Fall Porch and Garden Decorating

 So far it has been a very rainy and unseasonably cool fall, but at least this week the weather cooperated long enough to get the outside decorating going.  I was so excited to finally get to use some of the new (old) things from the flea market and summer yard sales on our porch and landscape for fall decorating.

 Here is the before:

I started by taking everything off the porch

I added an indian corn and autumn berries spray to the front door. I like to use indian corn each year because its appropriate from August through Thanksgiving. This year I added the berries to dress it up.

Then I added the usuals--mums and pumpkins and some fodder shocks (cornstalks)...

And a little red wagon...

 We'd had this vintage Radio Flyer wagon sitting in the basement since we brought it home from the flea market earlier this summer. With all that rust  I knew it would look very "fallish" and would be perfect to load up with lots of fall goodies. I used some grapevine, striped mini-pumpkins, and that big ol' ghostie, along with  an old 7-up crate stuffed with autumn kale, mums, sweet potato vine, pansies and more white and orange striped pumpkins. The white ghost pumpkins are a good choice for our house because they seem to really pop out against our dark gray siding.

I found the 7-up crate last weekend for $3 at the flea-market. We have started to acquire quite a collection of soda crates but I think this one may be my favorite because its white, which I have never seen so I couldn't pass it up. I think it will look great filled with vintage Christmas ornaments too, but that's another post!

After Thanksgiving I plan to bring the crate in and add it to our collection so I definitely don't want it to get ruined during fall. We don't have a covered porch so when it rains I just stick an umbrella over it. I lined the inside with a large Turkey roasting bag to give it a little waterproofing and I kept all the plants in their original plastic pots to protect the crate as much as possible.

My husband wondered what I had planned to do with the fireplace surround when we bought it at a yard sale for $10. To be honest, I didn't know exactly where it was going either but I knew I'd find a spot and as we junkers know, when something speaks to us, we buy it and there doesn't always have to be any real logic to it. So anyway, when we got home that day and started unloading our junk finds on the porch, I realized it would look great right there (for summer I had a large, vintage red and white enamelware pot filled with flowers sitting where the canning pot is now.)

I have talked a little about that spooky rocking chair in my 31 days of Halloween post. We found the chair at a yard sale for $10. The lady who previously owned it had purchased it at an auction so who knows where it came from or who or what had rocked in it before. We had it in the basement but every time my husband walked past it he got a little unnerved so I stuck it on the porch for a Halloween decoration. I have to admit,  it truly is creepy...

Our early 1940's cottage is very unique, especially the way the porch was designed with three separate landings and two sets of stairs. It can be a challenge to pull it the decorating scheme all together cohesively without it looking repetitive but that keeps things interesting and fun for me to decorate. Here is the first set of stairs which leads to a landing and onto a garden path under the large picture window where my window box is now dressed for Halloween.

The second set of stairs turns and leads to two more landings. This little section is my favorite with all the plants, urns and garden ornaments 

This is a picture from 2010, where I lined the stairs with Lumina (ghost pumpkins).
I wasn't able to find enough decent ghost pumpkins
this year so I decided use blue and green
pumpkins and gourds along with traditional oranges instead.

The view from the driveway

The large cinderblock wall was a real eyesore when we purchased the home three years ago. (None of the plants or urns in this picture were here and grass did not grow due to heavy shade.) The large wall, porch and siding were all painted a light blue-gray and all the paint was chipping ( Regardless of my love of chipping paint, it did not look shabby chic---it looked skanky chick, and so the look had to go...) The wall still looked pretty blah until we found the old tin crown molding at the flea market and made a planter out of it. It added a lot of charm to the walkway and everyone seems to love it.
http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2011/10/salvaged-antique-crown-molding-planter.html

One giant pumpkin is all that is needed to add fall to this part of the porch

This year's Great Pumpkin is "only" 80 lbs

Love this warty pumpkin in our mossy celtic pot, very magical

This year the porch walk seemed to take on its own magical color scheme with purples, blue-gray tones, and mossy greens. A frog hopped out of a witch's brewing cauldron just in the nick of time and is recouping on the bluish-white pumpkin in the garden.

This spooky owl ($1 yard sale) is perched and waiting for that frog to hop around the corner...

(If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2011/09/fabulous-fall.html to see more of my fall garden decorating.)

Linking up to: http://fishtailcottage.blogspot.com/search/label/Outdoor%20Fall%20Decor