Fall into fall with seasonal decorating around the house

Fall is the next great themed season for shoppers.

Autumn enthusiasts can’t wait to hear leaves crunching under their feet. While grass is still green, they import touches of brown and gold and rust. At home, they scatter around tureens shaped like pumpkins, leaf-shaped platters, ceramic roosters and turkeys.

Some decorate discreetly, with just a hint of autumn here and there. Some lavish faux fall trees with elves in velvet grape suits and cheese-shaped glass ornaments to create a wine and harvest theme.

Local shops are ready for them.

Kathy Rooney, owner of Virginia Beach’s Shore Gallery & Design, presides over an astonishing inventory of fall decor and from which she regularly emerges to help clients use it in their living spaces.

“Some change their decor seasonally, obviously the accessories, but some change the draperies, even the bed linens ,” she said of customers.

Make that the sheets, the bedspreads, the towels, even the rugs, many appointed with iconic symbols of autumn: leaves, berries, pine cones, nuts. The fall-decorating trend has grown so popular that at her shop’s autumn open house last year Rooney had nearly as many feverish shoppers as she does at the annual early peek she holds for Christmas stock.

It surprised her, she said, but she feels she’s come to understand the reason.

“Fall is a holiday where they don’t feel so much pressure, “ Rooney said of her customers. “Instead of buying gifts, they can just decorate their house for the season.”

Fall first comes to porch

Summery geraniums get the boot. Instead, potted mums or pansies welcome guests. Door wreaths get makeovers in shades pulled from the changing landscape.

“Use pumpkins and mums and Chinese lanterns and fall leaves,” instructed Sarah Kerr, manager of Bowman’s Garden Center in Portsmouth, where fall decor is a growing money maker, too.

“Put in fall leaves and acorns and pine cones and nuts and use orange and brown and yellow bows,” she suggested. “Put little pieces of corn in there – silk corn on the cob – or artificial gourds and butterflies. Those are always pretty, too.”

Kerr likes to use silk sunflowers, apples, pears, wheat and grasses. Or she slips in small, pre-wired bunches or sprays of leaves. It’s hard to make a mistake. Just play with it, she advised do-it-yourself decorators.

Fall works on senses, too

“China Musk is my personal fall candle. That’s what I burn, and I only burn it in the fall,” said Laura Slaymaker, owner of Serendip, a home furnishings, accessories and gift shop and art gallery in Norfolk. “It’s home and nesty. It’s crackling fire. It’s good.”

The candle, by Seda France, has a spicy fragrance infused with cedar and violet.

Another popular scent is Nutmeg Vanille.

“This is a cup of eggnog,” Slaymaker said. “It is truly nutmeg with a little bit of cinnamon and clove and vanilla beans. The other one people like is called Autumn Spice. It’s the scent of hot buttered rum, ground ginger, cinnamon. It’s like a baking candle. That’s how I refer to it, like you walked into a kitchen and someone’s baking.”

Lavish your living rooms

Sparkle comes with the exuberant addition of beaded or glittery fall accessories.

“People use glass pumpkins on their mantels or console tables,” said Rooney at her Hilltop shop. “Underneath, they use runners with cutout leaves or embroidered with fall leaves.”

Shoppers often come in to watch store manager and display artist Stephanie Ailstock as she sets up table-­scapes full of layered color and texture. “They’ll ask me how to stage things at home, or they’ll buy the whole thing as is,” she said.

Gary Ashburne visits the shop at least once a week. He lives in Norfolk, works at the Beach and is a collector of fall ornaments. Recently, he was in the shop, his purchases from just a few days before still in his car, and bought something else. This time he couldn’t pass up a large, smiling moon.

“I’m going to hang it over my mantel,” Ashburne said, claiming the 3-foot-tall crescent would work its way through fall into Halloween. “I’ll do the transitional thing.”

Rooney’s clients drape their mantels with autumn-inspired garlands, fall leaves with gold glitter and burnt oranges and reds and gold sprays of eucalyptus. Through them, they weave swaths of sheer fabrics in chocolate, orange or brown with an eye to complementing their year-round decor.

Earth tones, Rooney said, go well with the aqua tones so popular at the Beach. Her clients also like the idea of items that move easily into the next season.

“That gold-dusted Santa in the brown coat and those reindeer with beaded antlers can transition to Christmas,” she said. “They’re really gorgeous.” The market for leafless fall trees is growing.

“For the last several years we’ve been selling twiggy birch trees with faux moss on them to simulate real trees,” Rooney said.

They still work at Christmas and Easter.

She pointed out autumn tree ornaments: wooden birdhouses with corrugated tin roofs, bird nests and autumn leaves and butterflies in gold and amber, acorn ornaments in greenish-gold mercury glass or with beaded, sparkly caps.

Burlap ribbon, Rooney said, is hot this year. It works with the gold-dusted pine cones, brown ball ornaments, wine and cheese baubles, jewel-encrusted pumpkins, and elves in grape outfits.

Spice up dinner parties

Shops carry ready-made tab or rod-pocket drapes, many in harvest colors, for quick-change artists who want an autumn look in an instant and who want their autumn makeover to include the windows.

French- and Swedish-made tablecloths in muted blues, browns and amethysts are Ann Pavilack’s first thought for creating an autumn mood in the dining room. The cloths come in both linen and cotton, spreading out the price point, said Pavilack, owner of The Globe at The Shops at 31Ocean at the Oceanfront in Virginia Beach.

Another collection of French table coverings in a crinkled, washable taffeta goes easily from washer to dryer. The cloths come in pewter and silver tones, neutrals that mix beautifully with amethyst-toned glass, popular this fall.

Pavilack’s shop features select pieces of stemware and other dining pieces – tumblers and salad plates – by companies like Juliska and William Yeoward to mix with a homeowner’s existing tableware.

She likes the idea of making a fall statement with a single item. Color is key.

“We have a pitcher in amethyst,” she said. “Even that alone on the table with ice water could be really dramatic.”

Krys Stefansky, (757) 446-2043, krys.stefansky@pilotonline.com