Autumn starts to show her colors.....

There is a buzz in the garden that autumn has come...

Our New York Asters (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii) are in glorious bloom. They have taken over a large area and put on a great show to say goodbye to summer and herald in autumn. The bees are enjoying a final summer feast of nectar.

There is such an overflow of flowers that I even put them in a vase to create an instant autumn table on the terrace just outside the living room. 

And our hydrangeas put on a great show over the summer but are not quite done showing off now with pretty rose tints to welcome the fall. 

There are touches of autumn in our front garden too. I love opening the bedroom curtains in the morning as this table display greets me as I start a new day...

Heidi

Vacation is hard but fun work.....

Our summer vacation has ended and was wonderful from start to finish. We started with a long stay at Cranberry Cottage. It was so quiet and peaceful which is something we needed. Our goal was to do a project which was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest leading me to this blog post. Thank you Ronda for sharing your brilliant idea! It worked a treat on a wall we were unhappy with at the cottage.

We have a great deal of sunlight that shines on this wall. After wallpapering, we found out that direct sunlight will cause vinyl wallpaper to shrink and pull away from the wall while the paste is drying out. The same wallpaper in the guest room was no problem but here it has gaps and a few bubbles. But my problem is that I LOVE this wallpaper and do not have enough to redo it. It is not a paper that is available any longer. So how to fix the problem and be able to salvage something I love??? 

Ronda's idea of creating a grid was just right! We painted thin wooden slats. We sanded them after painting to give them a worn look. Then measuring first the vertical lengths, we divided the wall into four sections. The horizontals were then glued into place creating 5 sections. We were lucky that we did not have to created the trim around the wall as it already had a trim. We simply painted it to match the slats. 

Both Jos and I are thrilled with the results. It really creates a nice feature wall. We got rid of a couch that was far too large for the room and brought our sheep leather chair to take its place. Our next project is a mantle for the fireplace. Humm...time to look around on Pinterest once again.....

Heidi