source: SkipSteuart

I wanted to let you all know that today is my last day as the editor here at Simple Nest, as I will be stepping away to focus on Organizing Your Way and my family.

At this time, we do not have another editor lined up for Simple Nest. However, if that is a position you’re interested in, you can head to the Simple Living Media site for more information.

Simple Mom and Simple Kids continue to thrive as well, and you’ll want to watch for more exciting announcements from the network in the coming months!

All the best,

Photo by avmaier

It’s easy to overlook the outdoor extension of our homes as we head into winter. The flowers are done blooming; the leaves are changing and falling from the trees. Usually landscaping and gardening is associated more with the spring thaw, but here are a few autumnal landscape jobs to keep your lawn and garden ready for winter and looking great next spring.

1. Pruning.

Fall is a great time to prune woody trees and bushes and flowering plants. When bushes are free of leaves, it’s easier to see the shape you are pruning, and you won’t be interrupting the growth cycle in the spring. The same holds true for flowering plants. I will be cutting back my hydrangeas this fall so that the new growth in the spring will be full of flowers and I won’t need to worry about pruning drooping branches with top-heavy flowers.  Be sure to do your pruning in early fall to give the plant time to heal before the frost comes and cold sets in.

2. Planting shrubs, trees and perennials.

By planting these in the fall, you are allowing the plant to focus on growing a root system because it is not spending its energy growing leaves or producing flowers, as that cycle is already passed. An added benefit of buying plants in the latter part of the summer and the early fall is that nurseries and garden centers are usually clearancing out their stock. Deeper roots for cheaper prices and less work in the spring when there is always too much to do; it’s a win-win-win.

3. Planting spring-blooming bulbs.

Probably the most common and well known landscaping done in the fall is the planting of early blooming bulbs, such as daffodils, tulips and hyacinths and irises. Get them in the ground before the first hard frost and be sure to get them in at the correct depth to prevent freezing while in the ground. Getting your hands dirty will be rewarded when their blooms adorn the yard before anything else next spring.

Photo by Vince Alongi

4. Compost.

The leaves falling from the trees make a great base for your compost bin, breaking down and turning into a wonderful fertilizer for your spring gardening projects. You can avoid having to pay to have your leaves picked up and also reduce the cost of purchasing it in the spring. You can make your affordable compost bin for under $15.00.

5. Cleaning.

Fall is the season to spend a little quality time cleaning off your gardening tools to keep them in good shape for next year. Making sure they are free of dirt and other grime can extend their life and prevent rust. Give your tools a thorough cleaning to maintain them and save money by not having to replace them. If you aren’t sure how to clean your tools, step-by-step instructions can be found at eHow.

6.  Cover up.

Young and sensitive plants, like some evergreens, may benefit from a protective cover during the cold winter months. Burlap is a great barrier from the harsh winds of winter. If you are worried about perennials, try letting the dead, above ground portion remain and avoid removing it until next spring. It will provide a barrier from the cold. You can also cover your perennial garden with leaves to give an extra layer of protection. In the spring, simply rake away.

Do you landscape and garden in the fall? What do you do to prepare the outdoor area of your home before winter sets in?

Shaina is the home cook and wannabe photographer behind Food for My Family, where she shares recipes, tips, opinions and her philosophy on food as she wades through the process of feeding her family, her friends and anyone else who will let her.

source: Pottery Barn

Since orange was the only “ROYGBV” color we hadn’t yet covered as part of the Splashes of Color series, I thought it would be a good one to feature this week, especially as we approach the official start of Autumn tomorrow!

source: Apartment Therapy

Orange is really a very versatile color. It’s bold and bright and compliments modern and contemporary design.

source: HGTV

But it can also be used in a more traditional style to add warmth and depth.

source: Real Simple

And as the seasons go, nothing ushers in Fall like incorporating orange into your centerpieces, wreaths and floral arrangements.

source: Remodeling Center

Whether you’re looking to add some fun to a family or rec room…

source: HGTV

Or create a warm and inviting outdoor space…

source: Pottery Barn

Or just add a splash of color to an otherwise neutral room…

source: House Beautiful

Orange is a color that can be incorporated no matter your style!

Do you have orange accents in your home? Is it a color you’ve thought about using more?

Source: Room and Board

The following is a guest post from Shaina at Food for My Family:

Do you mix and match wood tones and textures in the same room? While it can be easy and convenient to buy a furniture set, mixing different pieces from thrift stores or garage sales can be thrifty and cost-efficient. However, ease of decorating and thriftiness are not the only reasons you could choose to either match wood grain or not. Your decision to mix or match woods in a room could be to obtain a particular style, theme or feel you want while decorating and designing your home.

Source: House Beautiful

The matching dark brown wood of the furniture in this living room brings warmth and comfort when contrasting the painted cement block walls and the blue floor.

Source: House Beautiful

This living room mixes wood texture and tone as freely as it does color and patterns, giving an updated look to the more traditional style of the furniture.

Source: 4 Little 1s

Nurseries are always so much fun. The clean-lined furniture set is accented throughout the room with reds and blues, continuing the modern feel.

Source: HGTV

This nursery pulls the colors from the wall mural right into the whitewashed changing table, the natural tone of the crib and the light hardwood floors. The result is classic and comfortable.

Source: Remodeling Center

Mixing pieces and styles in the table and chairs, china hutch and bench give this dining set an eclectic feel while staying in the same wood tone.

Source: Better Homes & Gardens

Whereas this dining room creates its artistic feel by pulling together different styles of chairs and contrasting textures and wood color.

Source: House Beautiful

Bedroom sets are a popular option to give instant style and a clean slate for adding your own touch through colors and accessories.

Source: West Elm

This bedroom manages to pull together several texture and wood grain pieces to give it a cohesive style all its own.

Source: Country Living

Pairing the classic bed and the shabby chic dresser brings a country romantic feel to this sunny room.

If mixing woods in one room isn’t your thing, Arizona designer Elizabeth Spengler suggests mixing them throughout the house. She shares her technique on the American Hardwood Information Center’s website.

“Elizabeth also advocates a mix of different wood species throughout the house, such as a rift-cut oak in a contemporary kitchen with birds-eye maple furniture in the dining room and olive ash burl pieces in the living room.”

“Even hardwood floors in adjacent rooms may vary ‘as long as you use some transitional device to make it work,’ Elizabeth says. Her favorite: a border incorporating the wood species or color from the floor next door. ‘Just make sure there’s enough contrast to show you mean it,’ she says. ‘Near-misses don’t make it.’

My house has both matching wood tones and rooms pulled together with different pieces I fell in love with or owned already. My kitchen and connected dining room are all maple, while both my living room and family room have been pieced together.

What is your design preference? Do you mix wood tone and texture in the same room, or do you prefer keeping the same wood varieties and types segregated to different rooms of the house?

Shaina is the home cook and wannabe photographer behind Food for My Family, where she shares recipes, tips, opinions and her philosophy on food as she wades through the process of feeding her family, her friends and anyone else who will let her.

source: House Beautiful

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. I mean, is brown really considered a “splash of color”?

Maybe not. But I wanted to do it anyway because chocolate brown is my absolutely favorite color to use in our home, and I wanted to see what I could find.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

What I realized is that what makes brown so wonderful is that it can be a splash of color itself (in an otherwise light-toned room) or serve as the perfect backdrop to make other colors stand out in a more dramatic way.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Jonathan Adler shares 15 Fabulous Design Tips on MetHome, and 2 of them revolve around browns:

“Chocolate brown and baby blue are perfect together. They’re uptown, they’re downtown, they’re classic and fashion forward.”

“Let go of coordinating colors. Colors can’t clash. However, when in doubt - brown is your foundation. Brown with red is innately chic.”

source: Remodeling Center

I love how airy and light this room feels. Not necessarily words you’d associate with brown, but I think they pulled it off!

source: Country Living

It’s also a cozy and warm color, and I love how this room blends a more traditional leather couch with so many modern touches.

source: House Beautiful

Okay, a lot of this room is brown, but what really caught my attention was the brown zebra print stool/seat. You already know I like things that are subtly funky, and that pretty much defines it for me!

source: Country Living

I love how this gorgeous brown vase highlights the colors in the roses.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

And this wreath is so very elegant and inviting!

Our home is very modern/minimalist, with lots of white throughout. However, I love our chocolate brown floor, and we love to accessorize with chocolate brown pillows, vases and accessories.

What about you? Do you use chocolate brown in your home?

source: Remodeling Center

Is that not the cutest little house?

source: Better Homes & Gardens

I’ll admit that I’ve been dreading this post ever since I typed out the words “navy blue” on my last one. I was afraid that all I was going to find were traditional, masculine rooms, and I couldn’t have been more wrong!

source: Country Living

I absolutely love this combination of colors. I never would have thought green and blue could be paired together so beautifully, but I think it adds such a warm, homey feeling to this room!

source: Remodeling Center

And if I was worried about navy blue being a masculine color, this bedroom defies that stereotype. It’s beautifully feminine and delicate — and also light and airy — adjectives I would never have associated with navy blue before I started searching for pictures!

source: House Beautiful

I think this is my favorite use of navy blue. Not necessarily this room in particular, but the warm, cozy, inviting feeling that it adds. It makes you want to sit down with some friends over coffee and dessert or curl up with your family to watch a movie!

source: House Beautiful

This kitchen embodies that same feeling (and I love the accent of the sunflowers on the island and the peaches on the window!). It manages to strike a perfect balance between traditional and modern.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

Of course navy blue will always be associated with nautical themes as well.

source: House Beautiful

But I’ve realized that it’s really such a versatile color, for indoors or outdoors!

source: Real Simple

And of course we need our token picture of navy blue combined with silver and white just to prove my theory that any color can be chic and modern in this combination!

Do you have navy blue around your home? Did any of the pictures above challenge your previous thoughts about the color?

I haven’t decided what color we’ll talk about next week yet, and I want to hear from you! What color would you like to see featured in the Splashes of Color series?

source: Crafty Nest

I’ve been holding out on you for a few weeks, which means I’ve got some extra links to share this time!

Decorating

:: More Creative Uses for Shutters, The Inspired Room

:: School Room Fun, New Every Morning

:: Oh Symmetry, Oh Suwannee

:: Area Rug Uses, Sizes and Tips, HomeWorkshop.com

:: Vacation Inspiration: Built-In Bunk Beds, Ohdeedoh

:: Memo Boards with a Multitude of Fabric Choices, Jeri’s Organizing & Decluttering

DIY Projects

:: Paint That Bad Brass, Our Suburban Cottage

:: Sharing Your Goodwill, Living with Lindsay

:: Old Dresser = Rolling Tool Cabinet and Craft/Tool Station with Wall Organizer, Crafty Nest

More Great Links

:: Rethinking What Makes a House a Home, On Simplicity

:: Lazy Perfectionist, Nesting Place

Have a wonderful weekend!

Our first nursery...I was such a baby at the time!

When our oldest was born, we had a fairly large laundry room (6′ x 8′ or so), and instead of giving up either our guest room or office, we chose to move the washer and dryer to the garage – which is fairly common in southwestern Utah where we lived – and convert the laundry room into her nursery.

My dad painted a beautiful mural for us, and we ended up replacing the ceramic tile with a custom wood floor. We left the overhead cabinets on the opposite wall to use for clothes and storage, and we used the small built-in counter in the far corner as a changing table.

I loved that nursery, and when we moved back East, I cried over leaving it behind. The hammock chair was one of my favorite features, as it was an incredibly comfortable place to sit and nurse for middle of the night feedings!

Our current nursery, ready for our newest baby girl

In our current home, our master bedroom is on the main level, and the girls’ room and a guest room are on the second floor. We wanted the nursery to still be its own space, so we decided not to finish the master bedroom closet as an actual closet and use it as a nursery instead.

It’s smaller than our former nursery, with just enough space for the crib and a tall, skinny wardrobe from Ikea, but it works perfectly.

Last weekend we finished decorating it for Sidney’s impending arrival, and I’ve probably spent hours just looking at it and imagining her in there. I love it! We have the wardrobe just inside the door, which is plenty big enough for her clothes, and we have storage underneath the crib for blankets, slings and carriers and other miscellaneous storage. I do miss the hammock swing, though!

We’ve loved having these tiny spaces dedicated to the tiny people in our family without having to give up an entire bedroom in order to have a nursery. I love having them close to us but still being able to have a dedicated (and adorably decorated!) nursery.

I’d love to hear about your nursery. What is your favorite feature? If you don’t have a nursery, tell us about your baby sleeping arrangements!

source: Metropolitan Home

I probably should have been more specific on what shade of pink we’d be talking about today, like I have with the other colors in the Splashes of Color series, but the truth is it’s not exactly easy to find pictures of pink outside of little girls’ rooms and nurseries.

source: Remodeling Center

This light shade of pink is the color I originally had in mind, and I think this room is a beautiful example of using pink to create a calm, peaceful atmosphere without being overwhelmingly feminine.

source: Remodeling Center

On the other hand, I just couldn’t skip over the pictures showing splashes of hot pink. It really is such a fun color, and I especially love it when paired with oranges and greens.

source: Remodeling Center

It turns out that muted tones of pink makes a great accent to a neutral room.

source: Country Living

And at this point I’m starting to think that any color looks chic when combined with whites and silvers.

source: Country Living

Bright pinks are definitely bold and daring. They draw your eye and make you look twice.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

And while pinks will probably always be associated with little girls’ rooms and nurseries…

source: Real Simple

I’m definitely going to be on the lookout for other places I can use them around my house as well!

How about you? Is pink a color you use in your home decorating? Do you think of it as a very feminine or childish color?

Next week, we’ll balance things out with a look at navy blue!

source: marcomagrini

This time I really don’t have any splashes of sunflower yellow in my home to share with you. When I chose it for this week’s theme, I was looking at a jar of sunflowers on my kitchen counter that my husband had brought me, but somehow I neglected to take pictures of them!

source: Remodeling Center

What I love about sunflower yellow is it’s such an invigorating color. If I was playing one of those games where you say the first word that comes to mind when given a prompt, my response to sunflower yellow would be life.

source: Country Living

It’s bold and bright and beautiful, and although it’s a color of summer, I think it’s a great color to have around during the short, dreary days of winter as well.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

Often used in French countryside styles, it draws your eye and adds warmth and comfort to a room.

source: Real Simple

The easiest way to add a splash of sunflower yellow is, of course, to simply add sunflowers!

source: Remodeling Center

But it’s a beautiful wall color as well.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

And it can add a splash of color to neutral rooms as well, drawing your eye without overpowering the tones of the room.

source: Better Homes & Gardens

We did once have sunflower yellow in our home. When we were first married, we lived in a condo, and we painted accent walls in bright colors throughout it. Sean looks back and cringes, but I loved the colors in our home, and the sunflower yellow in the sunroom was perhaps my favorite of all!

What word comes to mind to describe sunflower yellow? Do you have any in your home? We’d love to hear about how you use it, and feel free to share pictures as well!

Next week, let’s talk about pink. It’s not a color you often think of using outside of a nursery or little girl’s room, but let’s see what we can find!