6 Tips to Decorate a Front Porch for Fall

Looking for simple and inexpensive ways to decorate your front porch? Then keep reading to follow our 6 tips to decorate your fall front porch.

Wow, it’s already October! We are still waiting for it to feel like fall here in North Carolina. But the warm temperatures didn’t stop me from doing some more fall decorating. If you missed it you can see some simple fall decorating ideas I added inside our house here. I finished up outside with our front porch today. I’m so excited to share my 6 Tips to Decorate a Front Porch for Fall with you!

This is our front porch. I just love the stone on our house, it’s so pretty, isn’t it? The round columns…well, not so much…we had requested they be square but that’s not what we got! Oh well…first world problems…right?!

Let’s get started with my 6 Tips to Decorate a Front Porch for Fall…

1. Wreaths

Dressing up your front door with a fall wreath to greet your guests is a simple way to start your front porch decorating. You can find reasonable but beautiful wreaths for fall at one of my favorite stores…Home Goods. I finally got a new wreath this year. I may have had the last one for about 8 years, so it was definitely time for a change. And if I keep this new one as long as the last one, it will be money well spent. This pretty cream & green cattail wreath was only $29. It’s totally me! I mean as much as a wreath can be me. But you know what I mean…it’s just my style…just what I’m liking lately…simple.

2. Mums

I don’t know about you but I get super excited when I see the pallets of mums lining the sidewalk outside the grocery store. The prices can’t be beat and since I’m trying to stick to a budget I usually just buy a few right then and there. Plus the excitement of seeing them all new, fresh and pretty. Well, this year our supermarket that previously had beautiful mums each year didn’t have the best selection. And they were all yellow. All 1637 plants in front of our grocery store…all yellow… I mean seriously… what the heck!

But it all worked out for the better as I was patient and waited until I was able to go to our local nursery. And boy was it was worth the wait! They had a great selection of colors and sizes. The four mums I bought were all 8″ pots so they were each $8.95. Can you believe those huge ones were the same price as the 2 on the steps? Score! Because I’m hoping I can keep them alive until Thanksgiving I chose plants that hadn’t opened much yet. The bigger ones are white and the smaller are coral. I’ll post an update on Instagram & Facebook once they open up. So be sure to follow us!

Apple baskets that I had bought last year, at Michael’s, hold the smaller mums. The larger white mums were just dropped into our old black planters. I’m really over these urn styled planters but haven’t wanted to spend the money on new ones. We’ve probably had these almost as long as we’ve been in this house (10 years)! It may be time to invest in something more my style now…cause you know my tastes have changed. Don’t you change your mind about these things? I mean it’s been 10 years. Haha!

3. Pumpkins

This year I decided to skip the traditional orange pumpkins I always decorate with for these heirloom beauties. I just love the muted colors! Would have liked to buy more but I was trying to keep costs lower. I absolutely love all the gorgeous porches with mounds of beautiful pumpkins. However, that can get fairly expensive pretty quickly. Just the 5 pumpkins I bought were $27. And with one kid in college and another starting in two years, it’s just not in our budget.

But I’m so happy with the pretty pumpkins I was able to add. I will have to grab a big orange one for my teens to carve the night before Halloween.

4. Hay Bales

Bales of hay and cornstalks just say fall porch decor, don’t they? I love the look of cornstalks flanking the front door and I’ve done that look many times. However, here in NC, we are known for our spiders…and they just love to make webs in the cornstalks across our front door. The last time I added them to the porch we had a huge spider living in them so…that was the end of that…because I don’t do spiders! I thought a big bale of hay was a safer way to go. And it’s a fun place to add a lantern and those pumpkins.

5. Lanterns & Candles

I’ve admired a neighbor’s front porch for the past couple of years because she has 2 large black lanterns on her steps which looks great! I decided to pull out a lantern I wasn’t using in our house anymore and set it on the front porch. Just added a battery-operated candle inside the lantern for a soft glow.

close up of candle in mason jar & candle in lantern

But just one wasn’t enough so today I hit Home Goods and found another small lantern. And this one came with a built-in battery operated candle for only $12…perfect. A few small tea light candles in mason jars sets a gorgeous glow for night-time.

fall front porch decor at dusk with candles lit

6. Signs

Last year I made this large double-sided porch sign. And now this year I see signs to purchase everywhere. Go figure! But I still really like the size of our sign and it was so easy to make. Want to make one? Just go grab a board in the size you want at your local home improvement store. First I stained, then painted and finally distressed the board with sand paper. I used wood letters from hobby lobby to trace the word “welcome” and then filled in the letters with black craft paint. The other side says “believe” in red for Christmas. But you’ll have to wait to see that one! After the sign was dry I added a coat of polyurethane to protect it since it was going to be outside. I love how big our sign is and how it looks on our fall porch!