Fall Decorations, Some Hand-Built By Me

I got started a little early, this year, with my fall decorating outside. The weather has been so perfect and I came across pumpkins and mums at a local Menonite store. I checked Craiglist and the local paper and found some straw bales nearby. I went to a couple of auctions and found some goodies to use. I also decided to re-do my scarecrow.

Here is the front of the house. 

The old barn door was an auction find. I cut a piece of barn board from our old barn and painted the sign. It turned out pretty cute.

Next is the area in front of the shop. The huge tractor wheel is from the 1920s and another auction find. I only had to pay $15 for it! I love this arrangement!!

Then, as I was proudly showing off my decorations to Mr Farmer, he said, "I think we should build a cabin in the center of the driveway." We have a circle drive with a grassy center and an ugly utility pole.

Well, the next day, I set to work. I climbed into the barn loft and retrieved a pile of barn boards from our old barn, an old barn loft door, and an old barn window sash. I took all the supplies to the shop. I began with the back wall (the cabin front). Once that was built and in place, I went to work on the porch floor. I used boards that were very old and some were rotten. I didn't bother to cut their ends off or make them the same length. I wanted my cabin front to look old, handmade, and a little bit wonky. Kind of like an old hermit went out into the woods and built it himself years ago. The porch posts were next and then the roof joists. I headed down to our other barn and retrieved some of the roof tin from the old barn. By this time, Mr Farmer was home and he helped me cut the tin to size and screw it down. (My poor arthritic hands were done!) He went off to do another project and I "hung" the door and window. I just backed the window with wax paper and black construction paper. All that was left was the decorating, which I finished up the next day.

The potato sack, chair (super cool, old folding chair!), rake, tin tub, washboard, and potato fork were all auction finds at one point or another.

The cabin front took me about 8.5 hours to build altogether, by myself. I am still sore days later! The entire time I was building it, though, I knew Mr Farmer would have done it differently. I knew the way to build it so a tornado wouldn't move it (his way), but I didn't want it all straight and square. I wanted it to look run down. I'm very proud of it.

And finally is the front door/ porch area. This was done later as I cleared out the flower beds for the winter. Another old tractor wheel and the cream can are both from auctions. Actually, all the tools, etc. are from auctions, except the potato fork. We found that at the Salvation Army for $1.99!

The cats have made themselves at home amongst the decorations.