14 Ways to Update Your Home Decor, Furniture, and Accessories for Fall
Fall is a beautiful season no matter where in the world you live. In South Africa, fall includes mild temperatures, dry days, and impressive trees that slowly change colours as the season turns. It’s easy to feel inspired when you are surrounded by colourful, often plant-themed decorations. It’s the perfect time to update your home’s decor furniture to fit the autumn mood better. You can use leaves, branches, and warm fabrics to bring elements of the fall season indoors so you can enjoy them all season or even all year.
Why Decorate For Fall?
Think about the vibe each season creates. For example, when the young plants bloom outside, it’s easy to get into the spirit of new beginnings. Spring lets everyone breathe fresh air and feel at peace with the idea of starting a new year, so soothing pastel colours work great. Fall brings with it images of harvest, feasting, and comfy blankets. While you’re retiring your short-sleeved summer clothing in favour of warmer outfits, you can also pull out your fall decorations. Make your home a more pleasant place with fall-themed decor furniture.
How to Update Your Home Decor For Fall
Decorating your home doesn’t need to be intimidating. Testing out a few seasonal items is easy; anyone can do it on a budget or with a busy schedule. Even a few small decorations can put you in the seasonal spirit; look for delicate items that inspire cosy vibes. Get started with these simple tips for updating your home with fall designs.
Clean First
Tidy up your home before you begin to decorate. Organise loose papers, pack summer decorations away, clean the countertops, wash smudges from the windows, and consider sweeping or vacuuming your floors. Eliminating clutter can help you appreciate a clean home and identify the best places to put meaningful decorations.
You likely want to decorate your home both for your enjoyment and so any guests you invite can appreciate how pleasant and orderly your house looks. Cleaning your home first will help you place decorations in optimal positions and avoid re-cluttering locations where clutter would interfere with the view of that decoration. Additionally, guests will feel much more relaxed in a well-decorated space that’s also kept clean, and so will you.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you’re a homeowner. Use seasonal decor furniture and accessories as a chance to tidy your home thoroughly. If you do, this will ensure your house receives a deep clean at least four times a year, preventing dust build-up from gathering in your home for too long. You can control your life if you try to keep clutter away from specific decorations. Doing this should help you prevent items from piling up in your public space.
Start Small
When decorating your home for fall or any other season, it’s important to pace yourself. We encourage you to go all-out and decorate your whole house if you truly desire it, but starting with one room is always easier. Once you get started, it’s easy to go overboard. Placing even one wicker basket in your home and filling it with fruit made of foam or plastic can make your house seem a little more ready for autumn. Here are some of our favourite seasonal options for home decor in South Africa, which you can mix and match.
Wall Decorations
You can decorate your walls with affordable decorations without wasting valuable counter space. A wreath is a simple but attractive design element, and you can make one from branches, leaves, or dried ears of colourful corn. You can also incorporate rustic features, such as wire, into your wall decorations to create interesting patterns on your wall. Use this space to hang small decorations, such as leaves. Rustic elements can call up imagery of farm life, which fits the theme of apples, pumpkins, and cornfields typically associated with the fall season.
Bathroom
Start decorating your bathroom by switching out old soap dispensers for themed designs, such as pumpkin shapes. Replace your shower curtain with warm, vibrant colours. Add orange towels on your towel rack or flowers in a vase. Flowers are often associated with spring, but many beautiful red, orange, and yellow flowers are still full of life around harvest season. Combine them in a sleek black vase to upscale your casual bathroom decorations. Consider adding a brown floor mat to tie the room together.
Living Room
Mix the colours of your living room’s decorative cushions. Many shades of orange, brown, and green work well together. These colours also work well with white, as these Conebush Cushion Covers demonstrate. Leather chairs and sofas look and feel especially lovely in autumn when your guests seek comfy places to sit. Wicker chairs make excellent decor furniture items. Add a blanket to the back of your sofa to increase the cosy vibes in the room. Don’t forget that texture should play a role in your design choices as well; home decor in South Africa favours a variety of textures. Choose items with different looks and feels, such as velvet, knitted yarn, and faux fur, to emphasise softness in your room. Pair with copper vases for a contrasting look the eye can’t help but love this season.
Kitchen
Draw from natural colours and textures in all your design choices. Flowers, branches, leaves, sheaves of wheat, chestnuts, acorns, pinecones, and scraps of burlap make excellent small decorations that you can place in glass vases around your kitchen counters. Create custom place settings at your dining table using textured fabric for napkins. If you wish to add a rustic vibe to your kitchen, consider hanging a small chalkboard where your family members are likely to see it. You can use a simple piece of chalk to draw pumpkins or write loving messages to brighten everyone’s day.
Bedroom
While changing up your room, wash your sheets and replace your comforter with a new autumn-themed design. Add candles with natural scents to your bedside tables. If pumpkin spice isn’t your style, consider scents like ginger or apple instead. Lay a rug like the wild coast rug across your floor and you can add extra softness to your room, which will make it feel warmer and cosier as a result.
Outdoors
Fall is an excellent season for the outdoors. As the weeks pass, you should find that the weather isn’t as scorching as summer but isn’t as freezing as winter, making fall the perfect time to enjoy a backyard picnic on a blanket or at a picnic table. Consider cushioned seats on your outdoor decor furniture. Use flowers with warm colours as festive centrepieces. As the season gets later, the nights get dark earlier, so be prepared to use camping lanterns to add a rustic vibe to your backyard space or string lights to emphasise the cosy outdoor atmosphere. String lights can mimic the look of fireflies without requiring you to live near the bugs’ natural habitat. These lights can bring up images of warm, carefree, relaxing nights. If your area allows wood-burning fire pits, you can light one up to enjoy the look, sound, and smell of a crackling campfire.
Budget
Take the “start small” advice to heart when considering your budget. Instead of breaking the bank for your fall decorations, we recommend you pick out a few favourite decor items each year when they’re in stock. Even a few accessories can help you give your home a new, cosy look for the season.
Keep It Simple and Fun
There are many simple, affordable items that you can use to decorate your home. You don’t need to know upholstering to give your rooms a new look for the fall season. Consider DIY crafts to freshen up your space. Small pumpkins, candles, and decorative clumps of fabric leaves are small, affordable items that are easy to obtain separately. Shaped glass bowls and festive mugs can also add a cosy, positive vibe to any household.
With enough themed items in your home, you can create pleasing fall home decor without much effort. Best of all, cleaning away simple items from your countertops is just as easy as getting them out in the first place. Go bigger if desired, but it’s always best to start with the basics.
Examine Your Furniture
You don’t need to throw out old furniture when you update your home decor for a new season. However, while changing your decorations, look for any rips in the fabric, dents in the wood, or any other signs of damage to your existing decor furniture. It’s especially wise to take the time to do this if you have a pet. Keep your house looking its best by repairing or upgrading your furniture.
Choose Relevant Decor
Know the colours associated with each season, not to mention the colours you and your family prefer in the home. Fall is associated with warm colours, including:
- Red
- Orange
- Yellow
- Dark brown
These colours emphasise dirt, harvest, and changing leaves. Combine these colours with other textures such as red brick walls, scraps of fabric, and metallic copper dishes to vary the look and feel of your walls. Match plaid fabric with apples; you will immediately make your houseguests feel they’ve walked inside a farmhouse.
Pumpkins are creative decorations perfectly suited for autumn, and they can be carved or painted into various unique looks. Consider painting white pumpkins for best results. White pumpkins look great even when blank and can be paired with neutral colours to tie your room together.
Turn Existing Items Into Fun, Themed Decorations
You can DIY many fun decorations at an affordable price. Be creative with fruits, flowers, and leaves to create your own floral arrangements for your dining table. You can also use fruits to display other decorations. For example, remove the core from an apple, and you can place a long, tapered candle inside for a unique centrepiece at your next family dinner. Scoop the inner goop and seeds from a pumpkin to turn it into a decorative bowl you can fill with flowers. You can make unique drink coasters by sawing a tree limb into several thin sections. The possibilities are endless! Draw from natural elements to bring the feel of the outdoors into your home. If you’re looking to mimic the feel of a season, there’s no better way to do so than by using nature.
Revitalise Unused Space
If you want to be more ambitious with your home decor this fall season, search for unused spaces in your home and turn them into kid-friendly play areas. Examples include:
- Spaces under the stairs
- A spot near the windows in a kid’s playroom
- Even a backyard shed
Add a few decorative cushions and blankets into this space. A kid’s area is the perfect spot to put fall decorations you think are fun but might not fit the decor furniture in your front rooms. Change light bulbs, add a few books, and you can instantly have a cosy area for reading or for playing handheld video games.
Redesigning an unused kid’s space with a fresh look is a great way to get your children interested in it again. Our recommendation? Consider adding a few new books or card games each season. Enjoying it with other family members is part of the fun of a decorated space. Lean on a plush pillow, pull up a soft blanket, and take advantage of this new cosy space to play a new card game with your child. End the evening with cookies or a healthy snack, and you’ll find yourself building memories with your family that you’ll treasure forever.
elevenpast can help you find contemporary lighting, furniture, and decor items perfectly suited for your modern South African home. We specialise in items with neutral tones. Decorating your home is a great chance to deep clean it and freshen up your space for a new season. We love using seasonal decor in our own homes and we’re happy to help you find quality items for yours as well.