fall refresh, two ways.

Today is the first day of Fall and isn’t that a nice thing to think about?  I’m a sucker for season change. The shift in weather, the memory of past seasons coupled with the promise of a new year offering something just a little bit different. When the season’s associated with warm spices and breezy days and leaves crunching underfoot, well, then all the better. Yes, I’ll take all the clichés, please and thank you.

I contributed to a Lonny Mag piece earlier this week and gave a few ideas for how to freshen up a home for fall. No surprise, my tips don’t include buying much of anything new, but the story did inspire me to do a little two ways and expand on a few ideas you can use to refresh your space, either by making a smart investment or just investing a little time.

Check out the original story here. Get a few other ideas down below:

Brighten Your View, Two Ways:
+ Upgrade your curtains to something calm and cozy.
+ Wash the curtains you have, wipe away the water spots on the windows from those summer thunderstorms, and watch the fall sunshine stream in.

Bring in Fall Colors, Two Ways:
+ Add a warm touch to your entryway with a richly colored rug.
+ Collect freshly fallen leaves and get a lil’ crafty with some washi tape and a blank wall. 

Hang Up Your Stuff, Two Ways:
+ Bring home a new set of hooks to wrangle clutter and get things off the ground.
+ Clear off the hooks you already have and decide carefully what you hang back up. If there’s something you don’t use or aren’t currently wearing either pass it along to someone else or tuck it away for safe-keeping.

Keep Your Floor Clean, Two Ways:
+ Replace a grody or threadbare doormat with something clean and new and built to last.
+ Give your doormat a deep clean by shaking out the dirt, vacuuming it up, and giving her an old fashioned scrub with a sturdy brush and dish soap.

Swap Out Your Art, Two Ways:
+ Invest in a new statement piece to love forever.
+ Move what you already have around. Shifting an existing piece to a new wall will give a whole new look without costing a dime.

Upgrade Your Closet, Two Ways
+ Splurge on the new fall flannel you’ve been eyeing.
+ Give your dresser drawers a good once-over, make sure you love everything in them, do a little refold/reorganization to get them looking new again.

Cozy Up Your Bed, Two Ways
+ Go for that set of super-soft flannel sheets that reminds you of being a kid.
+ Pull the warm blankets out of summer storage, air it out in the sunshine, hit with a little lavender water, and drape it over your bed.

Set the Mood, Two Ways
+ Get a little spooky with a set of black beeswax tapers.
+ Set those apple peels, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and cider to simmer on your stove and fill the house with the smells of autumn.

Set Your Table, Two Ways
+ Fill it with dark woods and gooey cheeses.
+ Haul out whatever you’ve got, invite your friends over for a pot of chili, pour goblets of red wine.

Control Your Clutter, Two Ways
+ Tuck unsightly bills out of sight with a beautiful leather wall envelope.
+ Get ahead of the holiday junk mail influx and get yourself off unwanted mailing lists now.