One of my favorite things to do every fall in our hometown of Huntsville, Alabama is to wander the streets of our historic downtown neighborhoods and get inspired by all the classic southern fall front porch decor.
This year, I thought it would be fun to bring my camera along so I could capture all the autumn front porch decor and share a few of my favorite fall decorating ideas I saw with you too. In the end, I collected over 20 porch decor ideas to share with you!
My brain is already mulling over how I want to include some of this fall front porch inspo for next year in my own decorating!
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Classic Southern Fall Front Porch Decorating
With homes dating back to the early 1800s, the Twickenham and Old Town neighborhoods of Huntsville, Alabama include a rich mixture of Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman style homes that have seen more than a century of changing seasons. Come autumn, their porches transform into a quiet celebration of fall and it’s hard to imagine a better place to gather elegant fall front porch decorating ideas.
Ferns To Anchor Your Fall Front Porch
When you think of fall, ferns probably aren’t the first plant that pops into your mind, however Ferns have long been a staple of traditional Southern porches and I love how they look when combined with pumpkins!
They’re like an instant injection of gothic southern vibes, especially when displayed in vintage metal urns like this. (If you can’t grow ferns outdoors where you live, use artificial ones like these!)
Fall Front Door Flower Baskets
Want to make your fall front door stand out from everyone else? Then try swapping your fall front door wreath for a hanging basket filled with flowers instead! I saw these at a few different houses during my walk and loved how elegant they looked! I think these baskets would work so well for this!
Terracotta Jack-O’-Lantern Pumpkins Porch Decor
First let’s just take a moment for this entire front porch? The symmetry, the dusty blue door with the pops of orange and little hanging baskets filled with orange flowers!?
Ok moving onto these terracotta pumpkins! Because how adorable are these little terracotta jack-o’-lanterns with little hats? After a quick internet search I was able to find some similar ones you can buy from this etsy vendor! I love that you can use these year after year and they won’t rot.
Pumpkins, Gourds & Mums Fall Front Porch Cascade
When we set out on this walk I told Joe I wanted to find some houses with BPE “Big Pumpkin Energy” and this fall front porch understood the assignment.
I really loved how they mixed the mums and some other pops of green into the cascade of pumpkins all the way down the stairs and onto the circular drive in a wide variety of shapes, textures and sizes.
Simple & Easy Fall Porch Decor
Walking around these million dollar homes can be inspiring but also disheartening when you don’t have “Big Pumpkin” money to spend on your fall front porch decorating. So seeing how beautiful and sophisticated homes like the one below looked with this simple fall porch decor was really encouraging!
I think the key to this home and why this incredibly easy decor worked so well (besides the house being beautiful on its own) is that fact that the pumpkins are each being displayed on their own little wicker pedestals, which just really elevates the look (figuratively and literally).
Harvest Basket Autumn Front Porch Decor
First of all, the elderly couple who lives in this home, came out while I was snapping these photos and were as sweet as can be. Secondly, I loved this little harvest basket they added to their already adorable fall front porch decor.
What a cute way to bring in lots of different colors and textures to your fall porch display.
Pumpkins At The Gate Fall Front Yard Decor
While this may be stretching the term “front porch” I really loved how a lot of the homes on my walk would decorate the columns on either side of their front gate to bring the decor closer to passers-by on the sidewalk.
Note to self: in the future own a home with a black iron gated walkway up to my front porch, but also if your house is set far back from the street bring the decor out closer to the sidewalk.
Hint At Halloween With Your Fall Porch Decor
What I really love about the Twickenham and Old Town neighborhoods is that a lot of the houses decorate for FALL not just for Halloween. Why does this matter? Because fall is a much longer season than just Halloween and if I’m going to spend my time and money setting up front porch decor it’s nice to be able to leave it up as long as possible.
However, that isn’t to say that you can’t incorporate some spooky Halloween vibes into your fall decor if you want to. I really loved how this house layered in some oversized skulls into their pumpkins.
Even better is that after Halloween, all they have to do is remove the skulls and the rest of the porch can keep the fall vibes going into November.
Surround Your Fall Mums With Pumpkin Decor
One trick I saw employed over and over again, was hiding the base of your mums pot with pumpkins. This is such a great hack since it means you don’t need to have pots for all those mums and it helps your pumpkin cascade look more full, lush and abundant.
Utilize Urns To Bring Old World Charm To Your Fall Front Porch Decor
Urns are another one of those southern porch classics that come in really handy when you’re decorating for fall. During my walk I saw them filled with mums, overflowing with giant ferns, and stacked high with pumpkins.
Each time I saw another house that utilized them in their fall front porch decor I was struck by how much old world charm, elegance and formality they brought to even the smallest house. (And as an aside, can we have a moment for this blue and yellow/orange color combo!?)
Spooky & Elegant Halloween Porch Decor
This spooky front porch stopped me in my tracks when I saw it. First of all the color of this house is just incredibly beautiful in person. Secondly, how simple yet spooky and elegant is this decor? I LOVE this gauzy mummy. I’m already trying to figure out how to DIY one for myself now…
Try Using Cabbages In Your Fall Porch Decor
I had to do a double take when I walked past this gorgeous craftsman home and spied cabbages on their fall front porch mixed in with their fall pumpkins instead of flowers! That got me thinking of all the other fall and winter greens would be fun to include in an autumn display as well!
Light Your Front Porch With Oversized Lantern
Another classic southern porch element I saw utilized again and again in all the fall porch decor I saw was oversized lanterns.
After a little digging I was able to source these exact same front porch lanterns on Amazon for you! Pair them with these waterproof battery operated pillar candles and it’s a vibe!
Opt For Lush If You Can’t Do Symmetry
While most of the classic southern fall front porches I saw focused heavily on symmetry in their designs. I thought it was interesting to note that some of the houses chose to go all in on only one side of their porch creating a more asymmetrical look.
For me the moral of the story here was that if you don’t have the space, or can’t afford the mums and pumpkins to do a big lush display on both sides of your porch, it’s better to do one big lush display on one side than two smaller less abundant groupings just for the sake of symmetry.
Embrace Natural Textures & Harvest Vibes For Your Autumn Porch Decor
Is this not the cutest front door you have ever seen? Honestly this porch could have nothing on it and still look magazine worthy. However, I did really like how this simple fall porch decor leaned into more natural autumn textures with a woodchip rose wreath.
I did a little searching and found a similar natural woodchip rose harvest wreath here!
Pumpkin Decorating With Stacked Pumpkins
Another trend I saw again and again were these adorable little pumpkin stacks! Sometimes they were incorporated into a big staircase display or stacked in an urn, other times they would be on their own nestled next to a potted plant.
Spooky Spiders Halloween Porch Decor
.While I saw a lot of spooky spider decor on our walk, this one was my favorite, which is great since it gave me an excuse to show you one of my favorite houses. If you like these spiders I found the exact same ones for sale here!
This quirky little house located in a back alley is one of my favorites. Originally built circa the 1820s, the home actually collapsed in the 1980s when they tried to jack it up in order to complete some repairs. So the current home is a modern reconstruction done to mimic the original house as best as possible.
Create An Inviting Front Porch Display By Using A Variety Of Textures, Colors & Types Of Pumpkins
If you want those bountiful harvest vibes for your fall front porch decor you’ll want to focus on laying in lots of pumpkins and gourds in a variety of shapes in sizes in different colors and varieties, making sure to feature some heavily textured bumpy rinds and some smooth ones.
I love that this home helped balance all the yellows and oranges with white mums to provide moments of rest for the viewer’s eyes and let the rainbow of pumpkins and gourds really be the stars of the show.
Mums The Word – Pumpkin Free Fall Front Porch Decor
While I love a bountiful pumpkin display, I also really enjoyed how this porch chose to ignore pumpkins and just focus on packing in as many mums as possible.
If you’re a spring girly living in an autumn world I could totally see how this could be the perfect vibe for you to embrace.
Orange Free Fall Porch Decorating
There are a lot of white and grey houses in the south, and this historic neighborhood is no different. You’ve seen a few of them in the post already. So I wanted to include two other homes I saw on my walk that chose to avoid using orange altogether!
The first house went with an all white theme, displaying these neutral pumpkins on their front porch steps. The other decided to add a single pop of bright fuchsia mums next to some white cotton candy pumpkins.
What does my fall front porch look like you ask? Well currently it’s hidden under layers of plastic tarp and paint stripper as we refinish it before the weather gets too cold. Which is giving more horror film vibes than the cozy fall aesthetic I’d like it to have. So here’s to hoping I get to add my own front porch to this list next year!
Thanks for taking a walk around historic Huntsville, AL with me! Now that you’ve seen all the houses that caught my eye, which one was your favorite and why? Let me know in the comments below!
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