{seasonal style} Fall Home Tour

Today I am so excited to be participating in a fall home tour with more than 35 other super talented bloggers, each with a unique style.

If you are visiting from one of the other blogs participating in the An Autumn Welcome Home Tour – WELCOME! I am thrilled to have you here and I hope that, if you like what you see, you’ll follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, and also consider signing up for email updates {using the sign up box in the top right of your screen}.

Before we dive in to the tour photos, I have a confession. This is the first year that I’ve really decorated our home for fall. I used to think that in order to decorate for each season, a home needed to have a fairly neutral color palette. And since our home is far from neutral, I didn’t think that my style lent itself to seasonal decor.

Our modern living room and kitchen are in shades of grey and teal {my favorite colors}, and throughout most of the year, the living room features pops of bright pink. I love this color combo, but last autumn, I noticed that, when the leaves outside changed to shades of orange and gold, the contrast between outside and inside felt a bit jarring. I really enjoy walking around our neighborhood in the crisp air with the fall colors all around, but then I would walk through the front door to bright pink pillows and summery flowers. It just didn’t feel right. That got me thinking…

When I told my husband that I wanted to switch out pink accents for fall colors, I think he initially envisioned a very traditional autumn color scheme, which would explain why he looked at me like I was crazy! And while shades of brown, rust and burnt orange might not look good with our teal and grey decor, I knew that I could find other colors that would look great!

A few weeks ago, I posted 10 non-traditional fall color palettes, and I used two of these color palettes as inspiration for our fall decor this year. But rather than telling you about it, why don’t I just show you?!

I didn’t go all out in decoratating our front porch for fall, but I did want to add a little something, so I purchased two peacock feather wreaths on sale at Michaels and hung them from orange ribbon.

The contrast of the teal feathers against the orange ribbon gives a hint at the color scheme inside.

So let’s go in, shall we?

Inside the front door, you are greeted by a long entry table.

I swapped out my pink, summery flowers for fall leaves in one of the three tall vases on the right side of the table.

On the other end of the entry table is a new lamp that I purchased just a couple of weeks ago {on sale at Target}. I’ve been on the lookout for a lamp for some time, but just couldn’t make up my mind. That is, until I found this fabulous fillable lamp!

I filled the lamp with wine corks for a natural and neutral fall look, but it will be fun to find creative ways to fill and refill the lamp base season after season.

Next to the lamp sits a simple white pumpkin and my favorite silver and orange bowl {which normally lives in our basement family room}. I finished off the simple entry table display with a handful of edge colored burlap leaves {tutorial coming soon}.

The entry area is open to our living room, so let’s take a look in there next.

My style is modern and somewhat minimalist, so I kept the fall updates in the living room pretty simple. I swapped out the black, white and pink pillows on the couch for teal, orange and gold. The teal and orange pillows I already owned {I just shopped the house}, and the gold pillow I picked up on sale at Target.

For the chairs opposite the couch, fall decorating finally gave me an excuse the by the gold, white and grey felt patches pillows from Target that I’ve had my eye on for a long time!

A simple white vase full of vibrant orange blooms sits on the mirrored table between the two Barcelona chairs.

Since we have two toddlers, I have to keep the coffee table stying to a minimum, and anything that does sit on the coffee table has to be kid friendly. A few years ago I purchased a fun tic tac toe board with white and teal “x’s” and “o’s” that my boys really enjoy playing with. Rather than putting the game board away for the fall season, I decided to instead replace the “x’s” and “o’s with pumpkins.

The pumpkins are extremely lightweight, so they are safe for my little boys to play with. I purchased them from Hobby Lobby, and they were originally bright orange before I gave them the metallic treatment. You can read the full Pumpkin Tic Tac Toe tutorial here.

I wanted to add something else to the coffee table to give it some height, so I picked up three tall candle holders at Hobby Lobby. They were originally bright yellow and lime green, but I grabbed some left over paint from our utility room paint supply stash and quickly repainted them in three shades of teal. Paired with orange, gold and grey candles, they pull together the entire color scheme of the room.

Two more orange and gold candles on the floating photo shelves add a pop of fall color to that corner of the room.

If you noticed that the framed painting on the wall above the chairs perfectly coordinates with the fall color scheme of the room – well, it’s not actually a framed painting at all. It’s a television on which we often play a DVD of 50 of the most famous paintings from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). When taking these photos, I simply paused the screen on the painting that best matched the room. Tricky, tricky!

Since the kitchen is separated from the living room, there was nothing dictating that I use the same fall color scheme when decorating in there. Like the living room, the kitchen also has teal and grey walls, but unlike the living room, the kitchen has some navy blue accents. Rather than adding orange to the kitchen decor for fall, I decided to go with a peacock feather color palette by adding a few pops of golden yellow to the existing teals and blues.

I don’t normally set a fancy table {unless I am hosting book club}, but since I was having some many guests over today {all of you}, I decided to go all out!

But before we take a closer look at the fall table setting, let’s talk about the bar display in the corner of the kitchen.

In case you are wondering what those white straps are on the front of each of the sideboard doors… they are child proof locks – this is real life, people! 🙂 Just pretend that they don’t distract from the decor while I rest easy knowing that all of the glass serving ware behind those doors won’t get smashed on the floor {not today, anyway}.

But, back to the bar display. I love our collection of blue glasses on those cool curved shelves. The sideboard below provides a nice surface for serving during parties, and it also provides a great place for decorating. When thinking about what kind of fall decor I wanted in this space, I decided to keep it pretty simple and tie it in to the bar theme.

I started by turning three empty wine bottles in to shiny, metallic vases. {Make sure to read the full tutorial on these vases for a super helpful tip on removing wine bottle labels.} I filled two of the vases with cotton branches, and the third with small peacock feathers.

Continuing the bar theme, I used three wine glasses as candle holders by filling them with popcorn kernels and votive candles. The popcorn adds a nice pop of golden yellow, and brings a natural element to the modern display.

I also relocated my silver bowl full of wine corks and match books to be a part of this fall bar vignette.

Finally, my very favorite part of this display is the DIY “Fall In Love” canvas art that I created using scrapbook paper and spray paint. This is the piece that really sets the stage for my fall kitchen color palette, and it was so much fun to make!

All of the fall leaves on the top of the sideboard are cut from the same scrapbook papers that I used in my canvas art. Even more of these leaves hang in the long, thin window above our dining table, creating the appearance of falling leaves. {A tutorial on this falling leaf window garland will be coming soon.}

Ok, now let’s turn our attention back to the kitchen table. The centerpiece features two dark blue glass pumpkins that I bought on clearance at the end of the season last year. I love the way they look contrasted against the gorgeous golden sunflowers from my favorite neighborhood flower shop, The Ruffly Rose.

The teal placemats and square, blue plates are our standard dinner fare, but the yellow and grey paisley napkins are a new addition for the fall.

Those cute place cards are another simple DIY project {because I just can’t get enough of peacock feathers}, and I’ll share that tutorial soon as well.

Before you go, I have one last quick spot to show you. In our upstairs hall we have a fun display of black and white prints in brightly colored frames that hang above a small black and white striped chest {in which we store items that don’t fit in the boys’ small adjacent bathroom}. Throughout most of the year, two white vases with pink gerbera daisies sit on this cabinet, but for fall, it seemed the perfect place to display a collection of black and white pumpkins that I purchased at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago.

This is the only place outside of our main floor where I added any fall decor, but I just love the way the black and white pumpkins play off of all of the other black and white patterns.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my fall home tour! If you want to see even more of our home, I invite you to take the full tour of our first and second floor. Tours of the basement and third floor master bedroom are coming soon, so sign up for email updates if you don’t want to miss those.

Still wanting more fall decorating inspiration? You’re in luck, because below you’ll find the links to more than 35 other amazing home tours spanning every decorating style.

An Autumn Welcome ~ Monday, September 22, 2014