Fall Fest

As most of you know, I LOVE creating a holiday festival in the little corner of our house by our mudroom/second entrance door!  It's so fun for me to bring in each holiday with decorations.  Since our house is on the corner, I guess you could say I feel a minor responsibility to spread cheer to everyone driving by!  Last year, I had made a little "fall corner" and this year I did the same thing...just with a few minor complications...

But first, let's start with a fun photo!  

When Dan and I went to Goodwill to look for some accessories to complete our Halloween costumes this year, I found this fall wreath for $9!  I thought about making a fall one myself similar to the hydrangea one I made in the spring but just ran out of time.  I was thrilled! 

But then they invaded.  The squirrels.

I mean, can you believe that?!?  Give me a break!  Our neighborhood is seriously overrun by squirrels.  I truly believe in my heart of hearts that they think this is their house.  Next year, I'm totally doing fake pumpkins. 

Before some of these pictures were taken, I wrapped one of the mums in burlap to give it a little more fall flair.  I tied it up with a cute yellow ribbon.

Photo from before the squirrels started terrorizing my pumpkins!  Someone told me to spray them with hairspray to keep them away.  I didn't try it because, frankly, it was too late but does anyone know any other tricks?

The marigolds were holding up pretty well until about a week ago!

 I hope my fall decorations bring more trick or treaters this year!  (another reason why I try to make our house cheery and welcoming!)  We only had 2 last year!  2!  Picture me sitting by the door with all the lights on and TONS of candy all by myself just waiting. SO sad!  Did anyone see the Halloween episode of Modern Family?  

Claire chasing kids into her house to get candy with her Bo Peep sheep hook just cracked me up and reminded me of my obsession with having more trick or treaters!  I even put up a sign up that says "Treats this way!"

Happy Fall Everyone!

Scraps!

While Dan was out of town for work (can't even remember where he was!), I decided to make a Pinterest idea come to life!  In addition to some cool gifts he really wanted, I gave him this frame for our one year anniversary.  :)  It's filled with a bunch of "scraps" from our years of dating, first year of marriage, etc!  I was so excited to come across this idea because I have all of this stuff in a big box.  It's so much more fun to display all the fun memories!

Dan had fun remembering all of the movies we went to, sporting events, hotels, and much more!  I would definitely say I enjoyed it much more than him, but hey! :)

Window Shopping

I had lots of fun browsing HomeGoods a few weeks ago and took some shots of my favorite things.  I only bought one thing from this trip AND last weekend I went again and left empty handed.  Can you believe it?  I don't know if I should be happy or sad!  

I loved these pillows!  I'm a sucker for both color combos actually.  They seemed to be made of pretty durable material so they could be a great POC for an outdoor bench or patio!

Mmmm!!  Love me some aqua and chartreuse...well, anything!  These geometric patterns are clean and modern too, which I love!  You could fill them with flowers, a tall candle or just set them on the floor or table as decor!  I had to peel myself away from them-a definite struggle within my brain to prove to myself that I had absolutely nowhere to put these!

Be still my heart.  I literally gasped out loud as I stumbled upon this aisle.  LOVE wire baskets.  And they had ALL shapes, sizes, and styles!  I did pick up 2 of these later on to put in my Ikea Expedit shelving unit downstairs...I'll take a picture soon!  These would also be great to put little gifts inside!

I just loved these little knick knacks!  I do already have an artificial camera from ZGallerie but this one was super cool with it's "old time" feel.  The ballerina was just so pretty and graceful!  It reminded me of one my mom has, she was a toe dancer!  This could even look cute in a little girl's room!

Wire basket obsession + labeling obsession = danger when I saw this item!  In my next laundry room, I will definitely have something like this!  I figured no one would see this cute basket in my current laundry room downstairs :(

I just kind of liked the medallion decor on the left.  Maybe on a dresser or a mantle?  And I did take home this little guy with me on the right!  He's now in the hall bath with the "yellow and gray" theme!  It reminded me of that Pier 1 commercial that's on TV right now-they say, "Find what speaks to you!"  This vase definitely whispered to me asking to be put in my hall bath :)

Seeing Stripes!

Did you think that our painting was finished?  Me too.  But then I convinced myself (and Dan) that we should paint the hallway.  To be honest, it did need some paint due to some scuffs and a Magic Eraser tragedy.  Warning: do not use a Magic Eraser on anything but white walls! So, we not only slapped a coat of paint on the hallway but did a detailed stripe pattern that required  time and technique.  Can I hear a "Waahoo!!"?  Good thing we had Labor Day Weekend to work on this but don't worry, we had time to hit up the State Fair, hang with friends and some other fun stuff too :)  So here it goes!

Dan's good friend Jon stopped over that night to say hello and, of course, got roped into the logistics of the stripes.  You were very helpful Jon!  Good thing you left before things got intense :)

Here is a before shot of the hallway and the wall that wraps around:

The paint color choice was definitely a process as we wanted to match the current color so that the entire living room would still match and flow.  As for the white...if only white were just that...WHITE!  But it is SO not!  I didn't want it too stark white but I didn't want it to clash and be darker than the baseboards.  The winners were Behr's Mesa Taupe and Behr's White Linen.

Some more before shots...

Unfortunately, due to the scuffs on the wall, we needed to re-paint the entire hallway white to make everything fresh and new.

As I kept on with the first white coat, Dan came behind me and taped off all the trim.  I'm so thankful he does this part!  I hate taping. 

           

After the trim was taped and the white coat of paint was on, we headed out to the Great Minnesota Get Together for some deep fried food on a stick!  We rode the state fair transit bus from a mall by our house and it worked out pretty slick!  Corn on the cob, deep fried pickles, Leinenkugel's beers, and a soft pretzel with cheese!

And then...Hi Ho!  Hi Ho!  It's back to work we go!  Next step was to measure off all of the stripes and tape them.  Yay.  (can you sense my enthusiasm?)  This portion of the project highlighted some of Dan's most valuable qualities:  accuracy, focus, patience.  :)  This is why I love having him around to help with this stuff! 

When it came to decide on the overall plan of how the stripes look on the wall, I was a little overhwhelmed.  But at the same time, I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like.  So after I explained it to Dan like, "I think each stripe should be about this wide (with a fluid, inaccurate hand gesture) and I think there should be an odd number of dark stripes.  Also, not that many stripes total, but not too little."   I was clear that I wanted the top stripe to be a dark one and the bottom stripe to be a dark one-mostly so the baseboards would be a nice contrast.  I think he got the idea!  Magically...

For anyone interested in doing a project like this, each of the stripes was 13 inches wide.  The bottom stripe might have been closer to 14 (just asked Dan for accuracy).  I had read that it was important to use Frog Tape instead of the standard blue tape and I would completely endorse this recommendation!  That stuff is amazing!  This was our first time using it but I can't imagine having crisp lines with anything else.

Another huge tip that I read from other bloggers, and then thankfully implemented, was the technique of sealing in the frog tape.  At first, I was very confused about this process but the idea is to prevent paint from seeping under the tape so that each stripe is close to perfect.  So, in simple terms, for the "insides" of each "taupe" stripe we would be painting, I went through and lightly painted the edges of the tape to seal it with the white paint.  After this dried and we went back and actually painted the taupe stripes, it was nearly impossible for any of that paint to sneak it's way through and onto a white stripe.  Does that make sense?  I sure hope so!

After all the "to be" taupe stripes were sealed in, the hallway looked like this:

Phew!  By now, we're honestly wanting to be finished.  I get really antsy!  But next was to paint the actually taupe colored stripes.  About midway through, we noticed we would run out of paint.  With 20 minutes to closing time, Dan raced to Home Depot as I called in the paint color to be mixed so it would be all ready when he ran into get it!  

Make sure to really concentrate and check each time that you're about to paint the right stripe!  I've seen sticky notes used on other blogs to label the color of each stripe so there's no oopsies!

As I was even still painting the stripes, Dan came behind me and started peeling off the Frog Tape.  Do not wait to peel off the tape or else it will not be the cleanest line!

Here's an in-progress pic before we hung everything back up!

We love it!!  Worth every second!  Dan is always amazed at what things look like when we finish, it is so hilarious!  I think because I spend so much time looking at pictures of ideas and he doesn't so it really is a surprise to him!  Good thing he trusts me!  (but kind of scary at the same time :) 

Yay!!