Fall Décor Ideas: How to Decorate Your Front Entry for Fall from Halloween to Thanksgiving

Celebrate the Fall Season with a Statement-Making Front Porch

Autumn is a wonderful time of year, when the air feels crisp, the leaves change colors, and the days get cooler. It’s the season for cozy gatherings around the fire pit or hearth and coming together with family and friends during the fall holiday celebrations. Since your front door is the first thing guests will see as they arrive, it’s important to decorate this outdoor space to welcome people to your home. Here’s some tips for making your front porch and entry look its best for Fall from Halloween to Thanksgiving by highlighting the colorful and rustic vibe of the season.

Have a welcoming spot to sit with a bench or patio chairs

Front porches are a perfect place to socialize or simply sit and relax while watching the neighborhood activity and scenery. A bench or a set of patio chairs gives you a comfy spot to sit in the shade. Dress up your porch seating with seasonal accent pillows and a soft, cozy throw blanket draped over the back or armrest.

Fall Harvest Season

Focus on the Fabulous Fall Colors

Fall is synonymous with the warm tones of brown, russet, red, gold, yellow, and orange. You can play up these fall colors by adding a faux leaf wreath to your door and an artificial leaf garland around the door surround, as a swag on an overhang, or along the porch railings. Add some artificial fall foliage to planters or window boxes along with pots of real mums, chrysanthemums, pansies, sunflowers, asters, ornamental peppers, or flowering kale.

Add some texture and dimension

Use the depth of your front porch your advantage and fill it with some natural elements that add texture, dimension, and help capture the essence of fall. Get some hay bales, dried corn stalks, bundles of wheat sheaves, pumpkins, and gourds from local farms or garden centers, and use them to create a harvest-themed display. Make sure you incorporate a variety of heights and depths while keeping a balanced mix of color and texture.

Change your doormat to a seasonal design

With people coming and going as they visit during the seasonal holidays, it makes sense to have a doormat at your front entry to help keep dirt, leaves, and debris from getting tracked inside onto your floors. You can layer a smaller mat with a seasonal or personalized design over larger mat that is plain or has a simple border accent. Swap out the seasonal doormat for each holiday to change up the look.

Display some decorative accents

If you have space, add some fun, fall-themed signs and decorative accents for extra interest and in celebration of the season. Accent pieces can include scarecrow and woodland animal figurines, decorative faux pumpkins, glass jars filled with acorns, and baskets filled with pine cones.

Layer in some accent lighting

Light up the longer lights with some accent lighting. String lights aren’t just for Christmas, they look stunning in the fall. Wrap them along banisters, drape them over the door lintel, or string them overhead along the porch ceiling. Choose warm white, amber, or orange bulbs that will radiate a warm glow day and night. Add to the ambience with some candle lanterns strategically placed on an accent table, on the steps, near seating, or next to the door.

Halloween

Make your entry eerie

As the first holiday in the fall, Halloween gives you another opportunity to decorate your front porch. Welcome the trick or treaters by getting into the spirit of the All Hallows Eve celebration by making your entry eerie, wicked, and whimsical. Create a spooky display with faux spider webs, witch’s brooms, cauldrons on the porch, Halloween-themed figurines, and bat appliques in the windows or added to wreaths or garlands.

Go for black, metallic, and orange themed colors

Black and orange are the traditional colors of Halloween. An on-trend, upscale twist is swapping out gold or silver leaf for orange for a touch of ghoulish glam. Besides these colors, you can opt for touches of white, copper, and even purple. Add black candle lanterns with white or orange candles, colored pumpkins, and carved jack-o’-lanterns. Switch out any wreath or garlands for ones with Halloween-themed hues and designs.

Add some special effects

Make your Halloween outdoor décor more fun with elements that incorporate special effects. Put some life-size animatronic figurines such as ghouls, zombies, witches, grim reapers, and creepy clowns that have realistic designs and movement to surprise and spook visitors to your door. Try some strobe lights or specialty lights to help create a thrilling, spine-chilling mood. When it’s time for bewitching hour when trick or treaters come, add some dry ice to a planter or vase to create a fog-like effect.

Thanksgiving

Emphasize the blessings of fall harvest

At the culmination of the harvest season, we gather family and friends together to celebrate nature’s bounty and give thanks for the riches in our lives. Make your entry more festive but adding some Thanksgiving-themed touches to your basic fall décor. Hang a bunch of Indian corn in place of a wreath on your door, or choose a wreath with harvest elements such as small gourds, dried apples, cinnamon sticks, twigs, berries, and a burlap or themed ribbon.

Amp up the fall florals

Fill your baskets, planters, and containers with a rich variety of seasonal flowers so they are overflowing with a bounty of textures, colors, and shapes. Combine natural and artificial varieties if desired or use one or the other exclusively.

Try a neutral color scheme

You don’t have to use just autumn colors of orange, red, and yellow. Decorate with a design that incorporates whites and other neutrals to give your Thanksgiving-themed design a more vintage farmhouse feel while still giving a nod to the fall with the harvest elements such as pumpkins, gourds, and corn.

Add Thanksgiving-themed elements

Enhance your basic fall design with accents more specific to the Thanksgiving holiday. Add turkey or pilgrim figurines, cornucopias filled with gourds, faux fruit, twigs, and wheat sheaves, themed signage or banners, or farmhouse-style elements that are inspired by the fall harvest.