DIY Fall Decor

I love making DIY fall decor. I love hunting for things that can be re-used over time and fall has a lot of options for creating your own.  Craft and hobby shops are wonderful places to find home decor and I can spend hours in there looking at flowers, wooden boxes, and everything available for DIY-ing your house into a home.

Post Home Addition Decorating

We have recently completed a major house addition project, most of which was done directly over the family room. The project included adding on a new master suite including a master bedroom and bathroom. In order to support this new addition, a substantial beam had to be installed in the family room. Once installed, this beam was very obvious. As a result we had to come up with a way to hide it.

Decorating Around a Coffered Ceiling

Our contractor put in a coffered ceiling that not only hid the beam, it gave the room a lot more character. The down side of the coffered ceiling is that our ceiling height in the family room is only 8 feet tall. In order to make the ceiling height seem taller, we painted the room very light colors and the beams themselves white. This light color palette meant I needed to spice things up through decor and accessories.

Adding in Color with Decor

This year I wanted to go with understated elegance, but have it all bursting with color. The first order of business was my fireplace mantel. It is the central feature of my family room and I wanted it to set the tone. The palette of the fireplace and mantel was pretty bland. I have an old map of Paris I had framed and displayed over the fireplace. Besides that, I hadn’t added much in the way of decorations.

I love candles of all kinds – white, colors, scented, you name it. While I love the scent of burning candles, I also wanted to use some flameless ones for safety reasons.

I found two colorful candles at Michael’s – Fall Picnic and Sugared Cinnamon:

From there I added in lanterns, candle holders, and used some of the multi-sized flameless candles I found online.

Next I found some wooden candle holders of varying heights to hold more of the multi-sized flameless candles. I spread them out across the mantel, as well as on the end tables of the family room.

I then added in a wooden box with pinecones, acorns, colorful sprigs, and orange peonies.

Next I placed some fall decor items I found at Michaels – a bird with a top hat and fall colored tie, and a “Thankful” wooden script sign.

Finally I sprinkled some small flower and berry sprigs to the lanterns to punch up the color a bit.

Voila, a fully decorated fall mantel.

But it wasn’t yet complete. I wanted something on the hearth to tie in a little color and decor. Using a large metal pitcher, I filled it with fall leaves, flowers, and berry sprigs. I topped it all off with a pre-made natural jute bow and leaves to complete the piece. It adds a great burst of color against the white marble tiles of the hearth and the white-washed brick of the fireplace.

The finished mantel and hearth accomplished exactly what I wanted, understated elegance that added color and just the right touches to my family room.

Versatile Decor that Lasts

I found all of this decor in craft stores or on Amazon. Nothing I bought was extravagantly priced. I intend to use the items for many years to come and will change and adapt them as much as possible for other holidays as well.

Re-purposing for Other Holidays

I will re-purpose the wooden box with pinecones and acorns and add holly and sprigs of red berries for Christmas. The candles are year-round accessories that I will never take down; however, I might feel the urge to decorate them with bows during the Christmas holidays just to spice them up a bit. I will switch out the fall scented colored candles for Christmas holiday colored candles as well.

Decorations should not cost a fortune, be built to last, and also be versatile in nature. I love decorating my home and enjoy hunting for things that fit all of those categories. Everything I used is re-usable and versatile for many years to come.