Everything here is on Amazon right now, and the price and rating on each one was checked this week. Nothing costs more than $40, and the whole list together refreshes a living room and a front door for about $140.
Five separate garlands, just under six feet each, so one order covers a mantel and still leaves enough to wind down a stair rail. The leaves are silk cloth on plastic stems in five shades running from yellow through deep red, and there is a loop on one end so it hangs without wire or hooks. They arrive flat — spend two minutes bending the stems apart and fanning the leaves and it stops looking like packaging. Wipe it with a damp cloth at the end of the season and it goes back in the box for next year.
See on Amazon →Twenty inches across and three and a half deep, built on oak leaves with berry branches and one small pumpkin, so it reads autumn without tipping into Halloween. It sits at #9 in Amazon's wreath bestsellers with more than two thousand ratings behind it, which is rare in a category full of one-season sellers. Fluff it hard when it arrives — every wreath here ships compressed and the listing photo is the fluffed version. Hang it under a porch overhang; direct rain fades artificial leaves in a single season.
See on Amazon →Sixteen pumpkins in two sizes and four muted colors — rust, gold, olive and gray — which is enough to fill a bowl, run down a table, and still have a few left for a shelf. They are foam cores wrapped in velvet with resin stems, so they have some weight in the hand and do not read as plastic from across the room. At 4.8 stars over 1,600 ratings, this is the highest-rated thing on the page. The muted palette is the whole reason to pick these over the bright orange sets: they sit beside the furniture you already own instead of fighting it.
See on Amazon →Cinnamon, clove and baked spice — the kitchen end of autumn rather than the pumpkin end. The 22 oz jar burns up to 150 hours, which is most of a season if you only light it in the evening. Worth knowing before you shop: Yankee's explicitly fall-named jars, Autumn Wreath and Crisp Fall Night, are currently in the hands of third-party resellers on Amazon at $40 and up, while this one ships from Amazon itself for about twenty dollars and holds the #1 spot in jar candles. Same brand, same size jar, less than half the money.
See on Amazon →Two ten-foot strings, forty LEDs total, with maple leaves and small pumpkins strung along the wire and a built-in timer so it comes on by itself each evening. Each string runs on three AA batteries, so it goes on a mantel or a banister with no outlet nearby and no cord to hide behind the furniture. Nine dollars is the least you can spend on this page, and it is the piece that makes a room look finished after dark. Buy the batteries in the same order — they are not included.
See on Amazon →Six autumn-toned eucalyptus stems, which is the cheapest way to change a room you have already decorated — pull the green stems out of the vase you own and put these in. Eucalyptus reads as seasonal without being literal, so it carries from September through Thanksgiving and does not look like leftover Halloween sitting there in December. Around 800 people bought these last month and they hold 4.5 stars across more than 1,300 ratings. They store flat on a closet shelf.
See on Amazon →