Decorate Your Home Archives - Page 8 of 113

I am a reluctant seasonal decorator. I absolutely love the thought of decorating my home to usher in each season. But, the thought of putting things out only to be taken down and stored a few weeks later brings my lazy side to the forefront.

This year, I haven’t even started adding any Fall decor into my home. In all honestly, we are still wearing shorts and flip flops in Central Texas, so it’s hard to embrace the new season. I have been thinking about it, though, and I have come up with some ways to help me decorate for Fall without feeling like I’ve gone overboard.

In case you also consider yourself a reluctant seasonal decorator, I offer you four ways to embrace Fall in your home:

1. Start Small

When seasonal decorating feels overwhelming, start small. Often times, the best styled rooms just give a hint of the season at hand.

Take this gorgeous living room by Julia at Cuckoo 4 Design. She usually has some mini disco balls in the coffee table vignette. By replacing them with some mini pumpkins, she was able to give a nod to Fall without moving around everything in her room.

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As a self-taught professional decorator, my experience decorating the three homes I’ve owned is what attracted my first clients. They wanted my help with their space, but I think I got the better end of the deal.

By serving my clients I learned the number one thing it takes to decorate better for myself. It was glaringly obvious, but I didn’t see it for a long time.

When I designed spaces for clients, I couldn’t just give them a list of things to buy. I had to explain why. Why that sofa. Why those three vases. Why that rug with that coffee table. Why that color. Why that pattern.

I spent more time explaining my choices, than making them. Part of it was my natural desire to educate my clients to help them pull off the room. The other part was feeling I owed that to them. That if I couldn’t explain why I was recommending they buy something or make something, then I shouldn’t recommend it.

For every furniture of decor selection, I required myself to explain things like:

how it relates to everything else in the room
how it reinforces the use of a certain shape, pattern, or texture
how it fits into the story I want the room to tell

For example, in the office design below I recommended an accent table by the sofa. I could have recommended many different tables. So why did I choose the ceramic stool (#9)? Well, because the subtle theme in this office is aviation, because my client and her husband fly as a hobby. I chose this ceramic stool, because the angular shape reminded me of a folded paper airplane.

Explaining myself made me a better decorator for my clients, but even more powerfully it made me a better decorator for myself. It is how I stopped bringing home things I didn’t love or need, because I couldn’t explain why. It’s what stopped me from doing DIY projects, because I couldn’t explain why. It’s what made everything in my home more meaningful and every decorating decision easier.

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4 Ways to Decorate for Fall for the Reluctant Seasonal Decorator

The Power of Why in Decorating