Fall Decor

Halloween and Fall decorating is something that feels fake when you do it in southern California.  The weather doesn't seem to go with season and September, October and apparently November we still have 80 and 90 degree weather?  But that being said, I still do it!  I don't go all out but here are a few of my fall vignettes.

So if you haven't done it yet, throw out a few pumpkins and add some fall leaves or branches.  Fill a few jars with candy, cute cupcake liners or anything that makes you think of fall!!

Happy Decorating!!

Hyder's Hideaway

One of my dreams is to have a second home. Of course, it would be at the beach or maybe on a lake or something. It doesn't even need to be big. I would take the tiniest little cottage even! I am not asking for much here. But if I ever do get that teeny tiny cottage, I would love to decorate it in a completely different style than what I have in my normal house. I just think that would be so fun.

Well our friends the Hyders, who were once Temeculans but then abandoned us for the swanky lifestyle of the Bay Area, are living my dream right now! But we Refresh Your Nest gals are lucky enough to be able to live part of their dream by decorating the "cabin" for them! I guess we are living vicariously through them, but hey, it's a whole lot of fun! And since this is partly our dream we decided to give them a place that looks totally different from their home in NorCal. Here it is in all its before dreariness- but don't you just love a blank canvas???

The original idea was furnish it with the essentials, beds, comfy couch, kitchen table - pretty much the bare bones. The goal was "Cute but Cheap". Little did they know that is our speciality! And little did they know that bare bones is not in Bobette's vocabulary!

Welcome to the Cabin as they like to call it! Here's the entryway and the NYC picture (darn glare!) that was the inspiration for the living room/game room.

Now don't you go worrying, we have plans for that chandelier!

Would you call that bare bones? But guess what? It is cute but cheap!

Let's go to the Kitchen/Dining Room!

Beautiful mantel courtesy of Doug Child!

There are big plans for this kitchen looming in the future. For now, cute but cheap!

Now head upstairs ... three bedrooms and two bathrooms. These weren't originally part of Refresh Stage One, but Bobette made it possible by snagging all kinds of great bedding on clearance. I am telling you if there is anything good hiding in that clearance section, she will find it! It's definitely a gift.

All ready for guests....

Now that was fun! Thanks Hyders - Enjoy!

Old with the new... my favorite kind of decorating!

This is not a house we decorated just a house I love! I feel like this house could be any of ours with the hodge podge of things grandma gave us and mixing it with some new paint and accents, then add a few choice purchases when the budget allows and here it is!!

Love this simple yet such a pretty kitchen.

Shows that 2 paint colors can touch and not be seperated by trim or molding!! (a rule I have broken again and again)

Makes me wanna have a baby... wait I mean decorate a nursery!?

I swear Kristi has this exact plant and pot in her house?

Not a fan of the lamps but all the rest just works!

Kristi just did these stairs in her house minus the runner. Love the wall color!

OH MY GOSH!! If I could blink and put all this in my room like I dream of genie I would! The rug, the bench, the big pillows in place of a headboard, the sunburst mirror, the two-tone linen slipcover chair with velvet it looks like?!? The wood floor? K you get it... I want it!

Honestly?!? My loft is this big and is full of $*#&. :) excuse me

And this is Mary Best who owns this house and all that goes in it!! If anyone knows how to put a link on this blog so I can do the cute... go HERE.... and then its a link?!? Please tell me because I need to be able to give credit to all the right people!

Models R Us or if you wanna get technical Just like the Model

Look past the ugly pillows and coffee table and these are cute. Couch is 599 and loveseat 499.

I receive emails each week from this place up in Costa Mesa called Just Like the Model. They get items from different models apparently. Anyways their stuff is not always the cutest but usually pretty cheap!! I saw these couches and thought they were really cute and thought I would share with anyone who is reading this blog. You would probably have to go to the store tomorrow or saturday because the nice items usually go fast.

A long time ago refreshing.....

This is what Brigette and Garrett's dreary room looked like before :

Just as a disclaimer this is my first blog ever and I was a blog mocker, quite openly, I mean just the name blog makes me think of silly names we used to make up as children to call each other our favorite being "plobville ala king". So you can see the resemblance. Anyways I just wanted to point out that I have no idea what I'm doing and that is why the pictures are all over the place. Anyone have any clue how to move or delete pictures once their on your blog please enlighten me!!

So our good friend Brigette decided like 3 days before her husband returned from his duties in Haiti as an interpreter/all around good guy to decorate her "love nest" as a surprise to him. (which my husband thinks is just a way to spend all that money and decorate however you want without your husband bugging you or influencing your decisions, and that's a "surprise"!?!) He is quite cynical as you can see because us good wives would never, ever think like that ;) Anyways so Brigette with some encouragement and excitement from us decided to go forth with this project and the shopping began. Luckily her husband was delayed a few days because I think we ended up having like 5 days instead of the 3 we originally thought!! It was a lot of fun even though it might have included in no particular order: unbelievable amounts of shopping and returning, a husband and grandpa hanging curtains and mirrors, an all nighter with banana bars and diet coke as our only friends, some forced on stenciling that was in the end LOVED, a new found love for decorating that was never known, a new friendship that is now moving to Australia (no judgement) and I'm pretty sure a husband that was happy and felt loved & missed while serving the Haitian ( Haitcian Haitsion sp?) people!!

Here is the before bathroom:

And here is the after with the stenciling and all....

This is the after bedroom which is amazing and no paint on the walls at all... (it's a rental)

Krissy's Refresh!

My friend Krissy wanted to refresh her living room and dining room recently. She was tired of the dark heavy curtains and just wanted to lighten everything up. She had already bought some really cute pillows from Pottery Barn. That gave us an idea of what she liked and what direction she was headed and we took it from there. Here's her room before:

And ta da! Wow what a difference! She pulled down the curtains and she said it was like taking a big breath of fresh air. Don't you just love that feeling of - CHANGE!

We looked for new chairs, but ended up just deciding to have them reupholstered. Didn't they turn out great? And could that rug be more perfect?

And a peek over to the kitchen, which just happens to be the next project!

Of course it is hard to stop at just one room, so the refreshing spilled over to the entryway and the guest bathroom (pictures of the bathroom later!) Here we are before with the typical buffet table lamps. But we decided to change it up a little.

We really liked the picture so it stayed. But we took out the lamps and added some fun lanterns instead. We lucked out by finding the perfect coral-orange colored baskets that matched her Pottery Barn pillows. Sometimes it is skill, sometimes just luck! The adorable bench was a Marshalls find. We fell in love with the vase at HomeGoods and knew we could find the perfect spot for it.