Making Things Just So: How to Create a Cozy Home for Fall

Making Things Just So: How to Create a Cozy Home for Fall

I love it when things in my home are “just so.” It brings me such a deep sense of satisfaction, peace, harmony and contentment. It’s also exactly the feeling I’m after when I set out to create a cozy home for fall.

The reason it matters so much to me is because disorder hurts. The chaos of living in a junk drawer is stressful and dysregulating to the nervous system. Home should be restful, peaceful, harmonious and as welcoming as a warm hug.

There’s genuine joy in the domestic discipline of ordering and tidying a home. Bossing it around, so to speak. There’s joy, too, in filling your rooms with furnishings, art, pillows, blankets, trinkets, books, and the heirlooms and treasures passed down through family.

This post is for those of us who love our things and want to keep them, who want the cozy season to feel fresh without starting over. Here’s how I get my home “just so” as the weather turns, in four gentle steps.

What “Just So” Looks Like in a Middlemalist Home

Making things “just so” can take as many forms as there are people in this world. Some prefer minimalism and owning very few things. Others like to fit as much as they can into their homes, and still others take it to the extreme and let their homes overflow.

What about those of us who straddle the middle ground? That’s the heart of middlemalism: a home with real order and real warmth, somewhere between minimalism and maximalism. Middlemalists like our stuff and we want to keep it. We may not need to look at everything all the time, but we like knowing it’s still in our possession and stored safely, properly and orderly in the house.

In a middlemalist home, “just so” might look like:

• Keeping the things you love, even when they aren’t all on display at once
• Knowing where everything is, so nothing feels lost or forgotten
• Letting each room hold a few well-chosen pieces, and changing them as the seasons change

Rotating Your Treasures to Keep a Home Fresh, Yet Familiar

That’s why I like rotating my treasures, trinkets and knick-knacks for display. Whether it’s a season-specific decor piece or an anytime-of-year piece, swapping items in and out of your everyday room decor keeps things feeling fresh and new, yet familiar. And every trip back to the storage space to make a swap is a little like finding treasure.

It helps to think of it this way:

• Seasonal pieces come out for a few weeks or months, then rest until next year.
• Anytime pieces move around the house, from shelf to table to mantel, to refresh a room without bringing anything new in.

In my ideal world, I’d have a dedicated storage space for bins of treasures, everything labeled and inventoried. (You can get my inventory sheets here!)

I actually do have the luxury of those spaces in my home. They’re just currently overrun with decades of accumulated stuff. I’m sharing the stories of that decluttering in the Decluttering Our Family Home series over in Brilliant Ideas. For now, here’s my approach to getting my home “just so” for the cozy season.

How to Create a Cozy Home for Fall: Four Gentle Steps

You don’t need to do everything at once. Start with whichever step calls to you first.

1.  A Little Extra Care Tidying

I naturally prefer a tidy living space. But when I’m welcoming in a new season, and in particular this one, when temperatures dip and the weather turns blustery and rainy; I like to make a little more effort. I tidy, switch some items out, and move others around: general piddling and putzing, whatever you like to call it. The goal is to edit the visuals so seasonal pieces can be added without looking over the top. You know, making it just so!

2.  Optimize Your Blanket Options

Blankets are the best for cozying up, whether you’re on your own with a cup of steaming tea and a book or with friends sipping wine and nibbling on treats. Now is a great time to freshly launder any that need it, or to give them a really good shake and an airing out. And if you have warmer options tucked away, now’s the perfect time to pull them out.

3.  Create the Mood Lighting

I quite like it when the sun sets early. It gives me a sense of peace, quiet and coziness that speaks to my soul, as though the early evenings are an invitation to slow down and rest. Not being an “overhead light” kinda gal, I prefer soft lamp light or the flicker of candles to bright nighttime lighting. If I turn on the lamps, I turn the knob to the lowest setting. Then I’ll switch on a few electric tea lights and enjoy the warmth of my favorite blanket.

4.  Add Layers with Calming Seasonal Scents

Coziness isn’t just for what our eyes can see and our hands can feel. I like to add a rich layer for all of my senses by diffusing essential oils that evoke an autumnal feeling. Scents like clove, cinnamon, orange, nutmeg and vanilla add to that fallish atmosphere. New to diffusing? Start with How to Get Started Diffusing Essential Oils and Essential Oil Scents Perfect for the Fall Diffusing.

Where to Begin: A Simple Cozy-Season Reset

If you’re not sure where to start, begin here:

• Pick one room, the one where you spend most of your evenings, and give it a little extra care tidying.
• Pull out one blanket. Launder or air it, then drape it where you’ll actually reach for it.
• Turn off the overhead light for one evening and try lamps on low or a few electric tea lights.

Every one of these steps is small, repeatable and low-commitment, which means they work as well in a rental or a shared living room as they do in a home you own outright. You don’t need to control the whole space to make your corner of it feel cozy.

I’ve loved accomplishing this by swapping out lighter colors with darker ones, choosing fall-like scents for the diffuser and unpacking the warmer, heavier throw blankets. This year we’re testing out a comforter for the couch snuggly throw and it’s working out marvelously! It’s actually a lighter-weight comforter for the bed but moonlights as a warmer blanket for those movie/ binge-watching, afternoon nap times.

A Note on Doing This Slowly

Your home doesn’t need to look like it’s ready for a photo shoot to feel like autumn. It simply needs to:

• Feel restful when you walk through the door
• Hold the things you love, rotated in and out and kept in their right place
• Welcome you, and anyone you invite in, like a warm hug

I hope these approaches to creating autumnal coziness inspire you to try the same in your home!

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