Fall Home Tour

Last Updated on September 8, 2024

Today I’m participating in the Cozy Little House’s Fall Home Tour. Brenda asked me to join in a while back, but somehow I missed her email. I found it last week while cleaning out my inbox, responded immediately in hopes to be included, and was lucky enough to have her squeeze me in. Thank you Brenda! But after she accepted, I panicked a bit. I seemed to have missed the keyword “Fall” in Fall Home Tour. Uh-oh. You see, I think I’m the only blogger on the planet who does not decorate seasonally. In fact, I barely get my Christmas tree up and decorated before December 24…insert monkey covering eyes emoji.

I thought to myself, ok, just stop over to Target and pick up a bunch of pumpkins. Call it a day. You can do this, right? Make it all cha-cha cool. Wrong. I stood there staring wildly at the pumpkins, and then thought to myself, what on earth do I do with these? See, I told you I’m not a seasonal decorator. And then I thought to myself, duh Kyla, at House Of Hipsters we keep it real. We don’t pretend to be someone we aren’t, amirite?

So today I’m sharing with you my version of a Fall Home Tour…and by that I mean, this is really what my home looks like during Fall…Winter and Spring and Summer. You will see no beautiful white pumpkins or fancy autumnal leaves or stalks of corn beautifully tied with a sash. What you will see is my home and how it looks all the time…the real deal. You’ll see faux peonies, a lot of flea market finds, and rooms that are constantly changing. Styling and restyling are my jam. My home is ever-changing not because of seasons, but because I’m a flea market and estates sale lunatic fanatic. Every weekend I wake up at the crack of dawn and soon enough I’m hauling treasures into the house.

Since you probably came by the way of another blog and may be unfamiliar with House Of Hipsters (HOH), I’ll be telling you a bit about myself, and how and why I decorate with a fun mixture of mid-century modern, vintage, and new. Also, if you’re looking for a source, please leave a comment below, and I’ll try my best to let you know where I snapped up my goodies. Let’s get crackin’, shall we?

Since you’re my guest, I thought it best to start with the guest bedroom makeover. It’s one of the most recently revealed design projects. The entire room was put together with ease, and I’m absolutely thrilled with the end result. The space was also just featured on The Huffington Post…yep, I was dancin’ all day long son! You can read more about the bedroom makeover here.

I love the guest room so much that I keep asking The Boy to swap our primary bedroom for this one. It’s the natural light, bright whites, and texture upon texture that has me saying, “Clutch the pearls, I love this room!”

Fall Home Tour

Even though Decorist designed the room, I was able to add in a couple of my own personal touches. I’m a Mid-Century Modern vintage gal, and I shop a lot at Chairish, AND I love the Chairish Instagram Sales. If you don’t follow them on Instagram, please do. They always update you on when the next sale begins. It’s a fast and furious 2 hours of #SOLD and fast fingers. In other words…tons of fun! The sheepskin and mud cloth pillows and the vintage wedding blanket are all from Chairish. As well as that little black framed artwork over the nightstand on the left. Here’s a closer look.

It’s a pencil drawing of the cutest dog and what makes it really special is that it’s from the personal collection of one of my interior design idols Orlando Soria. If you don’t know him, he used to work for my all-time favorite interior designer Emily Henderson…I swear, if I ever met her in person I might pee. (If you’re new here, check out one of my many I Make Emily Henderson Cry posts. They’re pretty funny and one of my favorite series to write. If I were to pick one for you to read, I’d choose this one here.)

Now I mentioned my master bedroom above, but I have yet to show it to you…this is where you can see the heavy Emily Henderson influence in my home decor.

This room has such a fun story. Earlier this year, I was contacted by a national magazine to publish my master bedroom. Now, this was super weird because at the time my master was U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi. It didn’t look like this nor did I have any intentions of working on it any time soon. BUT, I had mentioned in an old post that it was on my to-do list. I also said that it might never be completed. Suddenly this room was on the hotlist. I enlisted the help of my internet bestie FleaMarketFAB. The conversation kinda went like this, “Hey Jen, I know we have only spoken through Instagram and you don’t really know me, but hey, wanna help me design my bedroom?” I had the base set but needed some serious styling help. The space HAD to be juicy. It had to be perfect.

She drove over 7 hours in her big red van through horrendous Chicago traffic to shop and style it out with me. We finished it in 1 weekend. The timeline was completely crazy and we were delirious by the time Sunday rolled around. We shopped ’til we dropped and partied with wine and Craigslist…you know 40-year-old lady stuff. We be crazy. Long story short, some weird stuff happened with the magazine, and it kinda got lost in the shuffle. I’m okay with that. It’s still is one rad room, don’t ya think?

See, I told you you’d see some faux peonies. I don’t disappoint. (Oh and that greenery on the highboy dresser above, ya, faux plants. Anything real fears me.) The bangles on my nightstand are from the flea and one of my favorite vendors sources them on trips to Italy That pink Kantha blanket is from the same flea. Randolph has some bonkers good treasures. Be there or be square.

Back downstairs, you wind up in the entryway. This is where you’ll find the prettiest pendant light you ever did see.

At night it sets off twinkles of light that bounce around the entire foyer. It kinda reminds me of a disco ball. It was one of the first purchases I made for the house. To this date, it’s one of my favorites. As far as vintage finds go, rattan has been my jam lately. So much so that I’ve been grounded from bringing any more rattan in the house. But seriously, how much do you love this rattan club chair with the wooly sheepskin draped over it? It’s so soft and cozy and inviting! Add in twinkle lights at night…it’s just a heavenly spot.

If you read my home tour on Refinery 29, you’ll know that the artwork on the walls here is not really artwork at all. Each portrait is a vintage mug shot photo from the 1960s. When I found them at Three Potato Four I became obsessed. I snapped up as many as I could afford, but once they arrived, I couldn’t decide what to do with them. Originally I thought of framing each individually but opted for this instead. Let me tell you, the framer over at Michael’s thinks I’m quite the oddball. I know this because he told me so. I giggled. He’s a hoot.

This vintage barrister shelf (a Randolph Street Market treasure) is a revolving door of vintage treasures. Rarely does it look the same from month to month. However, right now I’m loving all the pops of turquoise. Paired with the over-dyed rug, the foyer presently packs a punch of color to anyone who walks in the front door. The vintage foo dogs were a must-have during a Chairish Instagram Sale (best advice I ever received, never turn down a matching pair of vintage foo dogs. You’ll regret it. If you take anything away from this post, heed that advice.) and the flamingo paint by numbers artwork was a recent estate sale find for a whopping $4.

Well, we’ve made it into my family room. This is where we hang out and watch Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry (yes, even the cartoons are vintage) with my two kiddos. My daughter, Little Maus (she just turned 3 last Monday), and my son, he’s 5 going on 14 and thinks everything is “laaaaame” when the older neighbor boy stops over for a play date. He also dressed to the nines when the cute babysitter visits. The last time she arrived, he held the door for her and said, “Ladies first” in his suit at 6:30 AM. The kid cracks me up.

More rattan! Surprise!!!! Seriously, who can resist a Franco Albini ottoman?!?!?! Come on, give me a break! Insert laughing so hard I’m crying emoji here.

This faux bamboo brass shelfie was the score of a lifetime! Summer Thornton hosted her very own flea in her Chicago studio, and it was the first item I snatched up during the sale. Fitting it into the car was an experience filled with blood, sweat, tears, and A TON of curse words. There also might have been a frantic phone call to The Boy. I was also verbally assaulted by a bicyclist who was unhappy with my choice of parking spots. But a thrifter’s gotta do what a thrifter’s gotta do. Completely worth the pain and suffering. It was also a lesson learned — always bring the jacked-up monster truck, and never bring the tiny SUV.

Again, more faux peonies. To be clear, I love fresh flowers, but they just don’t last. I’d much rather spend my dollars on nonsense at the flea market. The most expensive item above is the lucite tray above. The brass pineapple, small vessel, brass key, and antlers are all vintage, flea finds, or handmade items. The brass vase with the faux peonies is a clearance $3.00 Nate Berkus for Target score. I write this because so many people think I spend a small fortune when in reality, I’m quite the bargain hunter. The key to thrifting is patience. It’s taken me almost 6 years to get to this point. 

photo via everyday charming

Can you pick out the vintage flea market scores in this photo? *Jeopardy theme song plays* Three, two, one…yep, the bar cart was one. It’s a Society Social Mrs. Lillian bar cart that I saw, paid for, and ran away pushing it as fast as I could. I didn’t want the seller to change her mind. Ha! Kidding…kinda. They had just marked it down to half the asking price which was incredibly low, and they knew exactly what they had. I’m too honest and always tell people when they need to be charging more for vintage. I feel too guilty. They had it sitting in a corner. I don’t think any buyers noticed it sitting there. (That is also a good thrifting tip. Look at the walls, in corners, on the floor…you never know when you’ll find that perfect vintage Persian rug for $25 smackers.) Also, the Heywood Wakefield chair was a Craigslist score. The vintage Division – Downtown bus roll signage…you guessed it, thrifted. The pillow, mint, and white print and vases are from Unison.

We are now rounding our way to the patio. This space was a true labor of love. Some of it was built once, ripped out, twice built, ripped out, three times a lady rebuilt and it was finally finished. Yes, you read that right. THREE TIMES! Was it worth it? Yep, damn straight it was. After three years of working on it, it’s finally finished. Now, this is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE place to hang out. It’s quiet, backs up to a horse farm. It’s woodsy. Peaceful. The Boy and I like to sit out here by the fireplace. We enjoy a lime in the coconut cocktail or two and just watch the fireflies for hours.

The outdoor fireplace was the one piece of the puzzle no one wanted to talk about during the build. None of us knew how it was going to work, so it was the very last piece to be built. We finally found an outdoor gas insert and our carpenter, Luke, built basically this really pretty box to go around it. The Boy made a concrete form for the frame. Luke was an absolute gem BTDubs. Knowing I’m a freak for vintage, he salvaged a cedar barn beam and laid it in as the hearth.

So there you have it. My Fall Home Tour! Phew! Are you still with me? Sorry, that kinda became a novel. If you are, I’m completely honored you stuck around, and I really hope you enjoyed a peek into my home and my little life. Brenda, thank you again for including me in the Fall Home Tour! This was such fun!

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