28 Beautiful Fall Mantel Decorating Ideas For an Autumn Glow Up – Animal Zone

By KRISTIN HOHENADEL

Kristin Hohenadel

28 Fall Mantel Decorating Ideas to Make Your Hearth More Homey

If you’re looking for an easy way to celebrate the onset of autumn, there are plenty of simple fall mantel decor ideas that can help you to create a stylish seasonal focal point. Sprucing up your fall mantel can be as straightforward and achievable as decorating the top with real or faux pumpkins, draping it with a DIY garland, swapping out artwork for autumn-themed scenes, or hanging a fall wreath on the wall above made of preserved flowers or foraged materials.

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Check out these fun fall mantel decor ideas in a range of fall colors, styles, budgets, and settings that will help inspire you to make your fireplace mantel shine with seasonal spirit.

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Create an Amber Glow

Inspired By Charm

Give your mantel a warm, seasonal glow with a mixture of natural leaves and candles. Inspired By Charm decorated this fall mantel with autumn leaves, scattered pumpkins, a pair of bird sculptures, and amber bottles. Placing tea lights on either end of the mantel and lanterns filled with pillar candles on the floor creates an even spread of light that complements the roaring fire.
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Choose a Hero Piece

Liz Marie Blog

Your fall mantel decor doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective. Blogger Liz Marie created a simple but striking fall mantel around a vintage antiques advertising sign with retro black lettering, filling the surface of the mantel in with a fluffy golden leaf garland. A vase of matching leaves on the coffee table pulls the look through the neutral-toned room, tying it all together.
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Use Mismatched Vases

Design by Leanne Ford Interiors / Photo by Erin Kelly

Decorate a fall mantel with mismatched vases and autumn-colored flowers for an effortless look. Leanne Ford Interiors created a simple fall mantel by arranging an assortment of vintage-style pitchers and vases of varying sizes and heights filled with blooms in shades of orange and yellow. If you don’t have a collection of vases or pitchers, a visit to your local thrift store is an inexpensive way to source an assortment of items that will look collected over time.
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Accent With Copper

Maison de Cinq

Copper is a warm orange-toned metal that was made for fall. Maison de Cinq used burnished copper accents to complement a vintage-style tableau of pumpkins, urns, and jugs filled with greenery and flowers on this French-inspired fall mantel.
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Use Glass Cloche Displays

So Much Better With Age

Display fall leaves under glass cloches to create a theatrical display of autumn foliage. So Much Better With Age decorated this fall mantel with a variety of autumn leaves under a series of glass cloches of varying sizes and heights with wooden bases, an easy idea that adds polish to a natural seasonal display.
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Celebrate Harvest Wheat

Thistlewood Farms

Wheat is a symbol of the bounty of harvest season, and an affordable way to decorate your mantel for fall. Thistlewood Farms built an autumnal mantel around pale shades of wheat, from a dried wheat wreath, to wheat bunches in tin vases. Varying heights and the natural colors of the stalks create dimension and work well with the creamy wall and mantel colors and the gold-rimmed mirror.

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Create a Foraged Look

Liz Marie Blog

Using foraged materials is an authentic and sustainable way to decorate your mantel for fall. Liz Marie Blog created a rustic fall mantel with a foraged look using collected pieces including a gold mirror, vintage books, dried pampas grass, feathers, and faux green pumpkins in shades of muted green.
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Add a Pop of Color

Hallstrom Home

Decorate a neutral fall mantel with a pop of bright fall color to create a high-contrast look. Hallstrom Home decorated this all-white fireplace mantel with a faux yellow leaf garland and a vase full of vibrant pomegranate branches that energize the autumn scene, finishing it off with black spray-painted candlesticks, mercury glass candles, and a handful of chalk painted pumpkins.
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Make a DIY Fall Garland

A Beautiful Mess

If you are into crafting, try making your own mantel centerpiece that can be used from year to year, like this seasonal DIY garland made from fall-colored faux flowers from A Beautiful Mess.

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Keep It Neutral

Maison de Cinq

Create a soft, natural fall mantel display to complement a neutral interior. Maison de Cinq lined this simple fall mantel with greenery, large cream and pale green decorative pumpkins arranged at varying angles, and bunches of dried wheat on either end to bookmark the display.
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Hang a Chalkboard Sign

Modern Glam

Offer seasons greetings by hanging (or leaning) a chalkboard sign on the mantel. Modern Glam added a simple seasonal chalkboard message on this layered modern farmhouse mantel that welcomes autumn like an old friend.
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Add Coastal Style

Happy Housie

Adapt your fall decor to suit your home style. Happy Housie decorated a fall mantel that takes its cues from the coastal farmhouse style of the interior, with a whitewashed chalk paint stone fireplace and shades of blue, cream, and green. Simple fall decor like bright green faux maple leaves, a watercolor painting, an acorn print, faux pumpkins, and a piece of driftwood fills the space while maintaining the light coastal look.
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Mix Mirrors with Greenery

Design by Leanne Ford Interiors / Photo by Reid Rolls

To create a bigger impact and a balanced look when decorating a non-working fireplace, try extending your decor from the mantel to the firebox. This country cottage mantel from Leanne Ford Interiors mixes small layered vintage mirrors with natural foliage, both on the fireplace mantel and filling a copper pot in the (non-working) firebox.
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Choose Rustic Accessories

Design by Emily Henderson and Priscilla Frost / Photo by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

Rustic decor touches will bring instant fall vibes to your fireplace mantel. Emily Henderson and Priscilla Frost decorated this rustic family room mantel with vintage style art, retro duck figurines, and assorted objects that give the dark wood mantel and glazed brick fireplace a cozy, lived-in feel that is unpretentious and inviting.
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Add LED Pillar Candles

Thistlewood Farms

Create a quick and easy fall mantel using a few well chosen elements. Thistlewood Farms whipped up a simple and affordable fall farmhouse mantel with a bunch of dried wheat, some eucalyptus branches, and white LED pillar candles.
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Accent With Gold

Ashley Montgomery Design

Mix earthy materials with gold accents for a modern rustic fall mantel. Ashley Montgomery Design decorated this living room mantel for autumn with a gilded mirror, a couple of earthenware jugs, and a small painting in a gilded frame that adds some warmth to the monumental stone facade.
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Do Your Own Thing

Casa Watkins Living

Decorate your fall mantel to reflect your own eccentric take on the season rather than following conventional rules. Casa Watkins Living created a non-traditional fall mantel that reflects the colorful, maximalist style of the home using stacked books, an antique clock, a jewel-toned parrot print layered over a gold mirror, and a vase of maple leaves.
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Work With Existing Decor

Maison de Cinq

Choose fall decor that complements an existing focal point like a painting or an antique or vintage mirror. Maison de Cinq built this traditional style French-inspired mantel arrangement around the a gold-framed mirror, adding a small seasonal wreath, a vintage-style urn filled with greenery, and a cluster of decorative pumpkins and tea lights to complete the autumn refresh.
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Choose Jewel Tones

Modern Glam

Jewel tones are a natural fit for autumn decor. Modern Glam decorated this modern farmhouse mantel for fall with a collection of decorative velvet pumpkins in rich autumnal tones of red, orange, and green that add contrast with the all-white fireplace and walls.
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Keep It Minimal

Design by Cathie Hong Interiors / Christy Q. Photo

In a minimalist living room, even a small dose of seasonal decor makes an impact. Cathie Hong Interiors decorated this streamlined wood mantel with an evergreen plant on one side and a small vase of seasonal flowers on the other that can be changed from season to season, a private nod to autumn that is easy to pull off.
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Make a Mini Wreath

Modern Glam

Make a DIY mini wreath from natural or foraged materials for a quiet take on fall mantel decor. Modern Glam made a delicate little pampas grass wreath tied with two-tone ribbon and hung it from a vintage French mirror to add an autumnal feel to this fall mantel layered with mirrors, framed artwork, and taper candles.
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Drape It With a Garland

Brexton Cole Interiors

Decorate your fall mantel with a fall-themed garland for a festive take on autumn decor. Brexton Cole Interiors lined this vintage dining room fireplace mantel with a leafy garland and black-and-white accents like black taper candles in gold candlesticks and a white bust that adds another layer to the maximalist room decor.
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Reuse and Repurpose

Casa Watkins Living

Don’t feel you have to buy brand new decor every year to create a new look. Casa Watkins Living gave last year’s faux pumpkins a makeover with lace and costume jewelry to create a boho-style fall mantel that is easy to throw together.
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Go for the Gold

Brexton Cole Interiors

Adding touches of gold to a fall mantel adds just a little bit of bling that can work as a base throughout the holiday season and beyond. Brexton Cole Interiors complemented this traditional living room decorated with a mix of antique and modern furniture—not to mention a pumpkin velvet sofa—with gold accessories on the mantel that feel right for fall and don’t block the view of the TV above the mantel.

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Add Spooky Halloween Vibes

Emily Henderson Design / Photo by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

If Halloween is your favorite part of fall, go ahead and deck out your mantel with spooky decor. Emily Henderson Design decorated this airy mountain home living room with Halloween decorations in shades of black and white that delight the kids but are neutral enough for the adults. The mantel is the focal point, but the spooky black-and-white decor is carried throughout the room for a cohesive look.
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Make a Dried Flower Wreath

Thistlewood Farms

Use dried summer flowers to create a rustic farmhouse style mantel wreath for fall that’s easy on the wallet and the planet. Thistlewood Farms hung a simple dried hydrangea wreath above this farmhouse mantel that creates a bridge between summer and fall.
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Make It Last All Season

Emily Henderson Design / Photo by Sara Ligorria-Tramp

If you don’t have the time or bandwidth to decorate for every fall holiday, turn your mantel into a mashup of fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving with a few choice pieces of store-bought decor. Emily Henderson Design decorated this fall mantel—and the area around the fireplace—with a simple wreath, a little stuffed turkey, a pair of pumpkins, and a broomstick that covers all the fall bases and will last until Christmas.
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Use Muted Fall Colors

Deeply Southern Home

For a muted take on fall decor, decorate your mantel with dried flowers. Deeply Southern Home layered preserved flowers in front of a landscape painting on this this living room mantel, adding an assortment of pottery in neutral tones to create a harmonious feel that is carried onto the sofa cushions and coffee table display.