Fall Decor Apartment Makeover!

For my whole PhD, I was super broke but I always tried to inject a little bit of the season into my decor. Sometimes that was through plants and flowers, sometimes it was a vase full of easter eggs, sometimes it’s pineapple print tablecloths, sometimes it was a pumpkin shaped punch bowl. Seasonal decor makes me happy so I tend to swap out the seasonal parts of my decor as often as I can. Much like the process of turning my wardrobe over, turning my apartment over brings me so much joy for reasons I will probably never understand.  I think that when you are feeling like nothing is changing and you aren’t getting anywhere in life celebrating the changing of the seasons helps remind you that you are progressing even if it’s just in small ways. This year, because I have my first post PhD job, turning over the apartment for Fall also lined up with us replacing a lot of our old and often very broken furniture with new furniture from Structube. I knew this year the Fall turn over would be a whole apartment makeover and I think it turned out REALLY well! 

I usually break out the fall decor in mid-September as a bit of a surprise for my partner K but that was made much more complicated this year by the various furniture deliveries. In preparation for it all I had cleaned the apartment from top to bottom, I had gone to Dollarramma and got my fall decor haul, I had ordered lights online, and I had somehow hid it all in my home office: I had a plan. But then one September day the furniture came much later in the day and my plan to (somehow???) assemble all the furniture myself and also decorate the apartment before K got home was no longer a viable thing. So that night that I was supposed to decorate we instead assembled all the furniture (the true test of any relationship), and then it was the weekend and K was home all weekend so decorating was out of the question.

Over the weekend K kept dropping hints about turning over the apartment (“we could make the apartment Fall soon”) and it was making me anxious. I had trained him too well! He knew exactly what I was up to! Either that or he now just craved the Fall decorations like me! Then, that Monday he was homesick! Gah! Every time he brought up the Fall decorations I would just pretend not to care. Which like, what a joke! Of course, I care! Then, FINALLY on Tuesday K went back to work and I got to work on decorating the apartment!

As soon as K left I downed a big cup of coffee and got to work! The first thing I did was build this new hallway tree that I ordered from Amazon. No joke I had been hiding this giant box in our tiny apartment since August! We always had reusable bags and shoes and messenger bags everywhere in the front hall and it drove me nuts. I built the thing myself and popped a “laundry” bag from Simons down next to it to home all the reusable bags in a way that was hidden away. I also got this log slice mat from Simons that I think goes perfectly with it! 

The next area I knew I had to work on was the bedroom. We had a new mattress and bedframe But I wanted the room to feel like fall. First I swept and dusted like crazy. Then I broke out the lights! I got these string lights and they are amazing! They have a bunch of settings and cover the whole wall! My one bit of advice is to buy REAL command hooks. The hooks I used in these photos are from the dollar store and they did NOT last very long at all. It is a lot of work to get lights like these up so you do not want to have to do it all over again the next week like I did! The bedding came from a few places, the deer sheets and pillowcases, as well as the large buffalo check pillow, are all from Simons, and the comforter and larger plaid pillows, as well as the two small grey pillows, were a “bed in a bag” type deal at Loblaws. Yes, the grocery store. I actually used my PC Optimum points that day so that the bedding was “free”. The vintage Hudson’s Bay blanket I got for a very very good deal in a tiny roadside antique store in Maine three or so years ago. I still can’t believe I picked up a Bay blanket for so cheap since in store they literally like 500 bucks. I also added two felt fall mats from Dollaramma to the bedside tables as well as some scented candles as we were done! I was planning on also hanging new curtains but I measured wrong and the curtains I ordered were hilariously short which is embarrassing and looked terrible. The lights look amazing tho so it’s okay!

The last room to do was the living room. I didn’t do much in here I just placed some little fake pumpkins around, hung some orange lights, and laid down some burlap and fabric. The leaf fabric, the fall tablecloth, roll of burlap, orange lights, pumpkins, and leaf garland all came from Dollaramma. It really cost me like 20 bucks to do the whole living room and it makes such a huge difference. 

I put out more of last years fall scented candles in all the rooms. All the candles are from Bath and Body works because there is really no other candles like them. I basically buy all my candles for the year on a combo of Black Friday and Boxing Day because otherwise, they are too pricey for me. All my blankets are from Indigo. I literally can’t stop buying their blankets they are so good. Because they have really good sales and I watch their sales like a hawk over the years I’ve picked up my collection of throws for between $10 and $25 bucks! The pillow covers were from H&M Home last year and the basket I keep my extra blankets in is from Home Sense. For furniture, our mint armchair is this one from Ikea, out large couch is this one from Structube, Our coffee table is this one from Structube, and our small couch is an old one from the Brick.

K was very surprised when he got home! Despite bringing it up constantly he claims he actually wasn’t expecting it at all. We broke out the Spicebox whiskey (is Spicebox a thing in other parts of the world? It’s my favourite whiskey drink in the fall and winter!) and celebrated the arrival of fall and winter (we both hate summer) AND the completion of our apartment (well almost we are still waiting on our dining table which has been on back order for months and months lol). The next night I made us pumpkin soup with a cheese board as well and we had such a nice and cosy night in. 

Now that a month later I’m finally posting about this it’s almost time for me to switch things over for Winter! I always wait until Nov 25th to go full on Christmas so there is still a bit of time to enjoy all things Fall! Let me know what you think of my makeover and what you do to make your apartment feel more cozy around this time of year!

-Emma ❤