Decor: Entry, Mantle, and Coffe Table

If you'd like to know why I haven't gone through the house to take after pictures it's because it's a mess right now and I've been too busy crafting (i.e. avoiding cleaning) to clean. It's also not completely finished. But I promise I'll get us some progress pictures as soon as I get my butt into gear.

However my favorite holiday is coming up, and if you follow me on Pintrest (which I have been going a little overboard with lately) you'll know it's HALLOWEEN! I've picked up a few Halloween decorations over the years but we've really never had enough disposable income to really get some fun stuff until this year. I went a little crazy on Zulily and I have a bunch of fun stuff coming. I also have been crafting, and of course I can't wait to get out the decorations that we already have.

That all being said I decided to take pictures of our console tale, mantle, and coffee table decorations before I take them down (which I did the second I was done taking pictures) and put up the Halloween stuff (which I've started on.)

We have a little nook to the right of our front door next to the entry closet that was the perfect size for the console table that we already owned. Apparently in other houses like ours this (tiny!) area is a half bath, but as much as I'd LOVE another toilet in the house that'd just be too crazy of a project. And I like the way this looks. :) The large mirror is from Hobby Lobby and came with two smaller mirrors that are now next to our wedding guestbook print on another wall. The metal "B" also came from Hobby Lobby a few years ago.

From left to right: a fun hanging frame I got from Target many years ago with one of our engagement pictures, a vintage "silver" bowl I keep sunglasses and coupons in, the dagger N got for being in his best friend's wedding, one of my Scentsy warmers, the lamp that I really need to get a new shade for.

Those white frames are from Ikea, and there was a vertical one with another wedding picture in it, but I accidentally dropped it and broke it! I really need to pick up more but actually going to Ikea is such an ordeal. There's another "silver" bowl (I have money), and a milk glass urn from Good Will that I'm still not sure what I want to do with.

I keep random odds and ends in those baskets, and the white square underneath the table is our scale. Our bathroom is too small to keep it in and we like to keep a running "unofficial weigh-in" of our baby and puppy. (27 and 70! pounds respectively.)

(Please forgive me for all these horribly crooked pictures, I was totally going to straighten them in Photoshop and then...)

This is one of my favorite Dan McCarthy prints, and right now the only one that's been framed- I have a TON more that really, really need to be framed. Funny story, he's by far my favorite artist and I stumbled upon his website and artwork in high school when I was going a project on McCarthyism! This print is called "keep it secret. keep it safe." and if you look really hard you can see seven small figures walking through the hills. I am a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan so this is just beyond perfect. I also have my favorite Vonnegut quote above the painting- it's a custom wall decal. This one is brand new as I needed to get a new one after we painted. I couldn't find the font of my old one again so I chose this. I don't love the font but I like it enough.

The cream colored owl I got from Good Will a few weeks ago. I originally had planned on spray painting it black and using it for a Halloween decoration but now I'm in love with it. The silver one is from Target last year.

I got these great jars as a wedding present from Crate & Barrel. I had hoped on keeping real plants inside them but that ended in a terrible failure. I have a total black thumb.

I got the hurricane jars as a gift with purchase at Ulta (weird, right?! I forced N to take me to buy perfume in order to get those) and also hoped to keep live plants in them, but yeah. Now candles live in them and I'm trying to figure out what to do with them for Halloween. I found another matching one at Good Will last week too! The frame is also from Good Will and something about it just made me have to have it. The very next day I was at Target and you won't believe it, they had those EXACT frames on sale for $10 more than I paid for it! Score!

My dad brought N that dagger back from Nepal when he went there last year to climb to Everest base camp. The framed certificate was given us to by N's best friend Travis from when he was serving in Afghanistan. Travis said he would get N a flag (N is very into flags and patriotism) and N had Travis get it dedicated to N's dad who was murdered in 2010 (a few days after we got back from our honeymoon.) The craziest thing about this? October 28th is N's dad's birthday! That was such an incredible coincidence!

Here is our coffee table that lived in our family room until R started walking and it became more pain down there than it was worth.

Right now I just have a small vingette on it. The book on the botoom is called the "Atlas of Remote Islands" and I got it earlier this year in a Fancy Box. The "silver" plate is from Good Will, the skull is an old vodka bottle that my parents gave me and I spray painted, the jars are from Urban Outfitters many years ago, and the milk glass bud vase is from Good Will. I just got those fake flowers yesterday and they are leftovers from my latest Halloween craft.

I've never really done any decorating in my life as N and I have never really had the space or the money. I'm still working on finding a style and collecting things that are neat enough to display, and of course I draw a lot of inspiration from some of my other favorite design blogs (I'll have to make a post about them soon!)