Autumn at our Cottage

Happy Fall!

My Lazy Days Fall Decor

I have a secret to share with you today...

I haven't decorated my home for fall yet! 

It's not that I haven't noticed fall is coming. The leaves aren't quite changing colors here yet, but I can definitely feel it in the air; a cool crispness in the mornings. I sat and looked at the summer flowers on the family room ottoman this morning as I drank my coffee, thinking to myself that I really should change them out to an autumnal arrangement, but there I sat - unmoving and (dare I say it?) unmotivated. 

As I got up to put my empty coffee cup in the dishwasher, I stopped suddenly and gazed down the hallway from the family room towards the dining room and noticed the light in there looked different. I realized with a smile that fall decor had found its way into my home all by itself without me changing a thing.

Something you may not realize about our home is that it's surrounded by tall shade trees and gets very little natural light. Most of my blog photos of our home have been shot on a tripod with long exposures and wide open shutters and then light-edited a lot. 

So, trust me when I tell you, the little glimpses of sunlight you see in these photos are very exciting to me! They mean the sun is moving low enough in the southern sky to slant through the tree branches and enter my home with the soft glow of fall - my very favorite fall decor!

So no new autumn flower arrangements today (and no tripod and light editing, either!) I just grabbed my camera this morning to share what I see, the soft glow of my lazy days fall decor!

Even Tucker is glowing today!

Thank you, fall sunshine! 

    

How to Have Charming Farmhouse Greenery Without a Green Thumb

Hello! I hope everyone is having a great summer! 

We've been living it easy around here this summer; hiking in the mountains, kayaking in a new nearby water park, lazy afternoons reading on the front porch, and lots of casual family dinners on the deck surrounded by our garden in full summer bloom. 

Our summer garden shed this year.

Gardening outdoors comes pretty easily to me. Plant, water, fertilize, sunshine, and voila - success! Houseplants, however, are a completely different matter. I'm abysmal at growing houseplants! No matter how hard I try, and I've been trying most of my life, my houseplants die within a few months. Partly, I think, because my house has very little natural light and partly because I can never get the watering schedule right. 

For years I just didn't have houseplants at all. This pathos plant started last year from a cutting (above) and this little succulent which was a Father's Day gift for my husband this year (below) are the only ones I've been able to keep alive. (I've heard they're bulletproof.)

Finally, a few years ago I gave up trying to grow my own houseplants and slowly started buying seasonal realistic-looking fake plants at craft stores when they came on sale and with coupons. I loved how easy they were to care for, as in no care at all!  After it dawned on me that cut flowers from the store and even those cut from my own garden would wilt and drop their pedals in just a few days inside in our hot dry climate, I started buying fake flowers, too. This summer I realized I have collected a houseful of them over the past few years, and I thought I'd share them with those of you who are also lacking a green thumb or live in a hot dry climate but yearn for the charm of houseplants and cut flowers.  

My collection of faux plants and flowers would complement any home for summer, but what makes them work especially well with my farmhouse decor are rustic farmhouse containers and vignettes like this wood toolbox with green mason jars.  

A plastic boxwood wreath paired with a collection of thrift store vases and my DIY rustic pedestal filled with lemons. 

Faux hydrangeas nestled in a DIY wood crate made out of weathered fence pickets.

Plastic succulent stems perched in milk jars and a primitive chickenwire basket from the craft store. 

A huge faux fern spilling over a vintage olive bucket. 

White lilies in a knobby green vase from Anthropologie.

Plastic heather tucked into a vintage copper cup. Who'd have thought a plastic plant could look so real? I'm convinced!

A mason jar of white tulips (too pretty just for spring.)

And my favorite, an enormous bouquet of faux wildflowers in a heavy French crock framed by my large black chalkboard.

After years of watering, pinching, picking up dead leaves, and the discouragement of watching my houseplants die in spite of my best efforts, I'm loving my faux plants. And no more expensive fresh flowers fading and wilting in just a few days in our hot dry summer climate. Mine last forever!  

Realistic faux plants and flowers are a sensible home decor investment and a wonderful way for us green thumb-challenged folks to bring the charm of greenery into our homes. 

I'm so glad you popped in to see what's going on with me today.

 Have an awesome summer day!

How about a summer party!

The Scoop
Savvy Southern Style
Between Naps On The Porch
Our Home Away From Home
A Stroll Thru Life
Share Your Style
Share Your Cup
Rooted In Thyme
The Charm of Home
Rattlebridge Farm
French Country Cottage
Craftberry Bush
The Cottage Market
Sundays at Home
DIY Showoff

Catching Up On Winter Happenings

Hello, friends! Happy Leap Day!    

I've had a burst of blogging energy today that's perfect for catching up on some random winter happenings around here. Let's start with what's been happening around the house. 

The bright pops of winter blue decor I shared last month in this post here lasted about five days for me before I felt overwhelmed by all that color and contrast and switched back to the soothing neutrals above. Isn't that funny? My mind and senses seem to be easily overstimulated by bright light and lots of color and contrast. While I can appreciate a colorful room for shorter periods and love seeing other people's color-filled rooms, I've found I just can't live with them very long in my own home. I loved this ottoman all winter long, but it feels so colorful now! I'm thinking of sewing a slipcover for it out of a drop cloth. 

A house guest once commented to me as she walked through my rooms that she could see I didn't like color. At the time, I agreed with her, but I've since given it a lot of thought. I actually do love color - I love white and cream and brown and black. Those are colors, right? :)

   

I always have to include a photo of my reading chair just because I love it.

Our hutch shelves sat empty for about a month after our Christmas decorations were packed away, and I just had no desire to decorate them. As I pored over my Pinterest boards for inspiration, the rooms I kept being drawn to were simple and uncluttered and felt so peaceful to me. My old colonial style hutch just wasn't fitting in with the decor that was calling to me. It finally dawned on me that the top part of my hutch is a separate piece of furniture! When I asked my husband to store the hutch top in the attic, it was like a big weight taken off me. I recently read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, which really helped me see that there is absolutely no reason for us to live with anything that doesn't bring us joy. Such a simple concept, but what a huge impact it can have on our lives. 

Just before Christmas I stained some trophy plaques I purchased on Amazon, and my husband mounted these deer antlers on them. These antlers are precious mementos of hunting trips he took as a child with his late father. There's a matching one on the other side of the room. I had every intention of covering the furry skulls with fabric, but when I ran out of time I asked him to hang them in our dining room anyway. This is probably a big faux pas because I haven't seen uncovered ones on display before, but I don't care. I still like them. 

It's interesting how you think you'd never want something in your home, but when you see it looking great somewhere else it opens the door in your mind for you. I can't imagine not having these now. 

  My simple almost-spring centerpiece.

Tucker still has lots of energy and is the "youngest" eleven year-old lab I know. Still, I love that one white eyebrow hair I've just discovered above his eye in this photo and I do call him my old man.

I moved the big chalkboard from the dining room in here over the family room sofa. As you can see, I haven't decided what to draw on it yet. I'm thinking of a Farmer's Market sign.

Not one of my family members has commented on my new photo clipboard art for almost-spring, so I'm thinking they might not like it. You know the old saying: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything. But bees aren't creepy bugs to me. They're cute little furry flying creatures.

And I love them.

In the kitchen I moved our tea bags to a basket and filled my empty jam jars with salad toppings like nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. I keep them next to the salad dressing ingredients so I don't forget to top our salads with little bits of deliciousness. We also bought some new Oxo salt and pepper grinders (not pictured) that grind from the top so you don't have pepper all over the counter all the time which drove me totally insane. One of the best buys ever. 

  

For the guest bedroom we finally bought a headboard that fits our old cottage and my farmhouse love perfectly. This is all I can show you of it today because the guest room's not at it's best. It's from Target and reasonably priced with free shipping.

  

For our master bedroom I reconstructed two old bed pillows into one long bolster and then sewed and painted this pillow cover for it. I always loved the Bonne Nuit pillows like this I saw on other blogs, and it only took me two years to make my own! One of these days I'll share the rest of this room (when it's at its best. :))

And lastly, here's just a smidgen of the disaster that is my craft room. My storage is great so it will only take me a half hour to clean up the mess and put things away, but I JUST DON'T WANT TO! 

Some other happenings going on around here:

Alex Hecht Photography

We have some new canine family members. My daughter and her fiancé adopted seventeen month old black lab, Oliver, (in the orange harness) after they sadly lost their beloved Molly to old age last fall. My other daughter and her boyfriend adopted their first dog, five year old blond lab, Scout, about the same time. That's my Tucker in the red collar. We all meet at the park regularly for some serious ball retrieving.

  

My husband and I are doing the Whole 30 program and kind-of loving it. Both our girls have done the program and it's been life-changing for our entire family.

  

 Just for fun I took a photo of the food we gave away before we started Whole 30 and what our fridge looked like (not so) full of real food. Yeah, it kind of hurt to give that Brie away, I won't lie! 

  

We also got new cell phones, and I have to say I like the new Verizon phone plans that are way easier to navigate. I chose the iPhone 6s and love it. I know I'm a neutral girl at home, but I fell in love with this faux abalone shell phone cover and I found a wallpaper to match.

   

I love my new phone's 12 mp camera, but this procamera app ($4.99) takes it to a whole new level. Now I can easily switch between the phone's camera for quick point and shoot, and this app for the manual controls I'm used to using on my professional camera. 

The years I spent raising my children were the most pleasurable and meaningful years of my life, and now that my girls have moved into their own homes, my family is still my main pleasure and focus. During those happy busy years when they were growing up my life was very fulfilling and had a clear meaning. 

As an empty nester with a less clear personal identity and a lot more free time to think about life in general and my life in particular, I began yearning for a more personally meaningful and peaceful way of living in a world in which I increasingly felt at odds. Everyone's journey is unique, of course, but I wanted to pass along these two publications that have been so helpful to me on my path to a life full of peace and happiness.

And that's it for catching up on winter happenings around here. 

I hope you're all happy as clams today and everyday!