10 Things to Do to Cozy up your House for Fall

When the seasons change, I get a little excited (ok, sometimes a lot excited) & have the urge to bring that feeling into my home.  I think most of us who really love our homes do.   And if you think about it, when we're little kids, we pretty much start doing this right away in preschool.  Every year I remember doing crafts with leaves in the fall and making cheesy things out of pinecones at Christmastime & so on. 

{image via http://spaceforinspiration.blogspot.com%7d/

 This year has been particularly crazy for our family with work & time (& the lack of it) and I haven't gotten the chance to really do much around the house, so I thought a little refresher list of 10 easy things to do might get me in gear to make some small changes around the house for Fall.  

{a tree in our neighborhood, last year}

So here they are:
1.  Switch out throw pillows to ones with warmer tones & cozier-feeling materials

{Image via pinterest & I couldn't find the original cource}

2. Add more throw blankets around the house or switch out existing summer throws to thicker, cozier ones.  I really love my faux fur throws, especially for napping and bringing outside onto the back patio at night. 

{image from homedecorators.com}

3. Even if you don't have time to bake, you can fake that Heavenly smell with candles and/or diffusers.  I have pumpkin pie-scented candles & diffusers all over the house (and vanilla cake too!) and I want to eat them!!!

{image from Country Living}

4.  Have healthy seasonal food around for the munching.  (so you don't eat your candles}  Bowls of walnuts or apples in the family room and/ or kitchen invite everyone to enjoy seasonal goodies.  I'm always more likely to eat something when it's within reaching distance.

{my vintage peanut stocked with almonds}

{little bowl of walnuts}

5.  Art & Accessories:  There are certain places in my house where I'll switch paintings around or swap out accessories.  The mantle is one of the easiest places to do this because you can just prop artwork & don't have to put holes in the walls. 

{our mantle for Fall}

Bookshelves are another good place for this.  Before I had two kids, I used to really rearrange our books by color seasonally. 

{Some of my old "fall"-colored books...  My English teacher husband doesn't approve of my seasonal genres.}

(I know it sounds like I must have been on crack, but I really kind of miss the book rearranging. ) In the Fall, I'd make the orange & browns & golden books stand out more by placing them most prominently and in the Spring & Summer, I'd pull out the blues & aquas.  Now I'm lucky if the books are even on the shelves. 

{our super-crammed living room bookshelf...  not much rearranging happening here these days...  I've now realized that by the time I have the time to do that again, I'll probably be missing my kids.}

 

6.  Bring in leaves & branches from your yard.  (or your neighbors' yards! ;) ;) hee hee.  I found these cool orange-needled branches last Fall:  (I told you I hadn't gotten much done this year ;)  I love going on walks with the family & collecting things from outside.

7.  Pumkins & gourds:  They usually last a really long time & I pretty much always have pumpkins & gourds leftover from Halloween on the Thanksgiving table.  Piling them on your porch and around the house makes it really feel like Fall.  Kids love them too.

{Last year's Thanksgiving Table}

8.  Have fires when you can.  With a toddler in our house, our fires are a little few & far between but when we do have them, I'm in Heaven.  It just seems to lead to good family hang-out time.  On Fall nights, we love doing fires outside & roasting marshmallows.

{mmm mmm I loooooove s'mores!!}

 

9. Bedding:  In the Fall we add extra blankets to our bed including a down comforter & a throw blanket for napping at the foot of the bed.  It's been a fairly warm Fall so I do end up kicking them off a lot of the time at night.. maybe I made the switch too early this year?? 

{I love the faux fur blanket on Tia Zoldan's bed in this pic}

10. And finally... (you know I'd have to include some real eating in here)- Soup!  We try to make weekly batches of soup or pasta sauce in the Fall & Winter.  It feels so good on a cool day to be warm & toasty inside eating soup.  My mom makes an amazing pumpkin curry soup in the Fall:

{I'll have to get the actual recipe from my mom but the amazing-looking pumpkin soup pictured above is from Sweet Peas Kitchen and you can view the recipe here:  http://sweetpeaskitchen.com/2011/09/16/harvest-pumpkin-soup/ }

Anyway, would love to hear about the changes you've been making in your house for Fall.  I'll keep you posted on my progress!!




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