After many months it's finally time to show you the inside of our "new" house! I'm going to start with the dining room since it's all ready for fall. I'm also so excited to show you the historic reproduction wallpaper we just finished! We moved in last December and this is our first fall here so it still feels new to us. I plan to do a better before and after post when the dining room is completely finished so this isn't a true "reveal" but it's ready enough for a virtual tour, so come on in!
I'm sure many of you will recognize our farm table. The original post has been extremely popular and has been repinned and clipped over and over. You can see the original post here:
http://junkaholicsunanimous.blogspot.com/2013/09/10-find-antique-farm-table-and-fall.html?m=0
I love it in our new house!
It took 7 months of living in the house for it to speak to us about what it needed. It was built in 1924 so after living with greige walls for a while and trying to keep up with modern decorating trends we decided that while the greige was popular and worked as a neutral, it just didn't do anything for the house. With all the dark woodwork and history it was just missing something. I kept researching homes of the twenties and realized the blah feeling in the dining room could be completely changed with wallpaper. We looked at several historic, reproduction, period inspired papers and decided on this one-
We love it! I said I would never use wall paper again after the nineties, but in this house it is absolutely perfect.
After all whites in our last cottage this was a huge decision and as you probably know, the historic style papers are pricey so it was a big risk. We went for and have no regrets! The dining room has the old house "feel" no it should have, and it's just wonderful.
I didn't think my ironstone would work at first and was planning to move it all to the kitchen, but it looks even better than it did on the neutral walls. It really has an authentic historic feel with the paper and antique French country and farmhouse pieces.
We finished the papering just in time for fall decorating. I've kept it simpler this year and just concentrated mainly on my buffet. I will do more with my tablescape the closer it gets to a Thanksgiving.
Like my previous house, the buffet sits in front of windows so good pictures will always be tricky. These are iPhone pictures so quality isn't as good as I had hoped. I think the buffet looks much nicer in real life but you can probably get the idea.
I tried combinations of opening and closing blinds to get the best picture. Maybe my real camera will be more true to life. I'll try to get some better ones for upcoming Halloween posts.
I still wanted that taupy-greige in my house so I repainted the tired white buffet in a nice DIY chalk paint I had with leftover colors from other projects.
For the buffet I chose dark burgundy hydrangeas, blue pumpkins, green acorns and a garland of dark blueberries with some pine cones and other small gourds and leaves. I used my Johnson Brothers "His Majesty" turkey dishes as color inspiration to tie it all together.
I normally wait til November for these, but I have really been working to do simpler decorating and the pattern on the dishes looks wonderful with the wallpaper, so I went ahead and used them for now. The great part is all of this will work through Thanksgiving with only a few little changes in between for Halloween.
All the burgundies, blues, greens and burnt oranges look beautiful with the taupy-grey paint on the buffet. I normally use dark orange bittersweet in my displays, but this year I went with an almost black, faux blueberry pips garland and I just love it! A few autumns ago I found some wild, dark blue bittersweet along the side of the road and I've been smitten with the darker hues of fall ever since.
The addition of my vintage green rooster really gave the buffet a French Country feel. My mom is a
rooster fanatic and I just can't compete with her fabulous collection. I actually didn't have a single rooster until recently, because I've just been holding out for the perfect one. I found this guy second hand and I just love him. He may not be a turkey but for early fall he looks great.
I love how this all came together with minimal fuss.
Whether real or faux, I'm crazy about blue and green pumpkins!
The best part of this year's fall decorating is how cheap and easy it was. I have many health challenges so I can't keep up with twelve totes (no exaggeration) of fall decorations and lugging them up stairs and packing them back up and so on. Actually I got rid of most of it when we moved and surprisingly don't miss any of it. I'm really into the using what I have in creative ways mode and only buy a few new little things now for seasonal decor. I did find this cute sign at Dollar Tree. It had a glittery frame thing around it that I didn't like but I loved the vintage postcard image so I just removed the glitter thing. I really like it displayed with this ironstone platter and for $1 I like it even more!
On the wall opposite the buffet, I left my salvaged antique mirror/buffet shelf with my everyday
ironstone arrangement. I already had my brown transferware on display and it works especially well for fall, and it looks even better with the new wallpaper. I added a couple of pumpkin tureens and a new (junk find) old brown ironstone pitcher. Love this simplicity!
At first I added fall sprigs of leaves and berries to a couple of the pitchers but it really was too much. I am loving it simpler, just like this.
I reserve this little unmarked orphaned mug and saucer with a fall scene only for display in autumn
each year. I love patterns featuring English country and pastoral scenes.
For a simple centerpiece I used an old brown transferware urn and some ironstone platters stacked with a candle, small green gourds and antlers.
Love the "urn" filled with a faux autumn kale. If it's a chamber pot I really don't care! Repurposing is all the rage...
The dining room is definitely cozy and I am sure it will really come alive for the holidays with the new wallpaper.
I hope you have enjoyed this first ever preview of our dining room!
I will leave you with a little sneak peak picture of a couple of upcoming blog posts about this fabulous painted area rug my husband did in the dining room and the wonderfully-warm persimmon paint I custom made for the living room that just pulled the whole house together. I hope you'll come back soon!
Amber
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