Fall Home Tour

Oh, y'all, it's finally Fall in North Carolina. We're all breathing a sigh of relief as our scorching temperatures have relented at last. And now that the season is officially here, I'd like to welcome you to my home.

First, a disclaimer. Lots of bloggers are brilliant at staging their homes for beautiful photos, and I know we all admire and appreciate their work. Alas, staging is not one of my talents. So these are just photos of the way I have my home decorated for Autumn.

Here's our house in Durham.

We're blessed to live in a relatively new house in an old, established neighborhood. The mature trees are great friends of mine. As you can see, the leaves haven't really started changing colors yet.

Here's the view as you approach the front door.

And a closer look at the area around the door.

That's a tobacco basket tucked in the corner, a nod to North Carolina's biggest crop.

This year I'm trying something a little different in place of a wreath. It's a copper bucket filled with dried and silk flowers and wheat. I'm not sure if I like it as well as a wreath; what do you think?

To the right of the front door is the front porch sitting area, which is one of my favorite rooms in our house. I've added a few fall touches here.

I just slipcovered my usual throw pillows with some autumnal fabric and added a few pumpkins and some cotton. Our families are from Tennessee and Arkansas, and cotton is a huge part of our family history: my grandfather was a sharecropper, my husband's grandfather was a tenant farmer, and my husband's father ran a cotton gin. So when I think of harvest, cotton is the first thing that comes to mind.

An heirloom pumpkin anchors this end of the sitting area, along with a Fall message on the chalkboard.

The room on the inside of the front porch windows is our dining room, which is decorated very simply for Fall.

I made this dried arrangement a few years ago, and I still like it in this room.

Just beside the dining room is the living room. The colors in this room lend themselves well to some fall decorating.

The wingback chairs are pair nicely with these Pottery Barn fall pillows.

The sofas got some new pillows this Fall, too—I found some Pottery Barn napkins I loved and sewed them into pillow fronts. So easy!

The coffee table usually holds a bowl of green apples, so that works great for Fall. I also add a little touch of the season on the magazine tray.

I don't usually do mantelscapes for the seasons other than Christmas, but I was tickled to find a huge copper tub while antiquing in Blowing Rock, and I thought it added a nice touch of Fall to the fireplace.

Doesn't it look pretty holding grocery store mums?

The living room leads into the kitchen, where just a few touches add some Fall flair. I wish you could smell my kitchen right now: I just baked a batch of pumpkin bread, which is my very favorite of all autumn treats (click here to get that recipe!).

 I'm still loving my green island!

The same antique mall in Blowing Rock yielded this wonderful candy scale, just like I remember from my childhood!

I found these dessert plates at Pottery Barn. They came in a set of four, and I hung three here.

Want to see my high-class method of hanging plates? I glue the pop-tops from Coke cans onto the back!

My mother's dough cabinet stands in our breakfast area and is one of my favorite pieces of furniture. This year it's decorated very simply for Fall.

At the end of the kitchen is the door to the screened porch.

The porch is on the second floor of the house, so sitting here is like being in a tree house. Soon the backdrop will be full of vibrant color. For now, we'll enjoy the color in the pumpkins and gourds of my simple centerpiece.

You know, with all the horrible news these days, it's easy to feel that such things as seasonal decorating is trite or even meaningless, but I don't think that's true. God has given us a beautiful world to live in. The actions of evil people may mar the picture, but they don't change the fact that God loves beauty. God created us to love beauty, too, and to join his work to make this world a lovely, flourishing place.

I like to think of my efforts to create a welcoming home as an offering of love, a small act of defiance in the face of evil. What do you think?

I'm joining these wonderful parties:

The Scoop 

Inspire Me Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style