How to Create a Cosy Home this Autumn
I love this time of year. As autumn’s darkening days nudge us towards a slower pace of life, I feel I can comfortably slip into a deeply restorative period of hibernation. At home, as the nights draw in, I want to feel relaxed and at peace. I’m craving a restful space that makes me feel calm from the moment I walk through the door.
With autumn comes a yearning for creating cocooning hideaways and embracing the feeling of hunkering down with soft blankets and flickering candles. It’s a time when we’re all spending a bit more time indoors and we’re looking to make our homes a safe and cosseting space in which to retreat.
We’re naturally paying attention to what we’re surrounding ourselves with, which so often determines our mood. And where better to find inspiration than in the earthy, calming tones of autumn. For me, it’s about embracing natural textures with the textural tones of wood, flowers from my garden and my favourite ceramics.
The newly re-painted kitchen cupboards - we used deVOL’s Pantry Blue.
There’s something so special about the slower pace of life at this time of year. It’s a time for nesting and indulging in those simple, life enhancing moments at home. And while the back to school vibes have faded, I’m using this more quiet and reflective time of the year to make some subtle shifts in the feeling of my home. The light is softer and more forgiving and I’m faffing and tinkering rather than moving around furniture (I’m too lazy for that). It’s more about the changing up the mood with the way I arrange some of my favourite decorative pieces on a shelf, and creating little vignettes around my home
It’s the little details that can very often make the biggest difference to your frame of mind and feeling of well-being, often with little effort. You want to stamp your personality on your space; make your home feel like you - and it’s often the smallest decorative details can have maximum impact.
I’ve started with the kitchen, mostly because it’s a space in which I’ll spend many a happy afternoon once the temperature starts to drop. Step inside my home during the colder months and there’s a good chance you’ll find me in the kitchen making lopsided pies or pasta suppers laced with saffron and smoky paprika. My latest obsessions are warm pear crumble served with dark chocolate ice cream, and toasted sandwiches bursting at the seams with sharp, rich cheddar and hot mango chutney.
We recently we decided we were bored with our light blue-grey cupboards and chose to go for a pretty radical change, repainting them a deep inky blue. It’s instantly transformed the space, creating a feeling of warmth. I’ve cleared the clutter from the shelf on the wall above my main food prep area, adding candles, an oak-framed autumnal print, one of our oatmeal-glazed stoneware bowls and my new fav jugs that are decorated with painterly brushstrokes and remind me of a Hokusai print. On the window ledge I’ve added a huge vase of wild-looking hedgerow finds, their twiggy branches abundant with deep russet and ruddy pink leaves.
Filling your home with cut flowers all year round would be lovely, but it’s expensive and not sustainable. The great benefit of simple garden cuttings and hedgerow finds is that they’re free - and the bounty of colour and structural shapes that that autumn offers up can provide a long-lasting display in your home. The unseasonably mild weather has meant that I’m still gathering late-flowering dahlias, cosmos and Japanese anemones from my garden, mixing them with the heads of dried hydrangeas, briza grass and miscanthus that you’d expect to find at this time of year.
As the cold creeps in and darker evenings descend, autumn is traditionally a time when we look to keep our spirits lifted. It’s been another tough year and now more than ever we’re looking to our homes to create a safe haven of well-being away from the world.
The gorgeously smoky scented Embers candle and the jug that reminds me of Hokusai.
During the darker months, the warmth and glow of a crackling fire is one of life’s most comforting pleasures, and the warming aroma of burning incense and naturally-scented candles never fail to lift my spirits. I want to feel cocooned and enveloped as soon as I walk through the door (if he’s home and he knows I’ve been having bad day, my husband will light some candles and place them by the front door so they’re the first thing I see when I come home).
Faffing with some fabric makes by the glow of the fire.
Autumn is the perfect time to take a step back and carve out some time for yourself. At this time of year I love to make cosy little nooks where I can curl up and read a book or a magazine, or just allowing my mind to switch to neutral and indulge in some daydreaming. Candles are, of course, a must - for illuminating dark corners, but their natural fragrances can also make us feel more connected to nature. I find that lighting incense can be a quietly intentional act that helps focus the mind in the present - I’ll often use it while I’m meditating. And I don’t wait for the festive season to start stringing up twinkly garlands of lights. Intersperse them with tiny bunches of dried flowers and some foraged twiggy bits and they’ll easily see you through until spring.
My Autumn Rituals: Five Things That Make Me Feel Happy at Home in Autumn:
The warming aroma of burning incense and scented candles
Faffing in the kitchen making soups and stews from what I can find in the fridge
3. The luminescent light patches that flicker on the walls as the sun starts to dip behind the trees
A candlelit bath mid-afternoon on a Sunday
Filling vases with grasses and dried seed heads gathered from my garden
What are your favourite things about autumn? I’d love you hear from you so do please share in the comments below!
Mimi (the latest addition to the family). She’s not been so keen to venture outdoors recently either, especially once the fire goes on!