Essential for Fall

Sometime in early elementary school, my love affair with fall began.  It took my breath away, the way the air seemed to shimmer in the afternoon sunlight while everything took on a glowing stillness.  Fall was taking the long way home from school through golden afternoons, climbing the backyard maple tree to eat apples, reading books in complete absorption, cheering the hometown football team to victory on Friday night, roaming the streets on Halloween collecting a pumpkin full of candy, and watching spectacular Texas Panhandle sunsets light the sky with gold and purple and orange.

The fields of summer - striving, pushing, reaching, growing - give way to autumn, where everything reaches its pinnacle and holds for a long moment in its greatest bloom - perfect fullness, simmering beauty.  The striving ceases, the busy rush buzzes to a resilient halt and all the world luxuriates in the harvest.  Fall is a reminder to stop, savor the moments and just be.

As I pull the fall decor from its boxes, the jumble of leaves and baskets and pumpkins in a riot of autumn on the dining table never fails to thrill my heart.  This is my favorite season change, and while I unpack autumn, I celebrate the people who love me best, those who've gifted me with some of my most treasured fall items.  Although I decorate for each season, autumn colors make our house come alive better than any other.  Fall is my favorite.

In the kitchen, shades of autumn are everywhere.  Fall has generated some of my favorite refrigerator art that I'll keep forever, even though the artists are nearly all grown up.  In preparation for cooler evenings, the tea drinkers in our family have their own tea station with orange accents and pumpkins not far away, and the coffee fans have their station, too, with thermos at the ready.  Above all, a Holly Hobbie lunchbox just like mine from 2nd grade, calls up heart-warmed nostalgia.

Fall glows best of all in the family room, where we have lovely views of the treeline and all the colors of the sunset stream in through the windows.  Lanterns, candles, pumpkins, fall leaves, bouquets, and the fireplace glowing not quite yet with a fire, but a farm harvest scene (Texas autumns are in-congruently warm) make long evenings in this room a tranquil pleasure.

Really, my home decor journey began with decorating for autumn, in a desire to pull all the joy of the season from outside to in.  Cozying home up for fall is a fond nod back to those lovely days of raking yellow leaves in the backyard while the evening sky turned orange.  Every year when I bring out the fall decor, the rich and beautiful colors take my heart back to a childhood that wasn't exactly perfect, but was definitely golden, and I savor the homey pleasures of then and now.  Lots and lots of color is the essential element that invokes autumn tranquility and the resonant satisfaction of the harvest season for me.  

My post is about decorating the home for fall - it's the best place to snug in and be satisfied, don't you think?  Taking it even further, how about snuggling into bed early on a chilly autumn evening with a great book, or lingering in bed on a rainy fall Saturday?  Our master bedroom is still the final frontier decorating-wise, and I'm always looking for inspiration to finish out what I've started in there.  This post was inspired by Parachute, a luxury bedding company, just as I was thinking about cozy, and fall, and essentials for meshing the two.  For some beautiful bedding ideas, check out the Parachute bedding page, and don't miss their blog (click } here { to go to the blog home page) for some absolutely lovely ideas for making your bedroom an enclave of cozy no matter what the season.

Celebrating fall with a decor change is a chance to put a pumpkin here and a spot of orange there, until the house is rich, warm and cozy with color. What's essential to your autumn decorating scheme?

Happy fall!