Decorating: Fall Decor

Some of the newest additions to my Google Reader have been decorating blogs. Now that the house is pretty much all in order I'm really excited to finally get to decorate. And since Fall is my favorite season I'm loving all the fall decorating posts that have been showing up. So I thought I'd join the trend and give you a look at what I'm doing to make the house look good during my favorite months.

My in laws got us some lovely decorations toward the end of last fall when they went on vacation. I adore this little pumpkin - for some reason I get a Cinderella's pumpkin coach vibe from it. The little candle inside is a little battery operated tea light. The back side of this actually have a turkey image on it (I'll get a pick when I put out my turkey day stuff - promise), so when November gets here I'll just turn it around.

I actually picked this up at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago for $1.00. The little old lady who it belonged to was really happy I was getting it - she actually said "oh good! someone is buying my planter!" Cute, right? I saw it as soon as we got out of the car and loved it right away because to me it looks pumpkin-ish, so I had to have it. I think I want to get some small gourds to put in it but I haven't had a chance yet.

These are also from my in law's vacation last year. I love them, I think they are so cute. They are a deep orange color with a little bit of a black-ish tint to them. I have them on this awesome window-shelf we have between our kitchen and living room (I need to show you all this!) so you can see them from all sides.

I got this a few weeks ago when Doug and I went shopping. It's from Prairie Gardens (I think this is a Midwest chain maybe?) I loved this as soon as I saw it. It is such a simple, clean item and a new take on using a pumpkin as decor without it being the traditional item. That's actually a deep purple (formerly raspberry scented but too old to smell) candle inside that I've had forever. I wanted an orange candle at first but already had the purple, so I just went with it.

I actually just got these today - from the Dollar Tree! The plan is to take something at least - either the 2 small ones or the bigger pumpkin (it's a candy bowl) to work to decorate my cube. A couple girls were decorating yesterday and told my friend and I about the great finds they got from DT - so I had to check it out when I went out that way to grocery shop today. I might take all 3 to work and just see what fits and then decide. And whatever doesn't go in the cube will find a home as my casa - I can't have an orphaned pumpkin - I love them too much!

So that's a quick look at some of what I've got. I'll have more coming soon - including some incredible pieces made by my very own in laws!

House Update

So I was all set to do this last night but the Internet has been acting up.

We haven't gotten too much done with the house yet but we are slowly making progress.
Last weekend I worked on putting all of the basics away in the kitchen. We still need to paint it but it's going to be last because we know it is going to take the longest due to the wallpaper and boarder that we are going to have to remove. So almost all of the basics are put away now - I just have to go out into the garage and find the boxes with my pans in them - I kinda need those! Once the room is painted everything else will be put away. And since the kitchen is functional I finally got to bake something! I made next week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe, so watch Central Cooking for that next Tuesday!

Sadly that room has had about the most work done to it of any room so far. The other rooms are functional but don't have much put away yet. The basics are in every room, and for the most part they are in their official spot, the rooms just need to be finished. But really we're at a point where there is no point in putting anything else away until after we paint.

Which makes it a good thing that painting will be starting this weekend! We're going to paint the living room/dining room and hall on Saturday. That's the biggest area and once it's all painted we will be able to put a ton of stuff away. Then we will do the bedroom and office and finally the kitchen.

I promise to post lots of before and after pics very soon!

The Move

Oh where to start :)

So, Thursday night we signed all of our papers for the bank and had a final walk through of the house, where we learned that the seller still had a few things there but that they would be getting them out Friday. We were also told that we weren't closing at the same time as the seller, no big deal. So that night we raced home and tried to finish packing - it was a long night.

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Friday morning we closed, which seriously took like 5 minutes. Then we made our way to the new house to get the AC going and check it out. While we were there we realized that the seller had been there because some of the stuff was gone.... when all of the sudden the side door flies open and this man comes flying in asking if he can help me because he owns this house. I stammer that I was one of the new owners and that we had just come from our closing to get the house opened. About that time Doug came in the room and the guy backed off a bit, but then said he didn't know we'd have keys yet since we hadn't closed, apparently no one told him we weren't closing at the same time. He then tells us that the water department had just been there and turned off the water. Crap.

Doug had talked to the water dept. before and they had said that we would need closing papers to put it in our name, which we didn't have yet since the seller hadn't signed. But we were worried about what time they would close and had a major fear of having no water all weekend, so we took what few papers we had and went to the water dept to beg for service. The woman there was so nice! She went through all the papers we had and found something that would work. We started telling her about the run-in with the seller and she laughed and said he had seemed kind of high strung. They were so helpful, they had the water back on within an hour!

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Doug's dad had foot surgery two days before our move, so we were a mover short. However, the help we had so more than made up for it. My uncle and Doug's bff were total lifesavers. They carried big heavy items out of the rental (down the 6 steps) like it was nothing. They took our bed apart in the blink of an eye and had the box springs out before I even knew they had started on the bed. Those two guys were incredible, and we sooooo owe them. My dad helped too, he was awesome about stuffing a million things into their van, mainly breakable items or things we thought wouldn't travel well in the multiple trucks. My dad totally rocks.

Doug was awesome about getting everything packed up incredibly quickly and whisking it out of the way, that boy moves quick! And I suppose it's ok to toot my own horn a little. While the guys were busy getting all the big stuff ready to move I literally stuffed my SUV so full that there was barely room for me in there! I literally could not fit anything else in. And Saturday night Doug told me that he was really impressed with me because I had no problem jumping in and helping with moving the big stuff, carrying a million boxes, and crawling around on the floor unplugging and unhooking things. Go me! lol

And our moms and my grandma were awesome too. My mom and grandma went to the new house while we were all at the old one and vacuumed and cleaned everything. Then after we brought over the first load of stuff they started unpacking stuff in the kitchen, because they know how important that room is to me. Doug's mom was great too. She had a crazy job of helping us out and then running home to check on Doug's dad. She was great about bringing over a few things, helping for a little bit, and then running home - and she always brought stuff back every time - like Pledge for my incredibly dusty furniture, or DQ for the starving moving crew.

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For the most part the move went really well. We had been really worried about moving the fridge and stove out of the rental but that part didn't go too badly. The fridge rolled off the dolly halfway down the stairs and the door of the stove flew open on the stairs but the incredible moving duo saved the day both times. They had to take the feet off the couch to get it out and then it had to go partially over the railing to get outside, but they made it work.

The bad part came at the new house. When my uncle tried to unhook the stove that was already there the gas line did not want to come off. It took some WD-40 and a ton of elbow grease to come off and then our stove did not want to connect. I don't totally understand the problem but basically our line isn't the right size for the gas line and the connector my dad bought didn't want to fix on. We have a guy coming this morning to hook it in, thank goodness! I'm sick of fast food!

And the big issue: the fridge doors. We had to take them off to get the fridge out of the house. Well, the doors were held on by a couple brackets. When the doors came off one bracket got stuck back onto the fridge and the other went into a bag with all the screws and everything. Well, at one point on the way to the new house that bag spilled and came open and apparently the bracket came out. We all hunted through the truck for it, paced the yards at both houses looking for it, checked every box we thought it could have gone into, I even took every.single.item out of the trash bag that had been in the kitchen at the old house to look for it (and that was extra fun because the water had been shutoff - ick) - no bracket.... anywhere. Luckily Saturday morning my dad went up to the appliance store in town and found out that they could order it and that they had a similar bracket that could hold the door in place until the right one came in. So right now there is a backwards bracket and some packing tape holding the freezer door on so that we can use the fridge side. It's a pain, but considering how bad it could have been we aren't too upset.

The only other casualty was my dresser. It was already falling apart and the move just made it worse. So last night my dad brought over a spare dresser they had for me and took the old one away to use in his storage room. Have I mentioned that my dad rocks?

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So that's pretty much it. Saturday morning we brought over all of the boxes that we had taken to Doug's parents' house and got them stuffed into our garage until we paint. Then Doug grilled out for everybody who was still hanging around and then Doug and I decided to go clean up and empty out the rental. Two hours, 5 trash bags, 2 truck loads/trips between houses, and a ton of sweat later we were totally done with that house. Yay! I started taking out nails and screws last night and we're going to start filling holes to get the house ready to paint after our concerts this weekend. So look for some before and after picks to start popping up in the next few weeks. I'll try to get some pics taken of the house so you all can see it. And once we get settled I'll be back to blogging more, promise.