Fall Inspired Changes in My Kitchen – One is Big
The weather may tell us otherwise, but I can’t ignore my excitement for the fall season to arrive. As I have been waiting for the calendar page to make fall officially-in-season, I have been adding a few cozy fall touches to my kitchen.
My decorating style is always evolving, if it never changed or I didn’t tweak it from time to time by swapping the decor and colors out every once and awhile it would become static and boring.
I came up with a name for my decorating style after living on the shores of a lake with the serenity of towering pine trees all around and endless open air. I call it White and Woodsy.
I think everyone should do this – come up with a unique name for their personal decorating style. Doing so will help you to zone in, find confidence and keep the focus on developing in your own style – which of course will also make decorating more intuitive for you.
I have tweaked accessories in my kitchen over the last few years, but there haven’t been any big changes since I did my DIY Kitchen Makeover a year after we moved to the house.
I couldn’t be happier with the latest decor tweaks I added to the kitchen. Most are small, but one makes quite a cozy impact.
My cozy fall kitchen decor changes all started when I saw this spec house kitchen designed by Studio McGee earlier this summer. I liked the overall warmth and neutral appeal of the space.
Many readers have asked me how I come up with the ideas I use to decorate my house, this is how I start, by studying what appeals to me and breaking it down one piece at a time.
I never want to create an exact copy of a room that I like, it wouldn’t feel right to me as I like to inject my own style to everything I do.
I am however all about trying to figure out ways to add the feel of the space or one part of it on a budget, like the stone wall with the white trim windows in the photo above.
I like the rustic, but modern feel of the wall.
To get the look, I began researching faux stone wallpapers online. I ended up finding one that fit all my criteria in the paint aisle of Walmart of all places.
It was affordable peel & stick that was fairly easy to apply to the accent wall.
I find pre-pasted wallpaper easier to apply to walls since you have a few minutes to slide each section into place. Not so with peel & stick wallpaper. I had to remove a whole sheet and toss it that I didn’t get fitted quite right around the window.
I would still use a peel & stick wallpaper, it’s just a bit trickier to fit around doors and windows.
In person, the flat faux stones look 3-dimensional and quite real. My husband, Ed keeps touching the wall when he sits at the table as he feels it looks so realistic.
My kitchen gets lots of natural light. Since the wallpaper is smooth, it does have a matte sheen when the light hits one section on the wall for a few hours in the afternoon.
Since it is wallpaper, there are seams also, but overall it looks realistic.
I needed 3 rolls since I had to toss one length that ripped when I was fitting it around the window. Otherwise 2 rolls would have been enough, even with having to match the pattern.
Decorating the Open Shelves in My Kitchen
Over the summer, I did a purge of the contents in my kitchen cabinets. I then moved some of what I still wanted to keep to a new area I am calling the Butler’s Pantry on one side of my studioffice.
When we first moved into the house, this upper cabinet had doors which made it hard to get anything out from behind the doors since the counter peninsula was in the way and the cabinet doors so wide. It was hard to reach into the cabinet as you had to take a step back when opening the doors. Not a good design, so I removed the doors to create open shelving.
At the time I played around with the idea of removing the cabinet and creating open shelves with decorative brackets underneath. When we began to do it, we soon stopped as we would be opening a whole host of new problems to fix on and behind the wall. I was fine with leaving it as it.
For fall I removed all the white dinnerware, pitchers and platters that I usually have on the shelves and styled the shelves in a more decorative way with some new plates and a few dollar store wicker paper plate holders.
I haven’t used brown in decor like this since I decorated my college dorm room back in the late 1970’s when the color was in. Now that brown tones are trending once again in decorating, I like it as an accent color instead of using orange like I usually do.
Instead of adding small gourds, real or faux pumpkins to the open shelves, I added the metal bird I bought at Pottery Barn a few years ago. I normally have it on the console in my foyer.
I also found this small wood and marble pedestal I made in my decor stash and gave it new life by styling it on one of the shelves. The twig orb on top of it is from the craft store.
A Few Simple Fall Touches Around the Kitchen
I don’t have spacious kitchen countertops. Everything on them has to have a function. Hence a wood bowl full of apples becomes the decor.
Having a small lamp on a kitchen counter all year round is a must for me, especially in the fall. When all the lights are off in the kitchen, except maybe for a candle, the kitchen feels extra cozy at night.
I like keeping a tall white pitcher in this corner of the cooktop counter. It hides the electrical outlet. I change the florals in it all the time – sometimes greenery, other times real or faux. For fall I used a mix of faux leaves and berry stems I already had that I bought at Hobby Lobby.
Whenever I share a photo of this area in the kitchen I always receive comments asking how I hung the framed print on the tile backsplash. Easy – with Command Brand No Damage Picture Hanging Strips. The frame has never come down and has been up for over 3 years.
Swapping out any kitchen linens to harvest colored ones like this waffle weave dishtowel are simple changes to add that do add warmth.
I changed the dish under the faux topiary pot from all white to a brown and white sponge patterned plate. EZ peasy.
I didn’t have room to add anything to the my rolling cart turned into a kitchen island. It is a workhorse. I usually have a dishtowel hanging from the magnet clip on the side of the top.
On the DIY plate wall I made on the wall that is between the dining area of the kitchen and living room, I made sure to add a few wood boards to warm up the wall and not have it feel left out.
As you can see I didn’t go all out this year, but did create around neutral fall colors enough to make the kitchen feel cozier and fall-like. And don’t miss how I decorated the living room that is connected to this dining area for more fall decorating ideas.
Finding Decorating Inspiration for Any Season
The Art of Home – By Shea McGee
One of my favorite pastimes is to read decorating books by designers who I think have great style. The best books are the ones where I am tabbing lots of pages as I read through it. This book by Shea MaGee is one of these. I have read many decor books, some are not inspiring, but this is one of the best I have read in a long time.
How do you come up with ideas when decorating your house for the change of seasons? This year what ever you do, make sure you put your own stamp and style in your kitchen so the space feels fresh and cozy and just right to your eye.
It doesn’t have to cost a thing if you look around your home for accessories in a fall color scheme you would like to see in the room.
Once you gather the items, start playing around and styling them in different ways and on surfaces until you like what you see.
Even though I get my decorating inspiration from books, magazines, social media and what I see when I am out and about. I always make sure what I do feels and fits my personal style.
I am also not afraid to take a risk. What matters more to me is that when I walk into the space, it makes me smile.
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