As fall approaches, our interior design focus needs to be on our front entry and surrounding grounds, as well as indoors. This is an opportunity not to be missed. Embrace the season rather than regret that summer is passing. The weather is still gorgeous and the colours of fall are fabulous. It’s a time to sweep away the clutter of summer, get back to cooking interesting things, doing a bit of entertaining, and indulge in a little autumn décor. Interior design moves out onto the porch for awhile. It’s great for curb appeal, too. Try making a gorgeous casual arrangement in an urn. The look is creative and there’s no need for perfection. Use what you have. Start with a mound of cut plastic florist’s foam pieces inside the urn. Cover with Spanish moss, keeping the moss in place with green pins. Make a collar of burlap around the rim and build up with artificial leaves, berries, Chinese lanterns, dried lotus pods, hydrangea blossoms and the like. Hold it all together with green florists’ pins. This is best on a covered porch. Summer container plantings that have begun to look tired can be refreshed with a little trimming and the addition of new plant material. Garden centres continue to bring in new things late into the fall, because fall decor is a popular phenomenon. An array of antique pumpkin varieties at the base of a planter with bright florals often looks cheerful until the snow flies. Fall mums come in fabulous colours and can stand quite a bit of cool weather. Keep them watered but from the side so as not to rot the blooms. Try placing two pots of burnt orange mums on every other step and line with simple white pumpkins. Fall décor is not just all orange and yellow. Mossy greens and rustic browns made up from actual Irish moss that grows happily in a container during the summer months can be augmented with large cones, hops vine, trailing woody twigs, and even green apples. Worn looking urns add great charm to this sort of display.
Garden centres stock a wonderful array of interesting materials to embellish your fresh fall arrangements. A purple aster, an orange mum, some colourful ornamental peppers in purple and orange would look terrific with a tall spray of orange dyed sticks for height. Stand cornstalks behind an old chair to add texture to your fall display. Adorn the chair with a colourful quilt or wall hanging, mini pumpkins, gourds and a small pot of mums. Ornamental cabbage and kale add green, purple and red to the mix. Cheerful yellow and orange gourds and pumpkins add textural interest. A foam wreath covered in Spanish moss and layered with fall berries and artificial leaves is a little more work but will last for years. Pepperberries add a luxurious finish. Heritage seed saving groups have created new interest in some of the beautiful old types of winter squash. They come in warty, irregular shapes and lend great character to the outdoor fall décor displays.
A three dimensional wreath can be made by adding fall gourds, pepper beries or oak leaves. Welcome guests with a square wreath framed in natural ingredients like sweet-smelling oranges or colourful pears. Push a skewer through fresh fruit, creating holes on the back half of the fruit. Next, run heavy florist’s wire through the holes and wire the fruit to an unfinished wooden picture frame Add additional color by filling the space between the oranges with leaves, berries, and flowers such as aspen leaves, green yarrows, and thistle-like orange safflowers. A wreath need not only be placed on a door. It can also be an indoor or outdoor centrepiece on a table. The fun of Hallowe’en décor is not limited to just the end of the month. A rustic bucket hung on the door comes alive with pots of hydrangea blooms and hypericum. The bucket holds enough water to keep the arrangement looking good for days. Even a burlap bag can be hung on the door and filled with fall décor. Garden implements such as wheelbarrows, even though past their best, can be part of charming outdoor vignettes. An oversize tin planter embellished with a tone-on-tone stencilled design makes it a one of a kind piece. Fill it with pots of purple fountaingrass, flowering kale, coral bells, creeping Jenny, and Marguerite daisy. The look is great for greeting fall dinner guests. Think outside the box and embellish pumpkins by carving motifs into the skin. The cooler temperatures will keep pumpkins and outdoor floral arrangements looking good much longer than during the summer heat. Thinking outside the box, away from colour, we can also create beautiful displays with white chrysanthemums and white pumpkins. Some people create truly elaborate displays involving twig chandeliers, pedestals with urns or cement orbs, and colourful fall foliage with twinkle lights for added effect. 
Your porch rug can join in the fun, too. Stencilled to co-ordinate with the door arrangement, the rug becomes more of a statement. A coir door mat can be monogrammed or stencilled in the same way. Large outdoor planters are now likely needing new additions as the summer annuals may now be exhausted and needing fertilizing or replacement. They don’t need as much water now that it is cooler as they did in the summer heat so are easier to maintain. Speaking of paint, there is no rule that says that you cannot paint an orange pumpkin black, silver, white, green, or purple to great effect.
Indoors, the fireplace mantel is a great place to add fall decor and colour. These displays look wonderful on a brick fireplace as the colours are complementary. Fall vines with berries such as bittersweet and Chines lanterns are good options.
Even a trash can is a décor worthy tool in our evil plan. Painted and with a family initial monogram applied, it is elevated well above its’ former status. Just insert a colourful clip-art letter into a painted frame and glue it to the trash can. Instant pizzaz. Fill the can with tall twigs and surround it with colourful mums in containers painted to match. Indoors, colourful bouquets can me made with submerged mini pumpkins, brightly coloured dahlias, and bittersweet. Whether indoors or out, similar materials can often be used. Flea market finds such as rusty garden tools can become door embellishments. Dried Indian corn can be attached to a pitch fork with great effect. The look is all the better on a door with a little crackle in the paint work. Outdoor potting areas could also likely use a little freshening up. Outdoors, potted hydrangeas, mums, fall arrangements, wreaths, galavanized pots and the like all look wonderful in these casual vignettes. Similarly, indoors, a foyer vignette can be decorated to enhance the season by adding in colours that we associate with the season. Orange looks wonderful with turquoise and white, but orange makes us think of autumn. Ornamental kale is not only colourful and ruffled, but it lasts through the cool days of fall nearly till Christmas in our Zone 6 climate in southern Ontario. In fact, it actually continues to grow in the cold weather (photos courtesy of Better Homes). An arrangement alternating green and purple kale would look great in a square galavanized tub. A wheelbarrow with an assortment of gourds, bittersweet, Tuscan kale and white pumpkins set off with orange, bronze, yellow, and creamy-white fall asters would look spectacular. Gourds can be carved with ghoulish grins for a bit of fun. On indoor tablescapes, we can carry the fall décor theme with white pumpkins, bittersweet, and the colour of the tablecloth, dishes and candles.
Pumpkins come in a wide variety of forms, sizes, and colours, now that some of the heirloom varieties have been resurrected. They can be warty, deeply wrinkled, squatty, square as well as green or white, besides plain old orange. Use lots of them to guide your guests up the walk and intersperse them with lit candles in old canning jars. Metal tins can be carved and pierced like pumpkins. Simply fill with water and freeze. Drill piercings through tin and ice. Add lit candles for great effect. Even a tiny home can be spectacularly beautiful. There are so many decor items that can be useful for the indoor table or fireplace mantle at this time of year. Outdoors, the door colour is an important part of the seasonal display. Apothecary jars filled with gourds, berries, leaves or small plants can twinkle like jewels in the wonderful light of fall. A cascading arrangement on the door is a lovely touch. Autumn presents us with more wonderful opportunities for interior design and décor. Autumn colours are rich and it is a time for fun.
Call Mulberry Interiors now at (905) 849-6423 to book a consultation. We look forward to working with you to increase your enjoyment of your home.
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