Keeping it Cozy in My Winter Hearth Room

This is the perfect time of year to look for the "Cozy" elements for our homes and personal life. Whether we're crazy about winter or not, we all want to make our homes warm and comfortable for our family. It's been cold and windy here this month so I'm sharing a few ways I keep it a place where we can snuggle up and enjoy our surroundings. 

Warm Woolens in the Garden Room

It's November; mostly cold and rainy, with gray days and a multitude of Brown. Most of the leaves have come down and been mulched by our trusty yard guy with his mower. The beautiful Maple trees with their oranges and reds are long gone, as are the lovely golds of the Hickories that cover our front yard. It seems like overnight we are on the road to winter. 

Subtle Changes Welcome Thanksgiving

I think this is my favorite time of the year to decorate. I love Fall; all stages of Fall. This is the start of the Holiday season, AND of all things warm, cozy and comfy. I'm really enjoying the change of seasons at this house. The trees are beautiful, and even the leaves that are covering the yard and piling up in the back porch have their charm.

Go-to Thanksgiving Decor

I've always loved Thanksgiving, and enjoy bringing out the cozy wool blankets in Tartan Plaids of brown, dark green, and tans, vintage Turkeys, cornucopias filled with Harvest goods, and of course my favorite Brown Transferware. I'm usually in a hurry to start decorating for Christmas, yet I never want to totally bypass this wonderful Late Fall Holiday, dedicated to love of family, friends, and gratefulness for God's blessings.

Vintage Basket Refresh for Fall

Last week I shared an old basket that I found on my latest vintage market shopping excursion, but I wasn't sure what I would do with the sad state of the finish on it. I thought about just painting it with a gray wash of chalk paint, but I really didn't want to mess with the original patina too much. 

A Little Tweaking Makes it Thanksgiving...

Hi Friends, hope you're having a wonderful weekend. My sis and I hit a couple of Christmas Open Houses on Friday evening, and to be honest, I'm totally heading into Christmas Mode. After seeing all the great Christmas goodies and vintage decor, I came home ready to start dragging out the Christmas tubs and boxes. BUT...as I said my last post, I still have some "Thanksgiving" I haven't shared here on the blog. So if you're tired of Talkin' Turkey, I give you permission to skip this one.

NO WAIT!!!

You might find something fun to tuck away until next year. Do you have a Pin Board for Thanksgiving? OK, so Pin a few of these cute guys and I have the Christmas fun waiting till next week!

Thanksgiving Sitting Area

Time for the Thanksgiving Edition 

of the Kitchen Sitting Area!

I realize that many people in Blogland may not be all that interested 

in how my Kitchen Sitting Area changes with the Holidays and Seasons.

 But since you're here, I'm hoping you can enjoy the Seasonal Fun for what it is.

Kitchen Baker's Rack...it's back!

I know many of you are thinking "Christmas" about now... me too. I'm loving seeing all the Christmas ideas and inspiration out here, and I'm making plans. I go through this every year... I get antsy to decorate for Christmas, but I can't get there quite yet. I really need to celebrate Thanksgiving, first.

I really couldn't decorate for Fall at the lease house because we were packing and moving. I put out a few things there, but being in transition, I didn't get the full effect of enjoying Autumn.

So the first thing I wanted to do as we moved in to the new house on October 31, was to bring out some of my Fall wool plaid blankets, pillows, and Thanksgiving Turkeys.

So I hope you'll bear with me as I share a little November decor.

I've mentioned that I've been able to squeeze a few of the pieces I had in the sunporch into the kitchen here, to make up for not having a sunroom or porch. The wicker settee, a wicker chair, and the baker's rack all share the eat-in kitchen space. (just like the lease house) In some ways it's better, because the sunporch had no heat or air, and by this time of year, I couldn't really enjoy it on a daily basis. If we had company or a family gathering I brought in a space heater, but otherwise it was usually too chilly.

If the baker's rack looks a little sparse, it's because when these pics were taken, I still hadn't opened all the boxes marked "baker's rack". I got to them today, but I'm planning a little kitchen spot in the lower level, so I'll have some fun displays down there.

Here's a peek at how things are coming together in the kitchen dining area. Do you remember that old chippy white door? It looks pretty small here. This room has higher ceilings than the sunporch, so it looks pretty dinky. I haven't hung any prints or items on the walls yet; I've been waiting to unpack all the boxes of prints first. I'm not wanting to make any mistakes with a bunch of holes on those "perfect griege" walls!

Our younger daughter Aly has been helping me unpack, and I couldn't have made this move without her. I've always been the person who would and could, work all night or until the job was done. I can't do that anymore, so I want to give her credit for being there when I've really needed her. Here's a pic of both my pretty girlies taken a few years ago. Aly on the left, Erin our St. Louis gal is on the right. Don't know what I'd do without them. They're the best.

OK, so I have a few more pics of Fall and Thanksgiving stuff.

I like to have the blog as a diary of my Holiday decorating,

so hope you all won't get too bored.

Believe me, I'm ready to haul in all those tubs of Christmas fun!

xoxo,

Painted Ceramic Cornucopia and a Thanksgiving Sunporch

Thought I'd share a few of the little changes that have taken my sunporch from Halloween to Thanksgiving. I brought out some of my vintage turkeys, my wool plaid throws, and my hooked wool pillows. I always look forward to this time in November to make the sunporch all warm and snuggly. My passion for plaid goes wild in the winter, and if I could drape a tartan plaid blanket over every surface I would. hmmmm.... I may have already done that.

I almost forgot that I had purchased this ceramic cornucopia on sale last Thanksgiving. I think it must have come from Hobby Lobby, and was still wrapped in paper and in the sack, as it had been sitting on my shelves in my workroom since last winter. It didn't start out white, and I bought it knowing full well that it would have to go under the white paint brush before I could use it.

Yep, here it is, not bad, just not what I had in mind for it.

Some Old White ASCP did the trick with a little shading with some gray and brown craft paint, and a coat of  Minwax Liquid Poly. much better.

I have several turkey platters; this is one of the less expensive ones.

They're pretty much to be found at any flea market in the Fall.

Keeping the platter company is my white Turkey Tureen perched on a book.

My Fall "Seed Box" I made last Spring.

Click Here if you missed how I made my own "Vintage Seed Boxes".

I'll show you how you can make one for yourself.

One of my favorites in this transition is just to layer on the wool plaid blankets. Here's one on top of an old white mattelasse bed cover that I've been using. I love using white and neutrals as a base with my furniture, but going all white out here just doesn't work. It's cold and lifeless, so it always gets loaded up with seasonal color. 

I still have a little more "Thanksgiving" to share with you (I like to keep my web photo diary up-to-date), then I'll be doing the transition to Christmas. About now I always start removing the orange leaves and adding in my evergreens. My little Autumn trees are up now, and I'm enjoying the lights in the evenings, looks so cozy. Once I get my trees up, Christmas comes in little by little.

Do you have ways to transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas without it being totally obvious to your Thanksgiving guests that you have ants in your pants for Christmas decor? 

 Savvy Southern Style
DIY by Design
From My Front Porch to Yours
No Minimalist Here
Share Your Cup at Mrs. Olson's
French Country Cottage
The Charm of Home

 xoxo,

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Leslie Janson

Nature Inspired Thanksgiving Tablescape

One of my favorite yearly posts would have to be the Outdoor Fall Tablescape that I have done for the last three years. Doing an outdoor tablescape wasn't going to happen this year as our outdoor area was completely off limits due to a new roof and minor construction, then new guttering projects. I couldn't even really decorate the front porch, let alone style a photo shoot. So I decided the next best thing would be to put my energy into doing a Thanksgiving Tablescape indoors, like I had wanted to do outdoors.

I'm a more casual tablescaper, I feel more comfortable and at home when the mood and atmosphere are created with natural elements, and in the Fall and Winter, I'm all about a good Tartan Plaid. I had wanted to build my outdoor tablescape around a vintage brown plaid blanket and I wanted to use bits and pieces of my old Brown Transferware. I've not collected large stashes of dishes like many of you who tablescape, just picking up odds and ends when I find them for a good price.

When we moved into this house there were a set of handmade windowboxes that were so charming, that matched the front of the house. But after several years of using them and the fact that ants were coming in through the windows, I stopped. They had started to deteriorate so my husband renailed the better of the two for me to use here as a centerpiece box. My big windowbox that I usually use was just too large to consider for an actual "sit down" dinner.

I wanted it full of natural elements, and since we have Thanksgiving in the afternoon, I chose not to put candles inside, but fill it with leaves, antlers, pumpkins, vines and berries, with a little nest and quail; all things you would find in Nature.

Then I gathered my only "set" of  Brown Transferware, six placesettings of J.G. Meakin of England, "Scandia", which I think must be from the 60's. I used some other unmarked white ironstone that is much older to fill in for missing salad plates.

Some mismatched Brown Transferware cups became the individual candleholders for mini clay flowerpots and a votive candle.

I've had this set of heavy amber glassware for many years, I think they must also be from the 60's and then my Heisey wine goblets that give a little more elegance to the setting. When I was younger I never would have "mixed and matched", but now that's just part of the charm of a vintage table.

I wanted to incorporate another pattern along with the brown, so my caramel stripe French Grain Sack and a set of creamy floral napkins broke up the larger area of brown plaid, also adding a little interest.

This is my silver setting from Oneida, just cannot remember the pattern.

Each placesetting included a vintage Thanksgiving postcard used for a place card, held by an antique flower frog.

Another mismatched place setting.

I wanted the feel to evoke an English Country Cottage afternoon,

 after a day of hunting.

Thank you so much for joining me for my Thanksgiving Tablescape.

I hope this gives you permission to be casual and a little "mismatched".

Enjoy your family and the blessings of Thanksgiving!

Joining these weekly parties:

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Inspiration Exchange at Yellow Bliss Road

Fill Your Cup at Mrs. Olson's

Tips and Tutorials at Stone Gable

xoxo,

Today's Sponsor

Shabby Cottage Chic