There comes a point every August when I start looking forward to fall.
Not necessarily pumpkin fall. It may still be 85 degrees outside, the garden is at its fullest, and I’m certainly not ready to abandon dinner on the patio.
But something shifts, and I’m ready to start thinking about elegant fall decorating ideas.
The evenings get a little shorter. I start thinking about candlelight again. Crisp linen suddenly wants a wool throw tossed over it. The pale, breezy rooms I loved all summer begin asking for deeper color, warmer wood, and a little more pattern.
It’s less about decorating for fall and more about changing the mood of the house for what comes next.
And this year, that shift has me especially drawn to interiors that feel collected, storied, and just a little bit old-world: botanical art, rich wood tones, aged brass, earthy greens, burgundy and plum, small pools of lamplight, and objects that look as though they’ve lived a life before arriving here.
So before a single pumpkin makes an appearance at Château Kahn, I’m looking forward to fall with a few quieter changes—including one very inexpensive DIY involving 225-year-old French botanical illustrations.
And yes, you can download the prints for free.
1 | A Richer, Earthier Color Palette
Fall decorating doesn’t have to mean orange.
In fact, some of the colors I’m most excited about this season are ones that work beautifully year-round: moss and olive green, oxblood, aubergine, tobacco brown, muted gold, parchment, and deep wood tones.
They feel particularly right for autumn because they mirror the season without trying to reproduce it literally.
Instead of changing an entire room, consider introducing those colors in small doses: a velvet pillow, patterned lampshade, vintage pottery, a darker throw, a stack of old books, or even artwork.
Looking to add to your own collection? I’ve curated a few pieces in this season’s moss, oxblood, aubergine, tobacco and muted-gold palette in The Sprezzatura Autumn Edit.
Which brings me to this year’s first fall project…
2 | DIY Antique Botanical Art
Vintage botanical prints have been decorating homes for centuries, and for good reason. They bring color and pattern into a room while remaining remarkably timeless.
Rather than buying modern reproductions, I went looking for the real thing.
Or at least, digitized versions of the real thing.
I found these extraordinary botanical studies in the Digital Collections of The New York Public Library. The original illustrations appear in Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau’s Traité des arbres et arbustes, published in Paris in 1801 and now held by the NYPL Rare Book Division.
That makes the source material more than 200 years old.
The softly faded pigments, foxed paper, engraved lettering, Latin and French botanical names, and tiny scientific studies were exactly what I wanted. No faux-aging filter required.
Choosing the Prints
There are plenty of beautiful plates in the collection, but rather than choosing six favorites at random, I created two coordinating groups.
For an old-world autumn harvest:
Plum · Grape · Pear
The pear brings those wonderful yellow-green tones, the grape adds dusty mauve and sage, and the plum introduces deep aubergine and blue.
For something quieter and more woodland-inspired:
Beech · Chestnut · Oak
Together, they feel like specimens gathered on a walk through a French wood in October.
The beauty is that none of them actually says “fall décor.” Framed individually, in trios, or as a six-piece gallery wall, they could comfortably remain in a room all year.
How to Turn Public-Domain Art Into Printable Wall Art
The project itself is so simple.
You’ll need:
- High-resolution public-domain botanical images
- A basic photo-editing or design program (I use Canva Pro)
- Heavyweight matte paper or fine-art paper (For larger sizes, I order prints via Shutterfly)
- Vintage, thrifted, or simple wood/brass frames (My Vintage DIY gilded frames would also be perfect)
- Optional archival-quality matting
Whenever possible, download the highest-resolution version available. I preserved the original coloring, foxing, plate numbers, botanical names, and artist and engraver marks rather than trying to make the images look newly created.
The imperfections are part of the point. They give so much character.
Straighten each scan if necessary and crop away anything that belongs to the digitization process—scanner edges or visible book binding, for example—but leave plenty of the original paper surrounding the illustration.
Then size the artwork for your chosen frame.
I particularly like these at 8 × 10 or 11 × 14, where the details are large enough to appreciate but the prints still have the intimate feeling of pages removed from an antique botanical volume. For a bigger impact on a wall, use matting and larger frames.
A Note About Public-Domain Artwork
One of the great pleasures of museum and library digital archives is discovering artwork that would otherwise remain hidden away in rare books and collections.
The New York Public Library states that it believes these particular images are in the public domain under United States copyright law. While attribution isn’t required, NYPL encourages users to credit the library and link back to its Digital Collections.
Which I’m very happy to do.
From The New York Public Library, Rare Book Division.
LINK TO NYPL DIGITAL COLLECTION
I also kept the original illustrations essentially intact. They’re beautiful precisely because they look 225 years old—not because I made them look 225 years old.
3 | Bring Back the Wood
For quite a while, painted furniture seemed to be the answer to nearly every dated wood finish.
I’m increasingly glad that era is behind us.
Beautiful wood brings an architectural warmth to a room that’s particularly welcome as summer gives way to fall. Walnut, mahogany, burl, oak, and other character-rich finishes look especially good against creamy walls, aged metals, and deeper textiles.
That doesn’t mean every brown piece of furniture deserves preservation simply because it’s brown. But when the wood is beautiful? I’m much more inclined to work with it rather than cover it.
For fall, even something as simple as bringing a vintage wood stool beside a chair or styling a dark wood bowl on a table can subtly change the vibe of a room.
4 | Pattern With a Little History
The patterns catching my eye for fall aren’t particularly trendy.
Plaid. Tartan. Paisley. Block prints. Small florals. Damasks. Botanical motifs.
In other words, patterns that have already survived enough decorating cycles that I’m not terribly worried about whether they’ll survive another one.
The trick is using them sparingly.
A patterned lampshade against a solid wall. A couple plaid pillows on a neutral sofa. A block-print tablecloth under simple dishes. A tiny floral on an upholstered chair.
Against quieter surroundings, even a traditional pattern can feel surprisingly fresh. I love the way these traditional Scottish tartan blankets break up the wood and warm up the lodge at Rothiemurchus, one of the stops on our Scottish Highlands adventure.
5 | Create Small Pools of Light
This might be the easiest seasonal change of all.
As the days shorten, I want more little lamps lit around the house.
A lamp tucked onto a kitchen counter. Another on a bookshelf. One glowing in the corner of a dining room. Candles (real or, even easier, faux–with timers) lit, even when no one is coming over.
Good lighting changes the atmosphere of a room more dramatically than another bin of seasonal decorations ever could.
For an inexpensive project, look for small lamps at thrift stores and estate sales. A new shade—or even a DIY gathered or pleated shade in a beautiful patterned fabric—can make a fairly forgettable lamp look remarkably special.
6 | Decorate With the Harvest, Not the Theme
There will undoubtedly be pumpkins around here eventually.
But early fall is when I especially love decorating with things that feel seasonal because they actually belong to the season.
Bowls of pears and apples. Figs and grapes on a table. Nuts in their shells. Clipped branches. Dried hydrangeas from the garden. Herbs. A slightly unruly bundle of foliage in an old vessel.
Even very good faux fruit can work beautifully when mixed into a collected arrangement.
The goal isn’t to announce that autumn has arrived.
It’s to make the house feel connected to what’s happening outside of it.
7 | Set the Table Again
Summer entertaining tends to migrate outdoors around here.
Fall brings me back to the dining room.
And I love the change.
This is when the table can become richer without becoming formal: linen napkins, antique or vintage silver, patterned dishes, darker glassware, fruit piled into an old bowl, and more candles than are strictly necessary.
The botanical prints are so beautiful here because they reinforce the same idea—bringing the abundance of the season indoors without relying on explicitly seasonal decorations.
8 | Make Home Feel Like a Destination
Maybe this is what I’m really looking forward to most.
Summer pulls us outward. Fall turns us back toward home.
There are dinners to cook slowly again. Candles to burn down. Rooms that feel different after dark. Projects that have been waiting patiently while the garden demanded attention.
Seasonal decorating, at its best, isn’t really about changing everything we own four times a year.
It’s about noticing how we want to live in our homes now.
For me, this fall looks a little moodier. A little more collected. Richer in color and texture, but still restrained. Old wood, botanical art, beautiful textiles, candlelight—and yes, eventually, probably a pumpkin or twelve.
Just not yet.
Free Download | The Sprezzatura Autumn Botanical Collection
I’ve prepared the antique French botanical studies featured in this post as a complimentary printable collection for members of the Sprezzatura Inner Circle.
The collection includes six coordinating botanical prints:
The Orchard Collection
Pear · Grape · Plum
The Woodland Collection
Oak & Acorn · Chestnut · Beech
Print one. Hang a trio. Or create a collected six-piece gallery wall.
The original botanical illustrations are from Traité des arbres et arbustes by Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, Paris, 1801, and were digitized by The New York Public Library, Rare Book Division.
From The New York Public Library.
Shop the Autumn Edit
Curated pieces I’d use to bring the season home—rich woods, aged finishes, botanical motifs, traditional pattern, candlelight and a few beautifully autumnal colors. I am also including the dark walnut wood frame I personally purchased for a few of the botanical prints, which is also featured in the above DIY botanical art images.
Think of it less as a fall décor haul and more as a collection of pieces that feel particularly right now—but beautiful well beyond the season.
SHOP THE SPREZZATURA AUTUMN EDIT→
A Note on Shopping: This post includes affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of my links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Every piece featured in The Autumn Edit was selected because I believe it adds something beautiful—not simply because it can be linked.
Elegant Fall Decorating That Feels Timeless
The best summer-into-fall decorating doesn’t necessarily announce the season. It shifts the mood of a home—through richer color, old-world pattern, natural materials, candlelight, and a few thoughtful details that feel just as beautiful in October as they would in January.
I have a feeling these botanical prints are going to set the tone for much of what I’m craving at home this fall: beautiful things with history, colors borrowed from nature, and decorating that feels seasonal without feeling temporary.
There will be plenty more autumn ahead—including a few furniture revivals, seasonal styling, and, eventually, Halloween at Château Kahn.
But for now?
I’m completely happy lingering in this in-between season—with the windows open, a 225-year-old French pear on the wall, and the first hints that fall is on its way.
