The leaves aren’t turning yet but there’s a cool breeze rustling through the garden outside Melanie Hönig’s house. Her cat Mabel is lounging on the porch.

Not one to let things stay the same for too long, Melanie is ready to add cozy autumn decor throughout the house. That means doubling up the color and pattern on any bed that doesn’t already have maximum pillow coverage and layering warmth into every room.

Traditionally, a southern summer meant rolling up the rugs to expose bare wood and covering antique velvet furniture with cotton slipcovers. Melanie’s not SO traditional, but she does love the change of season, both inside and out.

Green Bedroom Layered for Fall

This green guest room overlooking the garden is ideal for autumn layering. The dark gray-green wall color works great all year long. In summer months, the room gets lightened up with white linens and fresh flowers.

During the summer, the green guestroom gets lightened up with white linens and fresh flowers.

Both Melanie and her business partner Kellie Smith are suckers for dark and moody paint.

This room may be at its best in the fall, though. Look what happens when it is layered with lush velvet pillows and a little leopard print.

The green guestroom is transformed with lush velvet, faux fur and a little leopard during fall.

(Leopard is a neutral as far as Melanie and Kellie are concerned. If you haven’t checked out their level of mixology, take a peek at their website and you’ll see exactly what we mean.)

Melanie added a warm rug to the floor and decorated with some of her favorite found objects. At the foot of the bed, she’s added a faux fur throw.

Tie on a touch of festive color to bedposts, drawer pulls and lamps with SmithHönig’s luxe silk decorative tassels.

She’s also hung SmithHönig brass-topped tassels from the bedside lamps and propped a book up on an easel as if it is a painting.

Melanie collects rocks, feathers, shells, leaves and other bits and pieces on her travels – and in her backyard. While these collections look great any time of year, they’re particularly evocative of fall and the changing seasons.

The built-in closet features a colorful tassel made of hand-dyed and twisted wool. The tassel was made to adorn the bridle of a camel and was crafted by Bedouin women in the Negev Desert. But doesn’t it look great on that textured black door?

Proceeds from the sale of SmithHönig’s Shar Sheeba Wool Tassels help empower and educate village women in the Negev Desert.

Tassels are definitely a SmithHönig “thing.” In fact, the company’s unofficial motto and standard answer during creative meetings is “put a tassel on it.” They’re an easy and inexpensive way to add color and texture to a room, any time of year.

These SmithHönig velvet pillows feature detachable tassels made of cotton pom-poms, beads and cowrie shells.

In the summer, Melanie keeps the vintage bookcase near the window fairly minimal, but as fall approaches she sets out evocative items like pinecones, a celadon bowl filled with moss and dried gourds. She likes the ‘joke’ of scale with this particular lineup. The pinecone is huge (collected on a trip to Northern California some twenty years ago) while the gourds are miniature.

None of the colors or patterns here actually match – because that’s exactly how Melanie likes it.

Meanwhile, there’s a bit more leopard in the chair – and another green velvet pillow from SmithHönig. These pillows feature welts in the company’s exclusive Bakuba Lodge fabric, and are available in multiple jewel-toned velvets and prints.

Notice that none of the colors or patterns here actually match – because that’s exactly how Melanie likes it.

Perhaps the best feature of the room, however, is the view. Like the room, it changes with the seasons.

Like the green guestroom, the view changes with the seasons.

Fall Details Throughout the House

Elsewhere, Melanie has added fall touches as well, layering velvet pillows, pattern, color and natural elements.

Here, in a downstairs bedroom, she’s added a quartz crystal, a feather, a small artwork in acrylic (from SmithHönig) and the last of the season’s flowers.

SmithHönig’s art blocks are great for displaying on bookcases, tabletops or desks.

Of course, there’s also a tassel. More layers were added to the painted blue secretary in the living room, too.

All of our luxe silk tassels are handmade in India in custom SmithHönig colors.

In the dining room, the layering takes on a harvest vibe, with a tablecloth made from Bakuba Lodge yardage accented with more natural finds – this time antlers and white pumpkins.

SmithHönig’s Bakuba Lodge fabric adds a textural (and colorful) element to any tablescape.

Layering found natural elements into your decor is a way for you to create a look that’s rich with detail and reflective of the landscape in your particular neck-of-the-woods. Melanie and Kellie design their fabrics, pillows and tassels with the intention that you’ll mix and match them in a way even they haven’t thought of yet. Adding in your already favorite elements from travel, family heirlooms, or even a walk in the park by your house makes your home uniquely you.

So this fall, take what you already love about your home and do what Melanie and Kellie do, put a tassel on it.

Check out what’s new for fall.