Rustic Halloween Decorations For The Living Room

Decorating your living room for Halloween doesn’t have to turn your rustic décor into something garish and ghoulish. Design a holiday living room that compliments your natural, earthy decorating style.

A Rustic Autumn Halloween Palette

Set the tone for Halloween by working with a palette based in traditional Halloween colors that includes all the beautiful shades of the autumn woods featuring:

• Pumpkin orange
• Deep black
• Bright and rusty shades of red
• Brown, beige and cream
• Golden yellow
• Hunter green.

Introduce fall coloring to your Halloween living room by:

• Painting one accent wall
• Changing your drapes, shades or curtains
• Painting a wooden chair or table
• Adding colored candles
• Adding accent pillows or slip covers to your seating
• Putting down a cozy throw rug.

Comfortable Rustic Fabrics

To maintain the down-to-earth style of your living room, be sure to work with natural fabrics for your holiday decorating. Some possibilities include:

• Cotton: Hang Halloween themed or colored cotton curtains, embroider a Halloween sampler with a ghost or Jack-o-lantern or cover a chair with a deep orange cotton throw.
• Wool: Knit or crochet a pumpkin, ghost or friendly black cat to display. Hand-knitted accent pillows with Halloween themes are also a nice touch. Check discount and thrift stores for wool Halloween/autumn décor for a budget option.
• Burlap: Lay a burlap table runner on your coffee table under a Halloween centerpiece or use pieces of burlap, colorful felt and twine to create a holiday banner.
• Flannel: Hang a flannel (or cotton) patchwork quilt with fall colors and/or Halloween themes on a bare wall, or drape it over your sofa. You might also want to feature some stuffed flannel pumpkins, witches or black cats on your shelves or accent tables.

Rustic Halloween Materials

Choosing natural materials for your Halloween decorations and furniture helps maintain the rustic country feel of your living room. These materials might fit into your holiday decorating scheme:

• Wood: Choose wooden furniture finished naturally, distressed or painted in fall tones. If you’d like, add a Halloween themed stencil or hand painted design. Carved wooden Halloween figures and old wooden shutters or fencing are also nice accents.
• Metal: Try some wrought iron candlesticks with beeswax candles or an old fashioned lantern. You might also want to add some Halloween themed metal wall art or a cast-iron witches’ cauldron and spoon.
• Ceramics: Display a collection of glazed ceramic pumpkins or monsters on your mantle or shelves, or showcase a deep red or orange ceramic vase.
• Glass: Use clear or fall-colored glass vases to display sunflowers, marigolds, mums and other golden or orange blossoms. Mason jars are another way to add rustic Halloween charm. Use them as vases, fill them with colorful Halloween candy, illuminate them with tea lights or make a Halloween snow globe.
• Straw: Old-fashioned country straw brooms provide just the right transportation for rustic Halloween witches. Display a large one in a corner or hang some miniature straw brooms from the ceiling or in doorways for little cloth witch dolls to ride.

Rustic Halloween Lighting

For Halloween lighting that won’t overpower the country charm of your living room, soft lighting works best. Consider some or all of these lighting approaches.

• Firelight: Try tea lights, votive candles, luminaries or long candles in candelabras. A roaring fireplace surrounded by Halloween decorations creates a great rustic holiday atmosphere.
• Low wattage light: Battery operated tea lights or low wattage bulbs in sconces and accent lamps provide subtle lighting.
• Colorful light. Add a few strands of orange and green lights for a subtle eerie glow that won’t upstage your rustic décor.

A Halloween Harvest

Halloween shares many themes with the fall harvest, so natural harvest elements fit beautifully into rustic Halloween designs. Here are some great ways to fill your living room with a Halloween Harvest:

• Pumpkins and gourds: Create an arrangement of pumpkins and gourds of all sizes for your coffee table, your fireplace area or even just a corner of the room. Surround them with straw, and paint them or carve out designs and faces if you’d like. Illuminate carved pumpkins from within using candles or LED lights. Carved out pumpkins also make wonderful vases for fall blossoms, stalks of wheat or a pretty arrangement of branches.
• Fall fruits: Bright red apples and warm brown pears add to the festivity displayed in a wooden box, woven basket or glass bowl.
• Corn: Add some dried Indian corn to your centerpieces, mantel displays or wall decorations. You might also want to display a large bucket filled with ears of colorful Indian corn.
• Flowers and foliage: Create striking wreaths and garlands from natural or faux fall blossoms and colorful autumn leaves. Hang these on your walls, over your doorways or around the fireplace area.

More Rustic Halloween Touches

Add some fun to your living room with these homey Halloween accents and extras:

• A wood-framed, vintage chalkboard with the word “Boo” and a picture of a ghost drawn in chalk
• Handmade wooden alphabet blocks arranged to spell out a Halloween message
• Tall country candles with some plastic spiders around them
• White cotton sheets covering all the furniture to make the room look deserted and haunted
• Distressed wooden shutters mounted on the wall or leaning against it, covered in faux cobwebs and surrounded by faux ravens.
• An ornament tray with black and orange ornaments
• Handmade witch, ghost, vampire, monster, mummy or black cat dolls
• Some faux mice to nibble on your bowl of fresh fruit
• A black wrought iron candelabra topped with a scull
• Country candlesticks topped with mini pumpkins
• A Halloween tree with handmade ornaments
• Antique family photos and scary looking vintage books.

Natural materials, a rich fall palette and some eerie Halloween touches will create a haunting Halloween look while remaining true to your rustic country style. Your living room will be just right for a warm and down to earth Halloween celebration.