home Depot cut it down for me. Plus side? I didn’t have to do the cutting. Down side? I now know far too much about Mrs. Home Depot’s personal life. Her grandson is named Charlie FYI.

Next up we installed the two corner brackets. You can assemble these outside the window or inside the window ledge – we opted for the latter. I didn’t bother patching the hole from the last set as the new track would cover it completely.

The steps after this were simple – install valance clips onto bracket, insert bracket and close clip. However, we were left with a lot of excess length so this puppy needed a hair cut had to be shortened.

To do this we simply had to cut the strings and remove the unnecessary blinds, and then put it back together again!

The trickiest part was reinserting the center thread through the base. Chef Kev came up with a good idea (old boyscout trick I am told) to singe the end with a lighter. Your unfrayed cord slips right in after that!

The hole on the underside is much larger so no problems there….

Then you trim off the excess ‘ladder’ (leaving about 2″), twist together and insert into the large hole in bottom. You feed the middle (singed) cord through the supplied plug and close ‘er up. From there you tie a knot in the threaded centre cord and snip off any extra length.

You know what’s kind of boring? The way our retaining wall looked in the back of our garden bed at the beginning of the summer.

And since ‘boring’ isn’t the new ‘exciting’ I thought I should do something about it! I’ve always loved the feeling of an outdoor room and after redoing my chandelier, building the herb garden, refinishing those planters seen above and adding some bling I knew this wall needed some TLC (not the network but the old school acronym).

But have you seen some of the garden accessories out there? Mucho expensivo! Ouch. So, I hit up my fave consignment shop and scored! Big time! Here is what I left with and the price break down.

grand total: $26.60!

Not too shabby! My plan was to paint these all out in the colour palette I had come up with for our ‘outdoor room’. Black (because it looks so sleek), white (because I likey), green (because of the piping detail in our patio furniture), blue (because it goes nice with the green and it matches the outdoor placemats I bought) and pink (because it POPS!). I know saying that something ‘pops’ is annoying and overused so I apologize. POP! POP! POP! I apologize again… and again… and again.

So, to carry out my big plan I needed to chose what colour to paint each item. To do that I had to figure out where each item would go so that I had the balance right when they got their new outfit. I didn’t want my new finds fighting over who would be what, so I had to make the decision. Plus, they are not real so therefore can’t talk (= can’t argue).

I cut the shape of each out of newspaper and then hung them up in an order that I thought might work. After a bunch of configurations I had something I was happy with. So I sat back to study (might have had my feet up with a glass of wine during this process – can’t confirm or deny) and decided what colour to assign each piece.

Decision made, I had my own little painting party to celebrate!

Do I know how to parrtaayyy or what!?

Once everything was sprayed and had dried, I hung it all up using my newspaper guides for placement. As each item was nailed in to place, the ‘template’ was simply pulled out from behind and discarded recycled. Then I stood back and had a good look.

Hmmm… something was missing. It needed something more (which I will get to later).

I must point out that all my projects are done around toddler nap times, that little window of light after dinner, a full-time job, freelance design clients and of course being a mommy and wife. You can imagine that not all my projects get done in a day. By the time I got back out to ‘fix’ what was missing I had a ‘situation’…

And times this by two because as you may recall, there were two of these mirrors up there. OY.

While most of the world has been talking about their heat waves, we’ve been having an unseasonably rainy summer! This wood not only split but completely warped so there was no getting it back together. I tried a hammer, even coercion but when I could not get my 6’5″ Chef Kev to get ‘er back in, I knew the gig was up. Game Ova. Think of the noise at the end of a pac-man game. And then times that by two.

So, I racked the ‘ol brain (which does not require a special tool) and searched through some closets and drawers. I found a black frame that I wasn’t using (popped out the glass and took the back off so I just had the frame left) and then decided to pair that with a green-fake-grass-ball-thingy-that-I-was-going-to-spray-black (say that three times fast). So another painting party was held.

Up she went and now I was back to fix the earlier problem of ‘something’ missing. When I had originally studied the wall after hanging everything up I felt that – even though it had a lot of colour – it just wasn’t dynamic enough. Then I recalled that I had some white plastic ‘flowers’ (best way to describe the shape even though they aren’t really flowers at all) that I could trail up through the other elements. I had gotten them for a project quite a while back. They didn’t work for what I had in mind, but were perfect for this!

After installing them, I was happy. So we went from this:

to THIS!

I love how the old retaining wall feels like a fresh gallery wall now. Imagine the coziness when we have guests over and we light the candles up on their shelves. The big mirror reflects the light from inside and the ‘room’ is really starting to come together! Pair that with our twinkle lights and chandelier glow and I think the whole thing feels really inviting!

And did you notice my Geeky Beek? He came out for the ‘After Party’.

Here are some close up details:

Not bad for less than $1! I already had the paint and the candle…

Okay, so this little blue bear just might be my favourite thing of all. My little two-year old – Chace – helped me pick him out while repeating “yook mommy” (look mommy) “ooh-dat mommy?” (what – or who – that mommy). On repeat. When I asked him if he liked it he said “yes!” (yes!) and ran away with it. A good sign. Little brass blue bear came home with us. And come on, he’s playing an Alphorn. As a general rule I take home anything playing an Alphorn (luckily this marked the first time I’d come across one).

Here are the white ‘flowers’ that I added for some whimsy. You like?

And the black frame and green-fake-grass-ball-thingy-that-I-was-going-to-spray-black that replaced the damaged black mirrors.

Overall I’m really happy with it. Unexpected yet inviting. And inexpensive!

And here are a few other little things I added to my evolving ‘room’, you know, to keep the paarrtaaay going.

Tea light candle holder/orb/cool thing that now hangs over the table.

And a pretty little pink tea light holder that makes me think of pink stilettos. I didn’t spray this, it came this shade. A perfect match – meant to be!

So that’s the story of my gallery wall that took WAY longer than I thought it would. It changed, it rained, it warped, it evolved. But in the end our heroine was triumphant. Quite dramatic for a back deck. I wonder if Hollywood would be interested in making a movie about it? I have the perfect pink stilettos for the leading lady…

While working on my recent deck projects I realized my deck needed a little bling. Well, let’s be honest, I wanted to put up some Christmas lights in the middle of summer. Kidding! (Well sort of. My love of Christmas is apparent here). But the bling was my main reason for this next project.

I thought a strand of little white lights would look great running along the underside of our retaining wall ‘lip’. Just a small clean touch of lights to brighten the space on a warm summer evening.

So, into the storage I went and resurfaced with a string of lights and a staple gun.

But guess what? I underestimated how awkward the little lip is to get at and misjudged my lack of desire for stapling though electrical chords. Read that as: I’m chicken to staple electrical cords upside down into a 1″ overhang of wood.

To rectify, I paid a visit to my local hardware store and somehow got coerced into picking up a snack for Chef Kev along the way. When I returned I had one pack of cable screws for my two pitstops. … and some chips. Speaking of getting screwed (kidding Sweetie – hope you liked your chips) that’s just what I did.

PS/ If you’re interested in checking out my other recent deck posts, visit here: The Great Grass Caper, Pretty in Pink, Herbalicious, Black is the new ‘fake terra cotta’