Fall Mantel Decorating On A Budget – Shop Your Home

Our home is comfy, casual, and just right. I enjoy decorating and changing things up with the seasons. I don’t have an interior design degree or anything close.

For the most part, I decorate our home with my junk treasures or thrift store finds. The pieces may make an appearance in every room before I tire of them. Changing up the decor is a good way to weed out things that don’t work.

Instead of buying new decor, I shop my house or workshop to redecorate or change things up with the season. If a new or trendy catches my eye, I might buy it to mix in with my junk treasures,

Now it is time to decorate my mantel for Fall so I did what I normally do….I shopped my home and workshop and shed. I have a guide I wrote about how to decorate a mantel a few years ago but here are my basic steps…1. decide on a theme 2. pick a color shceme 3. shop your house for things that fit the first two steps 4. put it all together.

The photo of the messy mantel above shows everything I gathered to fit my theme and color scheme. Always gather a lot of stuff because you don’t know what will work. 

 

 

 

This is how the mantel and hearth looked after I finished. It took me about an hour to put it together. Once upon a time it would have taken at least half a day.

The metal JUNK sign is brand spanking new. The JTS and I hit the road for a few days on a mini vacation. I bought the JUNK sign in Pigeon Forge, TN at a flea market. I mean…..it’s me. The price was $12.

The framed tapestry is my latest junk shop purchase. It was $15 and the colors are what caught my eye. The brass pieces on the corners of the frame are horse heads. The piece came from an estate in Hopkinsville, Ky. That’s all I know about it.

The green wreath has been on the mantel for a few months now. Why not hang it off center over the framed tapestry. You can see the red barn in the center of the wreath. When decorating the mantel I usually start with the focus piece which in this case is the framed tapestry. Then it’s all about the colors. 

The hubby and I were married in Hot Springs, Arkansas 43 years ago. I bought the Hot Springs license plate at a flea market in Arkansas earlier this year. The green bottles are also from the junk shop. This is there second (maybe third) appearance on the mantel.

 

The faux pumpkins are thrifty purchases from several years ago. The vintage scale found at a local flea market/antique shop the best I remember was around $10. Really good price. Moving on to the hearth…..

 

I bought this rusty vintage scale at Alyssa’s Antique Depot in Pace, Florida (where my painting furniture/junk booth adventures started). The framed print is from Habitat Restore.

The vintage butterfly ashtray came from where else……my favorite junk shop. The black shoeshine box was an auction buy.

I really like the new decor for Fall and everything on my mantel and hearth can be repurposed over and over again. I can’t believe that it will be Christmas decorating time before we know it. You can read my mantel decorating tips here.

My dream job, or volunteer job, would be to go into homes and redecorate a room or the whole house with what they have on hand. Doesn’t that sound fun? Maybe that isn’t your cup of tea, but it sure sounds like fun to me. 

What do you think of the mantel? And what about my dream job? Leave me a note please and as always, thanks for being here, Kathy