Simple Changes

Welcome to the Transitioning from Summer to Fall Home Tours

organized by Amber of Follow The Yellow Brick Home.

If you are visiting from Panoply, doesn't Rita style her vintage collections beautifully!

Summer actually lasts way into October in my neck of the woods

and days like this are common even in November.

The easiest way for me to transition from summer to fall is with flowers.

I have noticed seasonal changes happening at the flower stands - oranges and yellows are taking over.

With my basic color palette of blue and white, adding fall flowers is really about all I need to change things up.

Lantana from the garden changes from summer to fall simply by using an old metal container instead of a vase.

A quick flip on the old red chair turns a summer garden

into a fall garden.

The eucalyptus leaves on this wreath have faded to a dull brownish green

and simply exchanging the dried roses with wilted sunflowers

creates a fall look in the entry.

I am far from finished with fall decor, but I'm inspired - these napkins are my next project and they won't be on the table.

 I'm scouring Instagram and Pinterest for ideas for a new sign to hide the television.

How about you - are you transitioning to fall?

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Now it's time to head over to Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson to see what fabulous ideas Jann has for you.

Be sure to visit all 23 blogs for great fall inspiration.

An InLinkz Link-up

Old and Withered

"I must have flowers, always, and always"

I feel the same as Claude Monet, but it gets expensive buying fresh flowers for every room each week.

Despite having lots of flowers in my garden,

I don't want to cut them because I love seeing them in the garden.

So, I have taken to drying flowers

once they begin to fade.

This has been my drying rack - hanging in the kitchen,

but I thought it was time to read read up on drying flowers 

via

and I found this website - Johnny's Selected Seeds where I discovered that I was doing one thing wrong.

Some of my roses retain their pretty color and these hydrangeas kept their pretty green,

but white roses don't stay white.

The article said to hang them upside down and I was doing that, but they need to be in a dark place to retain their color.

I need to buy some orange roses and hang them in the garage to compare the colors of these that were dried on my rack.

These Matsumoto Asters are on day two of no water in hopes that they will dry to this pretty color.

These Black Eyed Susans in the garden need to be snipped and hung in the garage before they wilt too much.

But, I like this rustic look - they will be fun in fall vignettes.

I'm a beginner at drying flowers, so any tips you have will be appreciated.

Meanwhile, I will simply enjoy decorating with dried flowers.

Like me, they are old and withered, but still have a lot to offer.

Change Takes Time

Anyone who has followed Art and Sand for very long knows that I love color.

But, over the last few years I have switched to a white background 

with colorful accents - primarily blue.

Change takes time and we are finally done (until I get a new idea) with the living room.

Lulu is modeling her favorite change in the living room - the jute rug from Rug USA which she thinks we bought just for her to roll on.

Most of our changes are designed to make rooms seem larger so instead of a regular sized sofa we went with the IKEA Ektorp love seat.

And as you can see from this "before" photo, we placed the love seat against a wall instead of beneath the window.

I tried having nothing in front of the sofa, but I like to put my feet up so an old tool box from my dad was brought down from the attic.

Striving for a less cluttered look, we removed a cabinet from the living room and replaced it with a tall candle stick I painted.

The SUN pillow and its mates SEA and SAND had been in the dining room and I found a fun blue and white floral to break up all the white.

An old cabinet from a local shop, Tattered Door, took the place of Old Faithful (Steve's leather chair that will NOT be shown) and we gained about 24" of space along this wall.

This wall is not finished, but I just don't have any ideas yet so it is "done for now".

 We replaced the BIG overstuffed chair that matched the old sofa with a smaller chair for me and another of my father's tool boxes gives me a place to put my feet.

We have always had a white mantel, but I usually avoided showing pics of the dull brown fireplace.

Painting the fireplace white has been on my list for a long time and a few weeks ago I finally grabbed the paint and started painting.

The way I feel about our living room has completely changed.

I love the crisp clean look

and it works well with another change we made.

We did not own a television until 2013 and I have always hated looking at it even though it's a small black box.

Steve nailed strips of wood together, I stenciled the quote and now all we need to do is set the sign on the floor when we want to watch a movie - the sign hasn't been removed for about 2 weeks.

With a jute rug, new furniture, a bit of white paint and

 a beautiful sailboat from Caron's Beach House.

we now love our living room.

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