Before & After of my dining room Buffett

 

A fun little "before" & "After" of some thrifted furniture! As we've been putting our dining room back together after the kitchen remodel, I've tried to keep it minimal (which for me is HARD! haha). However, I did want to find a long and narrow buffet to add a little more storage to our space for the kids crafts (easy access next to the dining room table!). I had seen an inspiration pic on Pinterest that I liked, and kept my eyes out on FB marketplace. 

One day, as I was looking...I saw this piece! It had great bones and fit the bill for the space! I did have to drive a little further to get it, and it was covered in these huge nasty big spiders (which deterred me for like two seconds, but I had already driven 30 minutes so wasn't turning back haha!) I carted it home and then decided to paint it white, so I picked up my favorite chalk paint from Home Depot and went to town! 

I love using chalk paint because I'm not a perfectionist and I hate prepping things (ie: sanding, etc). So chalk painting allows me to just do a quick dust and then start painting ASAP! (a quick dust and a few minutes to spray and kill all the spider, ewww!) 

I really loved how it turned out. It's a nice addition to the room, and now provides awesome storage for all our kids craft bins! Woo hoo!! 

Happy Fall Ya'll!!! A fun little snippet of Fall ideas, recipes, books & decor

Last week, Avonlea looked at Kevin and passionately declared,,,

“Dad, it’s not fally enough. The leaves aren’t changing, they aren’t falling off the tree, nobody is decorating, we’re missing all the parties, we’re missing all the groups over. It’s just not fally!!!”

Kevin and I almost lost it laughing, we were just so caught off guard at her impassioned speech! 

So, we realized we needed to up our Fall game with this girl (who by the way, is a total season loving, decorating girl after my own heart! Made me so happy to hear her declare she needed more decor and parties haha!). 

So, the first order of business was to decorate our house! I had been so inspired by a staircase I saw on Pinterest that was decorated with pumpkins, so knew I wanted to try it on ours. Because I'll probably decorate like this every year, I decided to do a mix of real and fake pumpkins. Hobby Lobby was having a great deal with 50% off Fall decor, so I bought a larger fake pumpkin for each step (I tried to find the most real looking ones I could!). Then, we went to Trader Joes and bought about 2 small pumpkins for each step. I also bought the real flowers at Trader Joes too:) 

Then Avonlea and I had a decorating date! I let her arrange the pumpkins on the stairs (and explained to her to mix up the whites and oranges, as at first she grouped them all by color haha! so cute!). Then I snuck the flowers into her pumpkin arranging! What fun we had together admiring how "Fallish" the staircase looked! 

Next, I told Avonlea we could have a Fall party. I texted a few moms with friends Avonlea's age, and told them I'd have chilli for dinner, along with Fall crafts for the kiddos. The night of the party, I served hot chili and apple cider, and had apples and Carmel dip, as well as brownies with orange sprinkles for the kids. I had also bought small pumpkins for them to paint, as well as little wood leaves and pumpkins for them to color (got those at the Dollar Tree! win win!)

I also have collected Fall books to pull out each September for the season...these are our favorites: 

Sharing the Bread (an old fashion thanksgiving poem which I adore!) 

Cranberry Thanksgiving (this was one of my favorites as a kid, but its kind of strange when I read it as an adult...anyone else? haha) 

The Pumpkin Parable (my kids LOVE this one, and I do too!) 

Give Thanks to the Lord (this is probably my other favorite Fall book, I LOVE IT!) 

Thanksgving is for Giving Thanks (a very sweet one where kids talk about what they are thankful for) 

I'd love to hear what your favorites are!! 

Some of my favorite Fall meals right now are: 

One Pan Autumn Chicken Dinner Recipe (oh my goodness, I love this one! I use chicken breast though) 

Paleo Zuppa Toscana Soup (I make this once a week in the Fall & Winter...soooo good) 

The Spatchcock Chicken from Trader Joes. It is a whole marinated chicken and I put it on a tray with chopped carrots and sweet potatoes and roast for an hour! mmmmmm.... It's literally the easiest dinner and looks so fancy! Perfect for company!! 

We are working on our halloween costumes and I'm so excited for it. This will be our exchange student Yukino's first Halloween, and she's excited to dress up which makes me happy:) I just love dressing up! 

Would love to hear how you are celebrating and ringing in this new season:) xoxo