RavenWood Apothecary No. 4 - Hallowe'en Hacienda Tour

Trick or Treat!(You can click on the images to view them larger in a slide show.)

Okay...so here are few a more images from my Hallowe'en Hacienda....aka Ravenwood Apothecary. These are images from other areas and rooms. In the other rooms I tend to go with a more vintage look...or at least with the traditional orange and black color scheme. I realize I have a LOT of Halloween stuff. BUT,...in my defense, I've been collecting Hallowe'en items since I was a teenager. Some of it eventually gets sold in garage sales or given to GoodWill to make way for new things. I also receive a lot of Hallowe'en items from friends and family members as gifts for my birthday, Hallowe'en and even Christmas! And because decorating the majority of the house is such a huge undertaking....I usually designate the first weekend in September to the chore, and then leave it up til midway through November. I love looking at all the Halloween things....they bring me comfort and happiness. I love the glow of my flicker lights and candy corn lights and Jack O'Lanterns all aglow! It makes me happy and nostalgic. I realize I'm weird like that....but hey, we all have the things we really dig, and mine just happen to revolve around Hallowe'en!

Someone asked to see the Apothecary all together. But that's a little easier said than done since it is spread throughout a large area in smaller groupings. The shot below is a little further back on the main dining table, but of course that still cuts out the side areas.
And the next shot is taken from the foyer looking into the dining room. You can almost make out the main table, the china cabinet, the sideboard on the right, the Witch Doctor's Chair and Boney Maroney at the Piano! This still cuts off my Gypsy Witch Fortune Teller 's Vanity and the Herb Garden Hall Tree in the entryway! But it gives a little better view of what all the gruesome guests see as they dare to venture inside RavenWood Apothecary.
The next shot is a closer view of the Witch Doctor's Dressing Chair, and behind it you can kind of see the other side of the Apothecary that is displayed on the sideboard. I like to think of the chair as the dressing area where the Witchy Doctor in residence has removed her professional attire after a long hard day of potion brewing and herbal remedy dispensing. She's laid down her witch doctor's bag, hat, broom, spell book, plague mask, witch boots and striped stockings across the chair, and is perhaps soaking her warty, gnarled old toes in a hot cauldron of steaming mandrake root water. The next image is a more close up view of the Dining Room China Cabinet. My house is usually decorated in a Gypsy/Bohemian/Moroccan style, but at Hallowe'en I switch out the items to showcase my eclectic collection of Hallowe'en Serving Ware, Plates and Mugs.....and my Vintage Gurley Candles. I tend to switch things up every year, so you'll notice that what's on top of the hutch was different in this photo from last year than it was in this year's shot.
The next room below is supposed to be a home office, but it's not big enough for my office, so I use one of the bedrooms instead. We call it the 'Library' or 'Den' because behind those white curtains are book shelves that are packed from top to bottom with children's books and Hallowe'en Books. There is also a futon in there to watch TV on, or pull out if we have extra house guests. This room is also usually very 'Gypsy/Bohemain' with lots of bright colors and patterns. But I switch it out to the Orange and Black for Hallowe'en.

The TV is in the big Armoire on the left side of the photo, and the grouping below is what sits on top of that cabinet. Those very large lacey metal pumpkins were this year's acquisition from Home Goods! I needed something large to fill the space and they were perfect for the job.

Right past the Witch's Dressing Chair is the opening to the Kitchen, Breakfast Nook and Family Room. In the breakfast nook I have an antique Hoosier cabinet that is usually filled with a Tiki Mug collection, but this year is the first year that I decided to switch the whole thing over to Halloween. I wanted to create the look and feel of an Olde Candy & Curiosities Shoppe, while continuing on with the apothecary theme. So I used more jars and an antique scale and then added in lots of vintage inspired items, and an assortment of candy that includes some retro brands. I figured I'd let the guests consume what they want of it come Hallowe'en night!
This is the small dining table in the breakfast nook dressed up for Hallowe'en with Owls and Autumn leaves.
The image below is a larger view of the area dressed up for Hallowe'en. And if you look really closely, you might even spy a Hallowe'en Tree!Yep...I found me my very own Hallowe'en Tree while we were at an antique show 2 years ago. Some man there had a truck full of iron work sculptures, swings, garden benches and bare branched trees. I instantly feel in love with the trees and knew that one was somehow going to make it's way home with me. Well that sucker is HEAVY! And the hubby was cursing me under his breath as he had to carry that monstrosity a very LONG way back to the SUV! But I already had visions of Hallowe'en Trees dancing in my head.
I found the ceramic hanging Jack O' Lanterns at Old Time Pottery for a few bucks a piece and bought 8 of them to hang from my metal tree. Then I found some thick, good quality burlap leaves at the Dollar Store with wired stems and promptly wired them on the branches. I perched an Owl up top and hung a small resin Skeleton below. And on All Hallow's Eve, I light the Jacks up with tea lights. It looks very cool! The problem is, I'm 5'9 and the tree is taller than I am, and the branches stick out quite far around the perimeter. So I quickly discovered that I have nowhere to really store my tree the rest of the year....bummer!
But luckily, my bedroom has a very eclectic Moroccan Gypsy Witch Fortune Teller vibe to it anyway, so I just stick the tree in my bedroom and leave it up all year long. It's great to hang purses and clothes on because it's so heavy duty. My Mom says my bedroom is starting to look a little scary with the phrenology head, and assortment of palmistry hands and owls and antique witch boots and venetian witch masks. But to me it is just filled with the things I love, and I don't consider them to be scary....eccentric and eclectic perhaps!

Last, but not least is the Living/Family room! It too is usually a casual Bohemian-esque area full of Buddahs and candles and suns and moons and Indian Pillows. And you can still see some of that, even though it too, gets the full Hallowe'en make-over! Do you see those black wooden Happy Halloween Blocks on top of the Entertainment Center? Well they were from a store called Signatures in Salem, and I got them several years ago. When I saw them in the store I totally loved them and thought they'd be perfect on one of the ledges in our house. Problem is...things look way smaller in a retail store than they actually are, and once I unpacked them from the suitcase, I quickly learned that they were pretty much too big to fit anywhere else in the house except on top of that piece of furniture! So there is where they will proudly be displayed forever more.
We still have one of those old style Big Screen HD TV's. You know the ones that are basically an obsolete and ugly piece of furniture now?! They predate the invention of the flat screen. Well ours still works perfectly well and has a great picture. And although the hubby desperately wants to replace it with a new sleek thin version....I refuse to part with it until it takes its dying breath, because as you can see in the image below....it holds my collection of vintage-inspired Repro Hallowe'en figures. I collected these over the years, primarily from a variety of Home Goods stores and they're really not very expensive at all. But I love them....and I group them all together under a "Spooky Hollow" sign...and that's the name of their little figurine community there atop my TV. Therefore, I refuse to allow the 'grumpy old troll' to destroy their little vintage neighborhood display area in the name of a sleeker, modern, way better flat screen TV that we don't really even watch anyway. ( Except at Hallowe'en time for our annual viewing of Sleepy Hollow and The Hallowe'en Tree!) And since the Halloween block dilemma from above will also forever remain a factor....I can never get rid of the entertainment center now either! Good thing I like antiques since both of these things will eventually become one! :o)
Well that concludes my Home Haunters Not So Scary Hallowe'en Tour of the Casa de Wendy and RavenWood Apothecary! I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the Hallowe'en decorations. I know I always love to view how others decorate so that I can get inspired to do something new and creative. All Hallow's Eve is just days away now, and I've enjoyed spending this month communing with my fellow Hallowe'en Heads! Just a few more posts to go and we'll be through with the countdown for another year! Sadly, it all goes by way too fast for me! Hope you all have lots of fun things planned!All Images © 2010-2011 Wendy A. (All Rights Reserved)