Light and bright fall home tour

I am so excited to finally get to share my light and bright fall home tour with all of you! I filled my home with DIY ideas, fall crafts, low cost decorations and simple ways I transformed my home for the coziest season of them all!

Before I jump in I want to remind you of my ongoing kitchen remodel. This means there is only the tiniest of glimpses of the kitchen in this home tour. I will be sharing my plans, progress and getting your opinion on a ton of kitchen related things on Thursday. Be sure to check back for that!

The other big changes to my home is the actual layout. This time last year we had a formal living room/dining room combo. I called it the great room. There was also a cozy family room and my kids art table in the kitchen. Because of the kitchen renovation and us closing the doorway into the living room from the kitchen it no longer made sense to have the dining room in the living room.

All of this will make more sense as you see my home. I just wanted to give you a fair warning of the changes in this light and bright fall home tour of mine.

As always my home is packed with fall crafts and DIY ideas! It is the way I keep the cost low to decorate my home and make it uniquely mine. I will be linking any DIY projects or crafts featured in this home tour at the bottom of this blog post.

On a fun side note, I am finally tackling updating this gallery wall. I wish my kids were this teeny tiny but they are not. My middle child; Caleb turns 10 on Saturday! Eek, time to get some new pictures on this wall. I am even toying around with the idea of changing out the picture frames. I have had these black and bold frames for a while. Calm and simple is calling my name in my home lately, so something a little more subtle would be nice.

Another big factor in my fall home decor is bringing the outside in with nature inspired elements. I decorate year round with a lot of rustic and nature items. My friends always have a random birch tree bark or cool stick they found and know I will use in my home. Fall brings out that nature theme perfectly.

This year the big difference is the simple and less is more stance I took to my fall decor. We all know I love pops of color, but fall kicks off such a hectic time for my family. Having things be light and bright for my fall home was needed. I incorporated gray, white, orange and a little yellow.

Here you can get a feel for how my home changed. Take a look back at my fall home tour from last year to see the difference. I loved the layout before, this room is massive and can handle a lot. But the living room like this with the beautiful fireplace as the star of the show feels really good.

You guys, I am loving this gray and white with pops of orange look to my fall decor! Each year seems to have a mind of it’s own in my home and this year I am feeling the simple, light and bright fall decor so much.

Last year I purchased some new fall art from a few Etsy stores. I had to get creative with how I decorated my fireplace mantel because of the navy blue shiplap.

Going all out with red, orange and yellow felt like overkill on the fall theme. It also did not blend well with the deep blue of the shiplap. So I have understated fall happening on the mantel now.

All of this easily transitions into Halloween also. I will be sharing my Halloween home tour next week! Yes, it is decorating whiplash this time of year and you are all along for the ride!

My home is a constant work in progress and this space is proof of that. I adore the blue shiplap but both sides of the fireplace needs work. I love the herringbone bookshelf I redid but the other side is lacking. Long term I want to make beautiful built in bookshelves on either side of this fireplace. My home is slowly becoming craftsman style, through sheer stubbornness and force from me… but I am making it work!

We purchased this house from my inlaws over 10 years ago. It is located in an amazing neighborhood, was less than 10 years old at the time and we are so lucky to live here. But, it was not our home style choice when we first purchased it. I have slowly been adding the character and charm into it, one DIY project at a time.

Another thing that has taken time is getting the right decor. Here is the perfect example of how I decorate for fall. Most of this bookshelf is decorated with simple ideas, crafts and easy fall projects. This allows me to decorate completely for each season without breaking the bank. Each year I add in a few new pieces, slowly growing my fall decorations into something that really does fit with my decorating style.

One thing I am excited for is the cooler days ahead! We love starting a fire, cozying up and watching a movie on these cold fall days.

We entertain a lot this time of year too, between my son’s birthday, Dale’s birthday, and neighborhood trick or treating we have a lot of people hanging out around here. I adore a full house this time of year!

One thing that I love hearing about my home is how comfortable and relaxing it seems. Here on the blog or when people are visiting. This is exactly what I want my home to feel like! When I first started decorating for different seasons I stuffed my home with seasonal colors and themes. It never felt authentic to our family or home.

Now, I know I was going the traditional route and taking away the part of the home that makes it feel like us. The bright, calming and relaxing feel to it was gone during the holidays. Having an explosion of pumpkins, gourds and leaves made it all seem like clutter instead of fall decor.

Over time I have found that happy balance of decorating for the fall season without compromising on my homes’ authentic style. We are young, active, lively; the music is always on, feet are always resting on furniture, loud belly laughs happen a lot, we live here. This is our calm from the storm of life and even fall needs that relaxing feel to it. Keeping to my typical color scheme of blues and grays while adding pops of fall colors work perfectly

I also managed to make my love of all things coastal decor work for fall too! This is also something that took me time to get right. When I first started decorating our home I hid away all that made this home feel like “us”. Blue, busy patterns and shells got put away until after the holidays. But this is how our home feels natural and I found ways to make it work!

Here is some of my infamous sticks that friends give me. This one came from our friends backyard, they were cutting down some bushes and thought it was a cool looking spiral of sticks. I loved them and have used this in my home’s decor for a few years now.

Here is one of my easiest fall crafts ever! I spray painted some leaves purchased from the dollar store. Some are white and some I left with the typical fall colors. They work perfect as filler for these gold lanterns.

This light and bright fall home tour almost did not happen. I had my home fall-ified for 2 weeks, but we got hit with storms, clouds and the sun decided to disappear. There was no way I could make it work to take pictures of my home. Finally the clouds parted and the sun shone into my home! Home decor blogger problems for sure.

Here we go people, this is where things really got changed around in my home recently! You can see the tiniest of sneak peeks into the kitchen. Also, the unfinished bigger entryway into the kitchen. The space is not done yet but I am loving the new flow of my home already!

We now have this dining room that was our family room for a while. This room has never felt “right”. Before our kitchen renovation there was only a small doorway opening up into the kitchen from this room, so it never felt very dining room-ish to me.

Now it is open to the kitchen and also the living room. I adore this space so much more, it finally makes sense as a dining room!

One other thing I always prioritize in my dining room is to make the fall table decor be realistic to life. I drool over those fancy tablescapes seen online like everyone else but they don’t work for the day to day life. I keep my dining room table centerpiece low and simple.

This dining room table is where we come together most nights, if my kids sports and activities allow it. Knock knock jokes are said here, giggle fits, talks about our day, homework is done here. We need a no fuss centerpiece for the dining table. I want to be able to see my kids across the table, nothing too tall or fancy works here at all.

One place I am excited to share is the wall where the current kitchen cart is will become a wall of built in cabinets with storage. Becoming a bar/coffee station. The cabinets and counter top will match the kitchen. This is my plans, but first we need to finish the kitchen!

I kept things really simple in my dining room. The blue ceiling and darker gray wall color is enough drama going on.

I do love this room so much now!

I don’t have much else to share other than our main living areas. I do not decorate bedrooms or bathrooms for fall. I wish I was that kind of decorating obsessed person and had my life together enough to do that.

The only inkling of fall in this part of my home are these adorable fall art my kids made a few years ago. They sit in the corner on this table that has not moved from this spot since we bought our home 10 years ago. If it ain’t broke…

Ok, here is the first glimpse into the kitchen! This picture was taken with me standing in the kitchen and facing the newly appointed dining room. The sink and stove are behind me. That beautiful hunk of wood is our new kitchen island! Just ignore the construction zone entryway. A pretty transom window and frame will be there eventually.

It is really hard to describe my home without showing the kitchen, I am doing my best to explain it all. This little dreamy spot is in our kitchen, we call it the sun room now. We have a sofa in our kitchen! It is my favorite spot to work during the day, so bright and cheery with a beautiful view of the back yard.

With the kitchen being under construction I added just a tiny pop of fall in this room.

Look to the bottom left of the picture and you get a glimpse of the island cabinet. One day this spot may become a cozy built in window seat, but for now the low, narrow and long sofa fits perfectly in this space!

Ok, here is more than a sneak peek. This is our kitchen island, not even close to finished yet; but very functional! The stools will be painted a different color, the columns and also the island front will be different as well. The live edge island counter top and the island light is the only thing that will remain as-is once this room is done.

Seriously, it may not make sense but this sofa in the kitchen is amazing and gets used all-the-time around here. I know the layout does not make sense right now because I am not sharing the kitchen. When it is finally done I will do a complete walk through of my home to explain it all. Just know right now it is a hot mess of tiling, painting and adding the finishing touches.

More on the kitchen and layout of my home later, we are for the light and bright fall home tour today! I kept things simple, a subtle fall feel this year and am loving the calming results so much!

If you are looking for a specific furniture redo, DIY project or craft I am providing most of the project links at the bottom of this post. Putting it all in one spot instead of you having to dig throughout this home tour blog post seems like the easiest option. I tend to get long winded and anyone here for something specific can just scroll to find what they are looking for. Let me know if you are looking for anything that I do not have linked, I tried to include it all but could definitely have missed something.

This fall home tour is done! For the rest of the week I am planning my sons birthday party. We will have six 10 year old boys here for a sleepover… wish me luck! I am also going to drive my family crazy and decorate my home for Halloween, the birthday boy has requested a spooky home for his B-day party and this Mama plans to deliver! Which means this week is all about my Light and bright fall home tour and next week will be all about my Halloween home tour. I warned you on the decorating whiplash this time of year, hang on tight… Christmas will be here before we know it!

For now let’s just enjoy the wonderfulness that is the fall season and this Light and bright fall home tour!