I can officially say that Fall is upon us and hopefully that connotation will bring cooler more seasonable weather. I cannot wait to throw those sweaters on and keep the windows open wide to the outdoors until the deep chill of winter sets in. As I have mentioned in the past, hurrying in a season before its time and rushing out the departing one has never been me. So in keeping with my old habits…the Fall decor just came out in my house.

The barn is another thing. Since beginning Life’s Patina, I have had to change my habits a bit by thinking ahead of the upcoming seasons. I have often said that I should just hold our Christmas Dinner in the barn and invite everyone over in full ski attire since the decking of my own halls takes place much closer to the actual Holiday, if not on the day of! Given that we just held our Fall Sale this past weekend, and we are entering into our first “truly” Fall weekend, I thought I would share some of my simple ways to herald in the warmer natural earthy tones that are about to cloak the landscape.

I love to use texture in vignettes and objects that one might not typically use for decorating purposes. I have one urn left from a batch that I found in North Carolina that we rent out with our vintage rentals but until I can find something to replace it…I just cannot part with it. To decorate it in the tones of the season that also work with the color of the stones in the barn wall, I filled it with brown shipping paper, rolls of string, vintage thread, rope balls, white pumpkins and to finish it off, a couple of feathers made from old manuscript paper.

Since all of the tones in the barn this season were more subdued, I wanted the seasonal decor to reflect that as well. One of my favorite ways to decorate in any season is under glass. Use objects that you already own and highlight them under a glass cloche or in a hurricane. For Fall, use old wooden shoes, dried thistle, deer antlers, texture laden balls and old books.

Stacked baby white pumpkins and cut up pieces of wood look great in these rusty metal cloches. I perched one on an old wooden column base to stagger the height.

Another tried and true decor idea is to head out into the great outdoors and cut what mother nature has provided for you. Dried grasses and seed heads are both plentiful and ideal at this time of year. Haphazardly arranged in this silver vessel the outdoors is brought indoors reminiscent of how you might find them in their natural setting.
Tucked into a colored glass cloche, they can add a pop of the season. These types of foliage are also great because they do not need to be in water which open up your options to where they can be used.
I LOVE baby white pumpkins! This year I used vintage wooden machine thread spools standing up to stagger baby whites at various heights on the center of a table scape. I tucked in a bit of cream packing material between the pumpkin and the spools to give it a softer landing.

I also filled rusty metal chicken feeders with wine bottle corks, who does not have some of them lying around? I then added some baby whites again and some rusty metal iron pieces along with the packing paper to make a centerpiece for a table.

I swoon over old wooden troughs and love to change out the contents for each season. Here I used three decorative cabbage plants to fill the trough but I did not like seeing the pots so I filled in the bare spots with some cool packing material that we received items in. Never throw away what might be potential decor material… is my mantra! A few handfuls of that straw like packing material again and the pots are covered and the season is yet again, brought indoors.

Lone baby whites or brighter colored pumpkins can be the star of the show solo.

Ahhh…the table…one of my favorite things to decorate for the season! Of course burlap is my start off point for Fall for I love its natural texture and hue. Keeping with the monochromatic theme, I used an ivory linen napkin and plate paired with an old wooden fence post cap to elevate a baby pumpkin at each place setting and juxtaposed the rustic and natural with old silver and crystal goblets. I love mixing formal elements with rustic. A vintage wooden box from a sewing factory and a chocolate brown toil charger completes the look with a darker color tone.
To mark each place setting, I used a spool of jute with a manilla tag on which I penned the name of each guest and then pinned on the jute with a rusty pin.
Ohhh….the bounty of the garden at this time of year is all you need in this table scape. Here again, I pulled out those old wooden post caps and perched a baby white on top. I interspersed larger more colorful decorative pumpkins in with the others and tucked in grape vines and the leaves of the vine here and there. Simple yet truly reflective of what is going on in this season.
You can use any types of pumpkins that you have purchased or grown in this scape. If you want a bolder color palette, go with bolder colored pumpkins.

Now to my house, always the last to get done and the process is still going on as I write this. The boxes are open, spread out all over the Family room floor as I pull from them and add bits of nature around items that I keep in the bins.
Maggie, so kindly snapped some photos while I was doing this and did not block me out, that stinker! I am in the middle of a decorating project in the Library where these photos take place. The room dates back to 1789 with some renovations over the years. I am working on a blog post that chronicles the transformation of this room which I did not change when we moved in ten years ago but since I am still in the middle of it and it is my house, and there are so many other things to do, it will probably take another ten years to finish it.  Anyway, the purpose of this post is to show you some Fall decorating ideas so as time allows, I will post the progress of the room redo.
The walls of this room used to be plastered a golden mustard yellow. A cracking golden plaster that flaked when you touched it and made the room with the dark brown beams a bit claustrophobic. Now that I have had them covered in a textured cream paint with flecks of brown sand in them and have had the beams stripped of their old brown PAINT…ugh!  the room is lighter and brighter and I am trying to transition the decor to soothingly reflect this lightness and brightness.
A metal urn filled with seed and nut covered balls, ceramic ones and glass acorns give a pop of Fall color and when flanked by sheaths of wheat, the tableau is complete.
I felt that the table was a little bare so I tucked in some dried box wood that I had cut from our shrubs last year to soften it.
The mantel…always an obvious place to change up the decor for each season.

I am still working with elements of the transformational room and trying to decide what stays and what goes and as I do so, I decked this mantel with a painting that I love of a willow tree reflected in a pond. Our farm is called Willowbrook Farm and was given that name years and years ago for the willows that must have flanked the large pond. One by one they have fallen until we are down to the remaining two. My son and I, this Fall, will be hitting the nurseries out in Amish county to haul back some willow trees to carry the name on. In the interim, the colors of this painting are mirrored in the bundles of  wheat grass and garland that lie aside of it and underneath it.


I hope that you can use some of these simple ideas this Fall to warm up your home to reflect the parring down of the colors of the landscape as the colored leaves of autumnal trees are released and the beauty of the bare wood is uncovered.
May peace and memories instilled by your senses from past autumns create a yearning for what this season is to bring.

xx

~Meg