Fall KITCHEN Decorating 🍂 Natural Styling & Thrifted Ideas

Hi, it's Tracey. Welcome to my home here in Sussex, England, where the autumn decorating continues. This episode, we are in the kitchen, and I'm going to go big. I mean, really, really big. If you saw last episode, you'll know that I ordered hot binds to be delivered at the end of August. Now, when you order fresh hot binds, you need to take them out the box straight away, and they can be a little bit sticky, so a good covering on the floor and some gloves always helps. I ordered five in total from my local farm, and I haven't decorated with fresh hot binds since, gosh, it must be the 1990s. I'm showing my age now. You can buy them dried, and of course, buying them dried, you can buy them all year round, but I've only ever used fresh, and they're normally available towards the end of August, early September. Now, last week, we decorated in the entryway, the porch, the hallway, and this beam chandelier that I created when I did the build in the house. I popped literally just one bind up there. I didn't add anything to it. I will do over the coming months. The other place I decorated was in my office. Now, I've got this random one beam in there, and actually, I love them just draped over. The office has great views of the garden, so it just pulls that green in. Now, regulars may be wondering where Bertie was whilst all this was going on. Yeah, he's deep in thought. He's designing the kitchen, and his instructions are to get another hot bind up here on top of my big old in, but the other two hot binds, I wanted to hang above these windows, but how to create the fixings? So, off to my garage where I keep all my thingy-majigs, my whatsits, my doodahs. I've got a big box of curtain accessories. I've only got two curtains in the house, so it's a very big box. I also pulled out my grippets. I've used these to hang so many things, along with a variety of different ways of hanging. I still hadn't quite figured it out at this stage. These looked quite interesting, but they could well do the job. So, I attached them with the grippets, the plasterboard fixings, but then what else should I use? Now, I've got a slightly convoluted story here to tell you how I came about making that decision. Behind this gate is my architectural file bitchyard, as we like to call it, aka the building dumping ground, and I found a leak in the oil tank. I'd only just had it filled, so I made a very quick emergency call to my local company. They were amazing. Very quickly, they turned upon site. They brought a temporary oil tank with them. They then set up a pump system so they could pump all of the oil out of the tank, fill up a temporary tank, and also they brought a surplus storage tank with them, so none of the oil was wasted and an environmental disaster was avoided. So, once all that was done, we agreed on a replacement tank. They built a base for me, and in order to build that base, they had to pull away quite a lot of the vegetation. Once the new tank was installed, I was then just going to burn all this vegetation until Bertie, aka the designer, the furry supervisor, said, oh hello, love, look at these. Won't these be useful in the interior design work? And he was right. So, I pulled out a few lengths, and I thought, oh, curtain poles. They're going to be fabulous for the hop garlands. We've actually had a really expensive summer of things going wrong, things breaking, having to spend a lot of money to put us back into the position that we were in before, and I'll show you another example later in the episode. Back to these garlands. Now, I was able to hook each end over, but to make it more secure, I used the cupboard wire. I use it in lots of different projects, just to very discreetly tie them in. One end was really quite long, and I did pop it behind the TV to start with, but that just looked pants. So, I left that, went on and did the other side, and then decided I would trim them all off at the same length. After a good tidy up, I was about to put everything back on. Remember, this is August, and then I decided this lamp, I was going to do something with this lamp. Now, I painted this years ago. It's a mixture of chalk paint and sand, builder's sand, and it's plugged in in the larder cupboard. So, I actually drilled a hole through the wall and fed the flex through. Now, I decided I would cover it in dark wax. It's just too grey. So, I covered up the end of the flex, because obviously that had already been wrapped, and gave it a good slather. You've got to love the dark wax, folks. It just gives an instant transformation. So, for a few weeks, everything went back, and that's how it lived. Now, it's time to get all that summer out of the way, and what a perfect use for the hot boxes. All my faux hydrangeas have been bundled up in there, and off they've gone to the storage shed. Hula hoop. My son is a golf coach. He uses this hula hoop in his drills. Found it in the garage. Says, please can I have a little borrow? I don't think he quite knew what I meant by have a play with it, though. I picked up some pipe lagging from my local DIY store. This is great, because it's already got a split on one side, and I set about covering the hula hoop in the pipe lagging. And the easiest way to trim off any excess is to use a bread knife. Now, as you can see, the pipe lagging wasn't quite wide enough to cover the whole hula hoop. It's actually really quite a thick one. So, I got my old ribbon box out, all my old used ribbons, a glue gun, and some floristry pins. Now, I quite like the old bits of Hessian ribbon, so I decided, again, waste not, want not. I used the old scraps to cover the whole hoop, and I had ribbon to spare. Now, how to hang. I used some grippets in the ceiling, and then I put in these hooks. I've put in three to give me lots of options. But how to hang the hoop? So, it's back down to my local DIY store, where you can buy chain by the meter, and they cut it for you. And I've had four lengths cut. Then I went back to my S-shape hooks, and this is where my cunning plan fell apart, because the hoop was too wide now with all that foam and ribbon on it. So, none of the S-hooks would fit. But this is what I do in life. I am a problem solver. I find solutions. So, I took my big bag of strings, twines, and concocted a method to actually get the hoop suspended from the ceiling. Ta-da! It worked. The beauty of using the chain is that it's then very easy to raise and lower the height of the hoop. Now, it's the next morning, and we have woken up to the most beautiful sunrise, and it is time to decorate the hula hoop chandelier, which is what I think we're going to call it. Now, regulars to the channel will know that hydrangeas feature all the way through my decorating all year round. In late summer, I start giving them a good feel. I'm looking for that papery, waxy feel, and then I know they're going to be great to dry. You don't cut mop heads down, so when I'm taking, I take just from above a set of leaves very high up the stem, and that way it protects the mother plant. To dry them, all I do is just remove the leaves, and then I leave them in a cool, dark place for a couple of weeks, and they will dry back. Now, with the Annabelle hydrangeas, in February, I take that plant right the way down to the ground, so when I'm taking clippings to dry, I can take very long stems off those. And this is my preferred drying room, the downstairs loo, the cloak room. It's always quite a shock to guests when they visit this room at this time of year, particularly when they try to wash their hands in the bucket sink. They end up having to use the sink in the laundry room, and I should be apologetic, really, shouldn't I? But I'm not, because drying my hydrangeas takes priority. Once they've dried out in that room, they come out into vases until I'm ready to do something with them. I've got three garlands here that I have never done anything with. I've got some dried leaves, I've got some leftover gypsophila from the spring decorating, and do you remember this pampas grass? It started brown, I tried to dye it green last year, and it came out gold. I've got some dried eucalyptus, and I've also got some bracken from the field. This has been dried for over a year now in the garage. There are some faux stems, £1.99 from HomeSense, some leaves I bought years ago from the range. I've pulled out some big pine cones, and also hydrangeas from last Christmas decorating. Also the covered wire that I use time and time again, some of the floristry pins, and obviously a pair of scissors. I may not use everything, we'll see how we go. Let me show you some other areas we're going to dress. So obviously we've got the big pine dresser, we've got my white dresser, Big Mo, we've got the big island, in fact we've got two islands to do. We're also going to run all the way along those countertops, and we're going to do a whole from Amazon, so I will drop a link below. It will probably be in the brown colour though, quite how I got it to golden was a sheer fluke, or shall we say a happy accident. Now I'm finding that the colours of the hydrangeas, because I've not coloured them up yet, actually may not work with this scheme, so I'm going to run with the Annabelle. Now I'm not going to lie, this has come out slightly bigger than I was expecting, and it's really quite low, so by using the chain I can take it up so many lengths, because when I've got candles underneath, I really do not want to be barbecuing my guests. It's never a good look. Tablescape next. Now I've got a gathering coming up for six people, so I'm going to adjust the table accordingly. I love this table because I can get three different lengths out of it. When I normally have it set up, it's a nine foot table. If I take out one leaf, it drops down to seven seven, and if I take out two, it's a six foot two table. Really smooth mechanism, very easy to do. Bertie's ready for Christmas table decorating. No, you're a little bit early darling, a little bit early. Now the first thing I always do when I'm setting a table is pull all the chairs out of the way. It just makes life so much easier. What have I got here? I've got bedspread here, a bed throw. I haven't got a brown tablecloth, and I didn't really have one that I wanted to dye, but I did have this old bed throw, so I thought we'll give it a go. I've measured it so the length of the table is equal either side, but it's too bulky dropping down, so I've folded it up so it meets in the middle. Obviously, we need to cover that up, so I wanted to do a big roll down the table, you know, looking all super cool. And that didn't really work, did it? That's how it was meant to go. I normally do light, bright, airy tables, but for autumn, I wanted to create something really cozy, darker than I normally do. A little bit, dare I say, moody, but I'm not loving the edge here, so a little cunning way of sorting that out. These are actually clips that I use on food bags. Bulldog clips would do the same thing, and it's just a discreet little nip and tuck. I think I could do with one of those myself, and it just sorts out those corners, makes them look a little bit more presentable, not like you've just thrown the duvet on the table. Placemats. These originally started life as black. I've had these for years and years. I decided I'd paint them, so I used an Annie Sloan owl along with a couple of waxes, and this is how I did it. So before you rush out to buy new placemats, have a look at what you've already got, and is there a way of transforming them? I scored these stoneware jars at auction in my last shop and haul video. There were 10 stoneware jars and a big crock, which I've just made a brilliant sausage casserole in, and I got them all for £40. Now here's some tableware crockery that you have not seen me decorate with. I bought this back in 2018. One moment, where is Bertie? He's normally sat on this chair watching proceedings, but of course the chair's not dressed, and we know what a little prince Bertie is. He will only sit on furniture that has been properly dressed. Is that okay, Your Lordship? Can we continue now? Thank you. I bought it because it actually matched the colour of the island and the big larder cupboard, which is very similar to a Farrow & Ball downpipe. It's lovely irregular shapes, so I thought, dark and moody, we'll be using that. I always bring cutlery to the table in a tablecloth so I can give it a quick wipe as I lay it out. A charity shop find for you now, just 50p each, these beautiful coloured glasses. No seams on them, you know, where they've been pushed together in a mould. Lovely vintage glasses, and to go with them, another charity shop find, six glasses for £5.99. I made these napkins when I didn't have a sewing machine, when I didn't know how to use one, and I just frayed all the edges. Super simple, and of course, super simple folding for me. These faux hydrangeas were found on Amazon, and I haven't used them for a couple of years, but they've come back out this year, and I like to use them without the stems. I love the fact that they have detachable ones. Love a brass candlestick or 30. These were found at charity shops and antique fairs. Loving these balseas candles that I found on Amazon. I've bought them in several different colours. This is rustic taupe, which looks very much like a brown to me, and of course, I keep them in position with museum wax. You need museum wax in your arsenal as a decorator. It really is your friend. Now, this little sparkly votive I've had since Adam was a lad, I kept them because I kept thinking, there's got to be a time when I can use them again. So I just dropped a little tea light in, and there we go. Lovely little pop of orange for my autumnal table. These little shop glasses came from a big job lot of glassware from auction, so I thought they might be quite nice to come out, and of course, my dahlias are still in bloom, and I cut lots for the entryway decorating, and this is what has grown up since. I just love these little flowers, and they are great for drying as well. So I'll cut the stems off, and these flowers will just dry back naturally. One candle is looking just a little bit too close to that potential fire move over to Big Mo, and bring some seasonal touches to this big old gal. This twig wreath was found at HomeSense, and it weighs an absolute ton. It's really heavy lifting it up here. I loved it so much that I've actually got five of them. The bookends here are old wood planes, again found in a charity shop. It's amazing the things you can come across in charity shops. A little bit housekeeping folks, if you're enjoying this episode, please do hit that thumbs up button, and if you're really enjoying it, and you want to continue supporting the channel, please do use the new feature which is called Hype. You get three Hypes a week, and you can use it to support your favorite channels. Just press that Hype button, and that will let YouTube know that you're enjoying what I do, and in turn they will then share it with new people, or at least that's what they say they're going to do. It's a new feature. I don't know if it's going to work or not, but we might as well give it a go. This dish was found on my last shop and haul. That was a cracking shop and haul. If you haven't seen it, I will link it below. I paid just £6 for that. Absolutely beautiful, and perfect for autumn. The Fortnum & Mason basket came from the same haul. I told you it was a cracking haul. I got seven baskets from auction for just £48. Happy days. Let's move back to the big old wooden pine dresser, and I think I'm going to have to get the step ladders out again, because I want to go back up to where those hops are drying back. Looks a little bit flat to me. I'm going to add some of the Annabelle hydrangeas that are dried back in their natural state, and also some candles. Now, I found these on Amazon, the pillar candles, and they're wax, but they're remote control, so they're ideal. I'm not going to barbecue the family. Now, I will link these below, because I think they're actually really good quality. They feel very natural, and it's great that they come with the remote control as well. Now, I am getting quite a few of these little remote controls, so I've started using a Sharpie and writing a description on each of them, just so I know what it is I'm switching on My biggest regret was I only got 10. I should have bought out everything they had. Absolutely love them. Now, to the vase, I'm going to add a little bit of hessian, just to ramp up the rustic First of all, we will do the big rustic bench. So, this is an engineer's workbench. I found it at an antiques fair. I locked eyes with it across the field and thought, you have to come home with me. It took four men to lift it, but, you know, we got it home. The board I'm using there is actually a shelf out of one of the dressers, and the wreath I made with whips from the field. The big copper jug came from auction, and the coppery fairy lights are from Amazon. They've got quite a chunky battery container with them, so I wanted to hide them underneath the jug, but wasn't 100% certain that they would still work under the jug, but they did. The sensors picked it up, so happy days. We can now dress inside of the wreath. Over to the sink island, and I'm going to bring back in an old favourite. It's the brass weighing scales. Now, I used to have these in the kitchen, then they went to live in the cottage for a while, and now they are coming back in. I am going to use the faux hydrangea heads just to tie back in with that tablescape, and some more brass candlesticks, again, that tie back into the tablescapes, the candles that link back to the big white dresser, some more copper, some more hydrangea heads, big fur cones. Everything's linking together. Repeating materials creates that cohesive look. The Welsh butter dish, that hides the pop-up socket, and obviously, the decorative tea towel. Hubby still doesn't get that, but I'm amongst friends, and I know you do. Before we move over to the countertop styling, you may have noticed the eagle-eyed amongst you scaffolding outside the windows earlier. When you look at my house in the videos, you think, oh, everything looks perfect. Ah, do not be fooled. Up there on the boards, on the barge boards, you can see now on a close-up, the paint is peeling. We are more than three stories high at the kitchen end of the property, so we had to have a very expensive, tricky lift of scaffolding in order to get up to those boards, and because I don't want to keep having to do this every three to five years, we came up with a cunning plan. So, my father and son team, who helped me put together the cottage, came back in. Obviously, Bertie loved them, and they do love a good old Bertie butt scratch. We came up with the idea of actually wrapping the boards, wrapping the fascias in this, oh, I want to say plastic, but it does make me shudder, but it is a very well-developed plastic product, and it basically sits over the existing board. Now, normally, the giveaway is some very cheap clips that goes on, but we found a really great finial in the middle, so we did all the butt joints and just made it all look like wood from a distance. Now, obviously, scaffolding up, I am straight up there like a rat in a drainpipe. I wanted to paint the chimney. I wanted my nice, white, bright chimney again, and I took the opportunity to do lots and lots of maintenance, and while I was up there, I decided to paint all the windows. So, anything that needed to go white, this is the product that I used, and anything that needed to go gray, we had mixed up in this RAL 7042. The result was absolutely exactly as we wanted. It will outsee me in this property. We have got one end of the house still to do. This one, we've got a main power line coming in, so we're waiting for the power company to come in and shroud the lines so we can pop scaffolding up and get to work. Now, let's get back to these countertops. I've taken the stand away that the lamp was on because it was just a little bit too light for this autumnal feel that I'm going for, and I've brought out one of the baskets, again, from that brilliant shop and haul that I did a couple of months ago. These baskets, it was part of the group that I got from auction for just £48. Mother-in-law's window is going to come and live in the kitchen for a little while. I've got two of these, and I used the other one in the entryway decorating that I did last episode. These Victorian jugs are a set of three, and they were picked up at auction. I'm going to add just a few faux stems. These were £1.99 from HomeSense. And, of course, some hydrangea heads, although, quite frankly, I think we've got a live one here. It absolutely does not want to stay. Now, whilst I wrestle with that, let me bring you up to speed with my cuttings. I took these cuttings in July. They look healthy, and it was time to actually move them on. I was probably a few weeks later than I normally would do, but there was a decent amount of root ball forming on most of them. Some of them were a little bit skinny. Anyway, I've potted them up. They're going to live in the courtyard. It's a very sheltered area, and they will live here all winter long when, hopefully, they'll grow into great big plants and give me lots of for being here. Till we meet again, take care, and happy decorating.