For many Fall is about experiencing the events of the season -football, the Halloween or thanksgiving holidays, or sightseeing trips to see the leaves change colors. For others fall is a unique time of the year in which much of what is going on outside can be brought into the home in creative, decorative ways that celebrate the fact that fall is upon us. In this article we explore a bit of both, embracing the experiences while offering unique ideas on decorating your house.
Digital Decorating
The whole world is moving digital. Maybe it’s time to move your fall holiday home decorating digital as well. Using a projector, flexible image screens, specially designed software and some props around the house ( like a doorway, window, roof or hallway) you can create holographic images that will make your house a hit with the neighbors and a destination for Halloween, Thanksgiving and the football season in general. While digital decorations are available for most holidays some of the better ones, like the singing pumpkins or, for something a bit more scary, the ghostly apparitions, are more appropriate for Halloween.
Front Door Decorations
To create an inviting decoration that visitors can’t miss and that makes your front door fall-appropriate, create a wreath. Start with a store-bought grapevine wreath. Using florist picks, attach mini-pumpkins and smaller pieces of dried, decorative colored corn into the wreath. Then attach seasonal greenery, filling in the spaces between the pumpkins and corn. Add an assortment of fall leaves to the wreath, again using the florist picks as well as some wire. This will add a colorful finish.
For the front door you can also use bales of hay combined with decorative mums. The hay offers a rustic farm feel while the mums bring color via a classic fall flower. To add some additional farm feel post dried corn stalk bundles on each side of the door and put a wheel barrel off to the side filled with gourds, Indian corn and pumpkins. As Halloween rolls around you add accessories with a bit more of a haunting feel while still keeping with the farm/outdoors theme.
If you feel like decorating your front door but don’t feel like choreographing a lot of staging, you can always use garland for the front door. The only requirement for this is that you hang it around the door and securely attach it. Some garlands are very well designed and can bring that autumn feel instantly.
Dining Table
When your guests sit down for Thanksgiving you want them not only taste Thanksgiving, you want them to feel it. While some of that will come from the family sitting nearby, your table decorations can help set the mood while adding a touch of elegance.
At each serving you can decorate the napkins using grapevine wreath napkin rings. These are similar to the grapevine wreath that can be used for the front door, only smaller.
The middle of the table is always the main area of focus. Create a centerpiece that is attractive and that brings a bit of fall into the house. Some centerpiece ideas include:
- Painted Pumpkin Vases – paint a carved-out pumpkin using an acrylic paint. This type of paint will dry quickly, is easy to clean up and is water based so that if you make a mistake, you can wipe it off and start over. Sometimes a simple color like white works well, since the next step is the fill the pumpkin with fall flowers. With all the flowers offering color a simply colored pumpkin offers nice contrast.
- Wheat Centerpiece – Fall is harvest time. Some wheat strands tied together with a simple ribbon and enclosed in a cloche dome portray harvest time in a subtle and elegant way.
- Candle Holder Apples – This one is easy. Take a large apple and core it enough to fit a smaller sized candle. Depending on how long your table is, you might want to create two or three of these and put them the length of the table. This is a nice piece that offers ambiance as well as a fall reminder.
Living Room Decorations
Around the fireplace you can use trim, just be careful if you are actually planning on having a fire. The trim shouldn’t hang to closely to the fire area. Above the fireplace use mantel decorations that tie with the trim. These can be background pieces of wood that hold additional pieces of trim, decorated pumpkins, candles or flowers. You can fill a flower vase with acorns or chestnuts and then put the flowers in.
Flowers can also be placed in other areas of the living room. You really can’t have too many flowers. Another creative way of displaying them would be to use vintage tins. While many of the tins aren’t made to fit flowers, a little searching and you can find something that reminds your guests of times gone by while the fall flowers brightening up the room.
Another decoration that works in the living room is a lantern. Lanterns can be used anywhere – on a shelf, on a coffee table or next to the fireplace. Long associated with sailors, gas lit streetlights and railway workers, lanterns bring the outdoors back inside.
It is also time to get out those decorative throws and blankets you stored for the summer. Use them on furniture or on blanket ladders in the corner of the room.
Conclusion
The great thing about decorating your home in the fall is that it gives you a chance to share with your guests, to offer them a small insight into the beauty you see in the change of seasons. There are numerous ways to do this. The goal here was to present some ideas that you could take and run with, adding your own touch and combine in different ways. That’s what we do at EMM Loans, help make it easy for you to create custom solutions for you home. Our focus may be on the financial side of your house, but we also take pride in helping you turn your house into a home.
