The Velvet Season: Using Texture and Rich Tones in Fall Home Decor

A Five-Year-Old’s Treasure

When I was about five or six years old, I walked a couple of houses down the street to a neighbor’s yard sale. The driveway was lined with various unrelated items my neighbor was hoping to sell. One of those things was a harvest-gold crushed velvet throw pillow. To an adult, it was probably a hideous 1960s relic from a musty basement. But when my small fingers touched that fabric- velvet for the first time- I thought it was the most luxurious thing of beauty that I had ever seen.

Being a child, of course I didn’t have any money to buy it, but I returned several times that day to admire the velvet pillow. Finally, at the end of the day when the lady was packing up her unsold items, the pillow remained, and she gave it to me.

Even now, decades later, I still believe that there’s something decadent and luxurious about a well-placed velvet pillow. It makes the whole room seem more cared for.

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This is the third entry in the Falling for Home: A Weekly Autumn Journal, a Friday series dedicated to timeless seasonal living, traditional Southern décor, and creating a home you love year-round. (Find links to previous entries at the bottom of this post.)

A Season of Layers and Light

During the weeks of late summer to early fall, it feels like a quiet transition. Supple textures like velvet mimic the season’s natural softness. The transition to spring is dotted with turbulent thunderstorms, and the starkness of winter jolts us with its biting winds. But the South seems to float imperceptibly from summer to fall. It’s a soft and gentle glide into the autumn season, like fingertips trailing across velvet.

It’s easy to feel the pressure to head to a big-box store each season to buy the newest décor available for our homes. However, today I want to talk about intentionally investing in a few timeless, quality pieces that we can layer with our existing, collected décor to decorate for fall. In this way we will invite calm, rather than clutter, into our homes. We’ll use our creativity in ways that will repurpose objects we own and love with a few new things that we find along the way.

Touchpoints of Texture – Decorating the Living Room

When my kids were small they had several beloved “stuffies.” You know, those precious stuffed animals with ears rubbed thin and matted fur that was once fluffy. However, after a few years’ worth of birthday parties, I quickly learned that if a family member asked what one of the kids wanted for their birthday, my response included that we didn’t need any more stuffed animals.

Throw pillows are our grown-up version of stuffed animals. They really are! Unfortunately throw pillows take up a lot of storage space in our homes. My solution to this is to invest in some quality pillow inserts and only buy pillow covers. Not only does this save on storage, but it’s far cheaper to buy pillow covers than the whole throw pillow.

This season I traded the navy blue pillow covers that I used throughout summer for some rich, copper colored velvet ones. If you’re looking to switch your pillow covers this fall, aim for saturated tones like copper, plum, or chocolate. If you want to add more texture to your space, consider tactile materials like velvet, raw linen, or boucle.

In addition to switching out your throw pillows, another great addition to your fall décor are copper and brown glass pieces. These are easy things to “hunt” for throughout the year as you’re antiquing. A copper boiler or basin can be used to hold books, magazines, and even throw blankets. A collection of brown and amber vases set in front of a window catches the fading sunrays to cast a magical glow around the room.

As you decorate for fall, don’t overlook lighting. When the daylight grows shorter, we have opportunities in the evening to create a warm, cocooned glow that invites rest with well-placed lamps and even candles. Lighting is a way to add to the rhythm of the season and awaken our senses to calm and comfort. The glow of a lamp in the corner of your living room or the flicker and scent of an autumn candle invites us to the small moments that spark peace within.

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The Velvet Ribbon Effect – Small Luxuries

If investing in new décor isn’t in your budget this year, or you feel like you already own enough of it, there are ways to take your existing décor up a notch to freshen it up. A budget-friendly fall décor update is using some velvet ribbon. Taking ordinary objects like a stack of books, a candle, or even a piece of artwork, and tying a length of velvet ribbon around them, will transform the ordinary into a piece of intentional seasonal décor.

You can find seasonal velvet ribbon at craft stores or online. Look for shades like cinnamon, olive, rust, or plum to layer with your existing palette.

In my home, I used seasonal toned velvet ribbon around a stack of books, a little amber vase, and large brown bottles. It changed them from ordinary objects into objects d’art. It’s the slightest changes– a bit of ribbon, a tempered light – that tell us it’s time to slow down in this next season.

Permission to Linger

Will this be the autumn that you finally allow yourself to linger? I want to gently encourage you to embrace the comfort that you create in your own home without rushing into the chaos of the holidays. Remember, when you invest in your own home this season, that quality is better than quantity, collected is better than consuming, and luxury can be quiet and accessible. I invite you to observe your own home and find ways to soften your décor this season.

Invitation

Thank you for joining me with this week’s article from my series Falling for Home. Each Friday from August through September, we’ll meet here at BelleAntiquarian.com to reflect on a slow, intentional rhythm of seasonal living, rooted in tradition, home, and memory. Join me next week for Chicken Mull, a lesser-known Southern heritage recipe.

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Explore More from Falling for Home: A Weekly Autumn Journal

This article is part of my Falling for Home series. Be sure to check out these reader favorites:

• When Summer Lingers
• Gathering Baskets & Dried Blooms
• Chicken Mull
• The Collected Kitchen
• Home as a Haven
• Patterns & Patina: How to Layer Like a Southerner
• Front Doors & First Impressions

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