Halloween Time @ Our House

I like decorating for Halloween and Autumn.  I decorate both inside and outside, but I don't do as much of it as I did when Connor was little.  This year I make a conscience effort to purge and donate the Halloween stuff I no longer want to use (that felt good to get rid of a bunch of stuff).......however, I still have five totes full of stuff that I use.   :)

I concentrate my efforts in our family, kitchen and den where we hang out the most.

This is our ladder shelf full of our favorite Halloween/Autumn things.

This is one of our IKEA Expedit bookcases decked out for Halloween

 

We've had this hinged wooden ghost, pumpkin and black cat FOREVER.  I found it at a craft fair and still love it.  The small ceramic ghost peering over the fence I had in a ceramic class back in the 90's.

This is another ceramic piece that I made in 1993.  It's lighted and still one of my favorites and as you can see, my cat love comes out in holiday decorations.

I found this felt runner at Pier1 in an after the holiday sale.

This is one of our favorite newer pieces of decoration.  So cute!

 I adore snow globe and have a ton of Christmas snow globes so it was only right that I should have a few Halloween snow globes.  These are the three I have right now, but I may have to add another one.

I have a hutch in our eat in area and serves as more storage for things I use in these rooms, so I like to dress it up for the different holidays too.

Several of the things on this hutch I made.  Below is a ceramic piece that resembles a paper bag I made a long time ago.  It holds the candles that we use in our pumpkins and luminaries.

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This year I filled my glass apothacary jar with candy corn.

I love easy touches like these vinyl bats on our round mirror in the family room.

Or spider stickers on the lampshades.......

 Since our hanging wine rack is new, this is the first Halloween that I've been able to deck it out.

I used the Doodlebug House that I made in Halloween themed colors and paper, a favorite Halloween card I framed in a cheap IKEA frame, a wooden "Boo" and a rustic pumpkin.

I put a few things out in our den just to make it feel like it's part of the party too!

Thanks for dropping by and taking a look at our Halloween decor and the last thing I'll show you are the most darling shot glasses I found at the Target Dollar Spot.....they were too awesome to pass by, so I bought two sets!

Dining Set Re-Do or "I'm too cheap to go buy a new one"

We bought our dining table and chairs when we moved into this house nine and a half years ago.  We really didn't want to spend a lot of money on a expensive more formal set, so I found and bought this set at Kmart for 200 bucks.  Being tall people, we love the bistro height and very surprisingly it has held up remarkably well for as much use as it gets.  Fred has had to tighten up some of the screws over the years on the chairs, but for the most part, it's done it's job well.

I have noticed in just the last year or so that the top of the table is starting to really wear, the finish was almost gone.  I really didn't want to go out and buy another one since it does serve it's purpose well and knew I could probably breathe more life into the set with a little imagination and work.

I decided to paint the top of the table black to tie in with the other black cabinets and island in the kitchen, but I wouldn't be able to use latex paint for the job.

Latex is fine for some projects but this table was going to require a oil based paint.  It's much more durable than latex, but clean up is MESSY, so I decided whatever brushes I used, I was going to just toss after I was finished rather than trying to clean up with paint thinner and mineral spirits.  It was worth the money to just toss the sponge and foam rollers and brushes.

I started with the table......had to take it out to the garage for fear of certain household cats that would possibly hop up on the wet painted table and then carry OIL-BASED paint throughout the house, so I nipped that little problem right in the bud.  After sanding the top and sides of the table, I used a tack cloth to get rid of all of the dust and even washed it down before starting to apply the paint.

I used a Rustoleum High Gloss Black and used a sponge roller to apply it.  It took two coats but it turned out pretty darn good.

I liked the contrast of the wood and the black.

To finish the re-do, I decided to paint the decorative curves of the back of the chairs black also.  These were a bit harder to prep and paint because of the area involved.

I'm glad I decided to take the time to do the chairs too because I think it added just the right touch to the set.

Now, I'm going to work on a pop of color for the room........stayed tuned.   :)

Kitchen Updating

In my last post, I showed you what we did in regards to the new flooring we put in, but I also did a bit of updating of the kitchen.  I had been using red as an accent color in our kitchen and once the flooring went in, I decided to change that up too.  Since blue is my favorite color and our family room that the kitchen is connected to also has blue in it, I decided to carry that into the kitchen.  I still have a couple of things I want to re-paint and I'll share those once I'm done...but in the meantime....

Here's our wine rack that Fred found at one of the Iowa Wineries that we've been visiting over the summer.  This was found at Eagle City Winery outside of Iowa Falls and we both thought it worked perfectly for the spot we wanted about our buffet bar.

 

 

I also found new kitchen valances for our corner windows which is where our sink is located.  The originals were a tab top red and cream plaid by Waverly and I did sell them on Craigslist so that helped with cost of the new ones.  These I found at Bed, Bath & Beyond and I wanted something very simple in a muslin or linen.

Our kitchen rugs were getting pretty worn and they take a lot of abuse anyway, so I went on the hunt for new rugs wanting to them to coordinate with the blue/brown color scheme I was working toward.  I ended up finding exactly what I wanted at JC Penney and I love them and love the fact they are machine washable.

I have just a couple more things that need to paint that I want to use in the room and I'm hoping to have those done soon.........

In the meantime, I've moved on to our den for a fresh coat of paint on the walls.......I'll share soon!