Five Ways to Make Your Home Feel Like Fall Without Decorating for Fall

Fall doesn’t have to arrive in a storage bin.

I love fall as much as anyone, but I’ve never believed that welcoming a new season means completely redecorating my house.  In fact, some of my favorite ways to make my home feel like fall don’t involve a pumpkin, a wreath, or a single piece of seasonal decor.

For me, fall is more about creating a feeling. It’s the smell of something simmering on the stove, the first soup of the season, a cozy throw draped over a chair, branches gathered from the garden, and a table that makes you want to sit down and stay awhile.

The good news is that you probably already have most of what you need.

Here are five simple ways to bring the feeling of fall into your home without turning your house into a pumpkin patch.

Give your home a fall scent.

Before I pull a single pumpkin out of storage, I want my house to smell like fall.

One of the easiest ways to do that is with a stovetop simmer pot.  This season I am trying out Aspen Mulling Spices. I sprinkle a little of the spices in this clear pot I found on Amazon, fill it with water, and add sliced oranges, whole cloves, a whole vanilla bean, and a few cinnamon sticks. I put the pot on a very low simmer (never leave the simmering pot unattended, or leave your home with the stove on). And the mulling spices can do double duty as a drink; just follow the recipe on the box. The boxes make adorable hostess gifts, too. As we get closer to Thanksgiving, you can add fresh cranberries to the mix. Be sure to check out my digital store for seasonal gift tags!

There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about it. The kitchen begins to smell like you’ve been baking all afternoon, even if you haven’t. A simmer pot is also a lovely reminder that seasonal decorating doesn’t have to be something you see. Sometimes it’s something you smell.

Bring fall inside from the garden.

Before you head to the store for flowers, take a walk around your own yard.

As the days start to cool a little (like 95 degrees instead of 100), there is something beautiful about bringing a little bit of the garden indoors, especially as the seasons change. Right now, I don’t have a lot to choose from, but my Pyracanthus trees are putting out branches of green berries, and magnolia leaves are always beautiful. A few branches tucked into a pitcher, a handful of herbs in a small vase, or the cloves stuck into oranges can be delightfully seasonal.

Not everything has to be picture-perfect to be beautiful.  A garden clipping in an old pitcher or a collection of stems in a vintage vase feels much more personal to me than a perfectly coordinated arrangement purchased for the season. It tells a little story about what is happening outside your own front door.

Change the texture, not the entire room.

One of my favorite tricks for seasonal decorating is to change texture rather than color.

You don’t have to replace your pillows, repaint your living room, or purchase an entirely new collection of fall accessories. Instead, bring out the things that feel a little warmer and cozier.

Drape a heavier throw over the back of a chair. Swap a lightweight table runner for something with more texture. Add a woven basket or a velvet pillow. Pull out linen napkins in a warmer shade.

Think about how you want your home to feel when you walk into it.

I like to think of this as restyling rather than redecorating.

Shop your house first. You may be surprised by how many things you already own that can give a room a completely different feel simply by moving them somewhere else.

Let your kitchen announce the season.

If you want your home to feel like fall, start in the kitchen. I recently styled my mother’s vintage silver casserole caddy with heirloom cookbooks. I found a porcelain casserole dish in the cupboard and filled it with faux artichokes. I added a jar of peanut M&Ms and a pine-scented candle in a milk glass vase.

There is no decorating accessory quite as effective as a pot of soup simmering on the stove. Add a loaf of warm bread on the counter, a bowl of apples on the kitchen island, or something sweet cooling on the counter, and suddenly the entire house feels ready for a sweater.

Food has a wonderful way of decorating a home without actually decorating it. And if someone happens to wander into your kitchen while something delicious is cooking, well, you’ve just created an invitation.

Create one little place to linger.

Finally, give yourself a place to enjoy the season.

It doesn’t have to be an entire room. It might be a comfortable chair with a throw, a little tray beside your favorite reading spot, a porch chair with a cup of coffee, or a corner of the kitchen where you can sit while dinner cooks. I made my breakfast room a “keeping room.” A place I can sit to read or sip coffee while I am waiting for dinner to be ready.

I think we sometimes spend so much time preparing our homes for other people that we forget to enjoy them ourselves.

Fall invites us to slow down a little. The days begin to shorten, the light changes, and there is something about the season that makes me want to linger a little longer at the table and linger a little longer over my morning coffee.

So create a little spot that says, “Stay awhile.”

Then actually stay awhile. Fall doesn’t have to look like fall to feel like fall. You don’t need a new collection of decorations every September. You don’t need to transform every room or fill every surface with pumpkins.

Sometimes all it takes is a simmering pot on the stove, a few flowers from the garden, a cozy throw, something delicious in the oven, and a comfortable place to sit.

The best seasonal decorating isn’t always about what we add to our homes. Sometimes it’s about what we notice. Those are the little things that make a house feel like home. And isn’t that what we’re really after?