077. Your Fall Home Refresh: 7 Budget-Friendly Choosy Organizer Tips

Want a cozy, clutter-free Fall without blowing your budget? In this episode of Organizing for Beautiful Living, I've got 7 simple ways to “rollover” your home into Fall. These ideas are low-cost or no-cost, sustainable, and will help you stay organized while keeping the season light and joyful.

You’ll learn how to:

💨 Shore up drafts to cut costs and keep cozy

🥾 Refresh your entryway for Fall clutter (boots, umbrellas, jackets!)

🛋️ Warm up your décor with easy swaps or DIY touches

🧥 Reorganize your closet so mornings run smoother

👚Pick a Fall “uniform” to beat decision fatigue

🎃 Rollover your kitchen for seasonal produce and cookware

🍗 Choose go-to Fall recipes that make cooking joyful and repeatable

Fall doesn’t have to mean bins of new décor or overcomplicating your routines. Let’s focus on what matters, what’s enough, and what can wait so you can enjoy Beautiful Living this season.

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Transcript

Today we’re talking about a home refresh into Fall. I like to call it a rollover into fall. But don’t worry. I’m not asking you to turn your home into a pumpkin patch explosion or buy bales of hay. Though if that’s your thing, go for it!
But this is about a low- or no-cost refresh that makes your home feel cozy, functional, and ready for the shorter days, the cooler weather, and all those Fall routines.
We’re going to cover seven areas where you can be choosy, intentional, and even a little bit clever. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to step into the season without overwhelm or overspending.

Welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living with Zee Siman, The Choosy Organizer.
This podcast is for women who are done organizing everything and ready to be choosy — about what matters, what’s enough, and what can wait.

Because Beautiful Living starts with a little less stress and a lot more intention.

Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen!

You might know this already. I live in Miami, and it’s still steamy hot here in late September. Like in the 80’s, but it’s humid, so it feels way hotter than that. But regardless of where you live, right around now you should be preparing for temperature changes that are going to be coming up.

So if you’re in the northern half of the world, we’re moving into cooler weather. In the Southern half of the world? Well you’re moving into warmer weather.

Now today’s episode is about rolling your home over into cooler weather, but these same tips are going to apply for moving into warmer weather, ok?

But for us here in the northern hemisphere, well I’m sure you’re seeing the pumpkin displays in all the grocery stores, even at the big hardware stores! 

And of course in the coffee shops. I don’t particularly like pumpkin spice coffees, but just the colors and the smells of Fall draw me in! 

I walk into Target or Home Goods or Michael’s and I want one of everything!

But of course, I’m very choosy when it comes to stuff that I have to find space to keep in my house. So adding a whole lot of fall decor to keep and reuse? That’s usually not for me, but there are some exceptions, and I do love making my house feel like Fall, and I’ll tell you how I do that in a minute.

But I want to say that the 7 tips that I have today, I especially love them because they don’t cost much, if anything at all! But they make a big difference in making your home feel ready for Fall.

So let’s get into it. 
My first tip is to Shore Up Drafts.
Yeah, I know. This is unglamorous but oh-so-important. You do not need to do a full-blown energy audit here, but just take a slow walk around your house and make a note of some things:
So check your doors and windows for the state of the weather stripping. Weather stripping is just the material that’s attached to your doors and windows that help to seal them. So when you open your window, you should see some kind of material, sometimes it looks like felt, sort of, sometimes it looks like rubber, there are different types, and they help to seal your windows and doors when they’re closed.
So check if that’s cracked or peeling off. And if it is, you want to replace that. It’s not hard, you guys. I tell you this as a non-handy person who did this every year in our older house up North myself. A little roll of weather stripping costs under ten bucks at the hardware store. There are different types that attach in different ways to your windows and doors. Just talk to someone at the store, show them a picture of what you’ve got, and have them show you what they have available and how it attaches.
Then take an afternoon and do one window. Just one. Once you’ve done one, you’ll get faster on the others. And you can even do your front door, let’s say.It’s not hard, ok?
Next, look at the caulk around your front and back door and your window frames, both on the inside and the outsides of your house. And to be fair, when we lived in a 2-story house, I only did the inside of the second floor windows, ok? For the outside, I would totally hire someone. But you’re looking for gaps between the frame and the wall. And if you see any, then buy a squeezy tube of caulk and seal them. Make sure you get the appropriate type of caulk for where you live. Again, just ask the person at the hardware store and they’ll tell you what you should get. And very low cost here.
And then, there’s a really simple but  fun touch that you could do, and that’s to get a door door snake. Yes, they still make them. This is a long, densely filled fabric draft-stopper that you just shove up in front of your doors. You could DIY one with fabric and heavy filling, or you can just buy an inexpensive one online. They make them in all styles, not just cutesy ones, but more formal-looking ones too ok?

Another really simple thing is to get little foam outlet insulator pads that go behind your light switch plates and behind your electrical outlet covers. Air absolutely escapes your house through these openings. One estimate I saw online is that you could save up to 20% on your energy bills by shoring up these drafts in your home, and in our modern homes, we have so many outlets and light switches, so it’s well worth it to spend a few dollars to buy a bunch of these and just unscrew your outlet covers, pop one of these foam pads on, and rescrew the plate cover on, ok? And you can definitely find these at your hardware store, or even online.
These are just such easy little fixes that cost very little money, that you can do yourself right now without any special tools, and they’ll help you live light, meaning being more sustainable, by cutting down on wasted energy while keeping your house cozy.

My second tip is to Refresh your Entryway for Fall.
Your home’s first impression is the entryway, right? And sadly, this is where Fall clutter can get out of hand really fast. Cause now you’ve got the boots, the bigger shoes in general, wet umbrellas, bigger jackets and stuff. But you don’t need a whole remodel. You can just refresh.
So first off, do a switch-out of the summer shoes, of course. Like the slides, and the flip flops for the pool or beach. Maybe those can now go to the bedroom closets to make space for the every day fall shoes and boots instead. 
If you don’t have hooks for jackets, install a couple, maybe some Command hooks to try them out before you screw in something more permanent, to make sure you like them, you like using them, that your kids can reach them and all that.
For wet umbrellas,we have our laundry sink in our back entryway, so for us, the wet umbrellas go in there, leaning against the sides so they have a chance to drip dry. In our front entryway, we have a really big area rug right at the entry, so we can actually allow umbrellas to stay open there to dry for a bit. But you can also place a tray for wet shoes and umbrellas. 
You want to contain the shoes, ok, so if all you have space for in your entryway is one or 2 shoe trays, then make sure all the shoes go on those, and preferably not piled into a pyramid on that tray, ok? Only the daily shoes need to be there. Everything else can live in the bedroom closets. Try to make that a habit. 
Because what you want this Fall, and certainly all year round, you want your home to say welcome to our home! Instead of “we’re overwhelmed here” because when people see piles of shoes all over the place, in their kindness, maybe they feel like well maybe we shouldn’t come in as a guest because they’re going to add to your overwhelm, you know? So I bet that’s not the signal you want to send. So refresh your entryway home. And really, this is how we love our homes. With small, thoughtful systems that keep chaos contained.

My third tip is to Warm Up Your Decor.
Décor is fun for most people? But after seeing all the new stuff that all the stores come out with every year, a lot of people find they’ve spent a whole lot of money on this great stuff that they now have to find room to put away at the end of the season.
But Fall doesn’t have to mean spending hundreds of dollars on new stuff. Look around your house for swaps you can make. You can swap pillow covers, for example. Seriously, one set of covers is cheaper and easier to store than ten actual pillows, right? So you can buy them, or if you’re a sewer, get some nice Fall fabric and make your own covers.
If you’re crafty, grab some fabric trim and use fabric glue to dress up what you already have, maybe. If you’re not crafty, well, hello IKEA. A couple of years ago, I bought a plushy pumpkin orange pillow cover from IKEA. printed out a picture of our dog on fabric, on printable fabric, and stitched it on the cover with a coordinating piece of fabric trim. If you don’t sew at all, use fabric glue! It was such a simple, low-cost way to invite a cozy vibe, but it was personalized with the picture of our pup. And, you know, we just  changed out a pillow cover we already had. So all I have to keep now is that pillow cover, and it folds flat, barely taking up any room in with the other fall decor I keep. So no clutter. And no shoving and squeezing more stuff into already crammed bins because I want to refresh my Fall decorations, right?
And, of course, the easiest no-clutter, no-cost way to bring in fall decor is through nature! So pick up some pine cones on your walks, some acorns, cut a few branches from your own bushes or trees outside and bring them, put them in bowls or containers inside. Accent them with a couple of candles, or fake candles if you’re not into the real ones, and you’ve got yourself a cozy Fall evening.

The fourth tip I have for you is to Reorganize Your Closet.
You don’t need a massive overhaul for Fall, or for any season, if you don’t overbuy and overstock your clothes. This is just about moving things around. What I do at the change of seasons is to bring thicker sweaters, scarves, and boots to the front and shift my summer dresses and sandals and stuff to the back of the shelves, the rods and the drawers.
It’s just about making your specific Fall pieces more accessible every day. And it’s really as simple as can be. I open my tshirts drawer, pull out all the long sleeved tshirts, push all the sleeveless tanks and short sleeves to the back, and then put the long sleeved ones at the front. Done.
But that doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t convert some summer pieces into Fall ones. Like a light, flowy summer dress is easily a fall dress for me. I just add a sweater on top, and I add boots instead of sandals or sneakers, right?
But that subtle reorganizing, moving the cooler weather-clothes forward, it makes mornings smoother because you’re not sifting through swimsuits in November, yeah? And that’s part of thriving daily, having your surroundings support the season you’re actually living in right now.

My fifth tip for you is to Pick Your Fall “Uniform”.
And here’s one of my favorite things is choosing a seasonal uniform. Don’t freak out.  I’m not talking about wearing the same turtleneck every day. It’s not a school uniform, ok? I mean pick three closed-toe shoes for everyday wear that you keep front and center, make sure they’re comfortable, and they’re stylish, and you love to wear them. Choose a few tops that you can mix and match, and the 4 skirts or pants that you’ll wear most often, and then rotate your accessories or outerwear just to keep it interesting.
And suddenly you’ll find that your mornings are faster, your decision fatigue is going to drop, and you’re going to look pulled together without overthinking anything. This is work to live well in action, right? You’re simplifying so you can use your brainpower for things that matter more than “which of my 37 pairs of shoes should I wear today?” Keep it simple for yourself.

The sixth tip is to Rollover Your Kitchen.
The kitchen as a whole deserves a rollover too. Look at your fridge and your pantry. The produce in Fall is different from summer produce. You might want to make a little more space for things like squashes, you know, big butternut squashes, or apples, and pears.
If you have specific cookware or dishes that you like to pull out at Fall time, go ahead and do the same thing as you did in your closet, Move those things forward and push your everyday dishes to the back. You’ll get more time enjoying all your Fall things if they’re easier to take out every day for a regular Tuesday night taco dinner.
Fall to me doesn’t mean buying all the pumpkin-flavored everything, but simply aligning your kitchen with what’s fresh, and what’s local, what’s nourishing right now. It’s better for your wallet, better for the planet, and it’s refreshing to change what you eat with the season.

Which brings me to my last tip, tip number 7. Pick Your Fall Recipes.
The goal is to make the most of Fall produce, really make them shine, by choosing just a few Fall recipes you actually like to make and put them on repeat.
I especially like one-pan roasts, I liked baked apples, and apple tarts. These are cozy, seasonal, and easy things for me. 
The apple tart recipe, we actually use that all year, but we change up the fruit. In summer, we made a mango-apple tart that was amazing. We’ve also made a berry galette, just simply folding up the edges of the crust over about a third of the way over the berries. 
And I’ve used the same dough to make savory hand pies filled with spiced ground beef and butternut squash.
So it’s the same dough recipe that we’ve learned by heart by now, and it’s on repeat. We just change up the fillings with the seasons.
So when you have a short list of go-to recipes, meal planning becomes really less stressful. You can invite friends over and it’s not a huge production to make something because you have some recipes on repeat.
And listen, if your specialty is spaghetti, with frozen meatballs and jar spaghetti sauce, go for it! Invite your kids’ best friend’s parents over on a Thursday after ballet class and share that with them. Because food is often about connection. So this is also how we connect often. Sharing meals with  friends or family without the stress of reinventing the wheel every night.

So those are my seven choosy ways to rollover your home into Fall at little to no cost. You can shore up your drafts, you can warm up your décor, you can refresh your entryway and pick out your repeat-worthy recipes, but it’s all about being intentional with the season you’re stepping into and creating a life that’s simple in your cozy Fall home.
Remember, organizing isn’t about doing everything. It’s about doing the right things that make your homes, your routines, and your life feel lighter and more beautiful.
So if today’s episode gave you some ideas, please share it with a friend who’s already stocking up on her pumpkin candles, ok?
And I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment to leave me a quick review here, wherever you’re listening to this episode. It really helps other women like you find the podcast.
So keep being choosy, keep creating your own version of Beautiful Living. I’m Zee, and I’ll see you on the next episode.