Last night, we decided it was time to break out the fall decorations from the attic. Greg went up in the attic to get the box, and I laid an old coverlet on the dining room table so we could unload the loot…

As we unboxed everything… Okay, this is going to sound really cheesy and corny, but it’s true… we both noticed that for the first time, the house felt 100% OURS. It sounds kind of crazy since we’ve been living here for about 11 months now, but I think it’s because this is the first season we’re decorating for, added to the fact that we actually got our stuff out of our attic. When we decorated for Christmas, the tree came right off the moving truck and into the family room, and it just wasn’t the same.

Another thing that crossed our minds was, when we lived in our apartment, it seemed like we had a pretty hefty amount of fall decorations. But now, with 1000+ additional square feet, it feels like we have very little. By the way, it seems like someone (namely, me) has a particular love for pumpkins, you think?!

Speaking of pumpkins, I bought these white pumpkin candles from Pottery Barn two years ago. Unfortunately, they didn’t do too well in the attic. Obviously, the super hot Virginia summer was too much for them.

When we lived in the apartment, we had a small climate controlled storage unit that we used to store seasonal decorations, keepsakes, etc., so we didn’t have to think about stuff like that. Shortly after we moved, we put everything in the attic and totally forgot about these being in the fall decorations box. When I bought them a couple of years ago, I planned on lighting them at some point, but they were just too pretty to use up! I’m thinking I’ll try to repair them with a flame-friendly paint, then go ahead and use them up this year. It will be interesting to see how they burn. They might end up being really pretty – especially the large one.

As for Bentley, he has a rather odd fascination with Mr. & Mrs. Pilgrim…

After telling him “no”, about a hundred times, I put them back in the box thinking he would forget about them. But no, he just decided to pout and make me feel bad for crushing his hopes of having a set of Pilgrim toys…

Even though I like to keep seasonal decorating simple and uncluttered, we’re definitely in need of a few more things. Until then, I wanted to start with hanging the wreath on the front door.

After a closer look, I noticed that some of the berries had lost their paint…

Probably another victim of the hot, Virginia summer. No worries though! I had a quick fix in mind…

Yep, nail polish! Luckily, thanks to Chanel, I had a color that was really close to the dark berries. A dab here and a little dab there, the reath was as good as new!

Now, we needed a wreath hanger. We found this clear, plastic one that was in the box with our pumpkin collec–I mean… fall decorations:

The cheap plastic hanger didn’t look very nice on our red front door, but unlike the nicer, wrought iron hanger we have in one of our Christmas decor boxes, the plastic one actually fit over the door. So, the plastic one worked better; it just didn’t look better. Greg went out to the shed to see what we had, and we has some Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint left over from when I painted the planters for the back door. Bingo! This plastic wreath hanger was the perfect excuse to use some more of my favorite spray paint!

It actually looks like real oil rubbed bronze! An hour or so of drying time later (I know, it probably needed to cure, but I couldn’t wait!), it was on the door.

That about wraps up phase one of our fall decorating! Hopefully we’ll be making a trip to the pumpkin patch as soon as this rainy weather clears up, and we’ll definitely be making a trip to a store or two to make sure our fall decorations don’t just look like a pumpkin collection anymore!

Have you started decorating for fall yet? Is a fall wreath first on your list, too? And please tell me I’m not the only one with a pumpkin obsession…?