French Country Kitchen Summer to Fall

Transitioning from summer to fall is often so subtle in my French Country kitchen in Texas you may miss it. Yet, there are a few changes already at my house now in August.  

If you are ready for some small changes from summer in your home, but are not ready for pumpkins and mums, I have a few ideas you may like for how to ease into fall decorating. 

If you are coming from Cecilia at My Thrift Store Addiction, welcome! 

If you have not visited Cecilia's tour for how she is transitioning from summer to fall, be sure you visit her to see how she takes her thrift store finds and makes them special for her house. After her inspiration, you may just be heading to your closest thrift store to transition your home into fall. 

Please PIN ⥣, share on Instagram and on Facebook
so others will know about this special tour of homes. 

Thanks to Amber Lyon Ferguson at Follow The Yellow Brick Home for inviting me to be part of a blog hop with twenty other bloggers sharing how we transition our homes from summer to just before fall. There are links to everyone participating at the end of the post. Be sure to check out all of them because there are so many great ideas of how to give your home a little transitioning-to-fall love now. 

Please PIN ⥣ to your Fall Pinterest board. 

F R E N C H   C O U N T R Y   K I T C H E N 

S U M M E R   T O   F A L L

Come on in to see a few ideas of how I introduce fall gently into my French Country kitchen.  

Summer lasts a long time in Texas. Some say we have only two seasons. Summer and winter, where winter lasts about three weeks max. Then it is back to summer. No fall; no spring; just winter, summer, summer, summer. 

Yet, when the school bells ring once again in August each year, my mind thinks it is Fall even though the temperatures say it is still summer. The seasons of the year are founded in life-long traditions, not temperatures. And my nesting instincts begin to make changes to shift from high summer of unstructured schedules and impromptu ice cream runs to the days of bell schedules and routine tasks.  

Typically those changes begin in my kitchen, the heart of my home.  

N E U T R A L   G R A Y   &   W H I T E       

White is prominent in my kitchen year round with the white cabinets, appliances, and dishes, but blue is also a main color. The countertops and bead board walls are light periwinkle blue. The counter stools are medium blue. Most sets of dishes have blue designs, and most of the kitchen dish towels have blue patterns. 

Multi-gray French style floral dish towels and pot holders now take the place of the usual blue towels and pot holders. The pale gray neutral color is a subtle nod to the coming fall colors after foliage loses its brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows. 

Muted browns and grays will emerge when plants lose all their color. 

Gray goes beautifully with my blues, but if gray does not go with your colors, you can introduce fall tones by using pale beige or brown instead of gray. 

White goes with everything. Whatever your kitchen's color you can add white. 

More white has been added to my kitchen with new French Country style canisters in a white basketweave pattern. Basketweave says country to me whether it is farmhouse, rustic cabin, American Country, traditional, or French Country. Whatever style country you love, basketweave fits right in with it. 

The open white canister has a raised quote, "Cuisine de Provence." Tone-on-tone raised patterns add nuanced design to blend with other items instead of drawing attention to themselves. Which is a kind of neutral form of decorating. If you want to add a quote to your home during an early fall transition, try using tone-on-tone.  

P E A R S   R E P L A C E   P E A C H E S 

There's nothing better than juicy white peaches on a hot summer day. Peach cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream is near the top  of the list of peach recipes for me. 

But, even higher on the list is a bowl of sliced white peaches sprinkled with just enough sugar to make the peaches juicy. Yellow peaches are yummy, too. 

I love to eat them with black-eyed peas and cornbread. Peaches, black-eyed peas, and cornbread are on the menu every summer, and it is not high summer until that meal occurs. 

When pears arrive at the farmer's market, and peaches are no longer available, it is time for fall. This week we have both peaches and pears on the breakfast table in the kitchen. 

A time of fruit transition, and summer easing into fall.  

Do you set your fruit out as part of your home's decorating? 

D A R K   G R A Y  -  B L A C K  -  B L U E 

Darker colors, black, charcoal, and dark blue, are another way to transition from summer to fall decorating. 

Does the first day of school each year make you think Fall? And is there any more iconic object that says School more than a blackboard? School is where we saw our first blackboards and are now forever linked in my mind with school and fall. 

A little collection of French-style items sit on my breakfast table. The vintage clear seltzer bottle is from France and has the word "Paris" engraved on its gray metal nozzle. The vertical blackboard is like the ones used in patisseries (bakeries) and bistros  (small cafés) throughout France. 

The vertical blackboard displays a grocery list for a small late summer, just-before-fall picnic. Poires (pears), baguette (loaf of French bread), fromage (cheese), jus de pomme (apple juice), and jambon (ham).

French Country may not be your style, but you can add a little late, late summer / early, early fall decorating with a collection of your favorite dark gray and black items. 

A postcard of La Gare d'Orsay as it looked in 1900 when it was still a train station picks up the dark colors in the blackboard and seltzer bottle and blends with the blues in my kitchen. 

When traveling, look for picturesque postcards to use in your home decorations. If you love a location, a postcard is an inexpensive way to remember your good times there. I watch for Christmas scenes in postcards to use for the holidays. 

New dark blue and white striped placemats replaced a set of muted pale green and white striped round placemats. The darker color of the blue in the placemats and the darker blue and off-white striped pillow are good choices for transitional fall decorating. 

Try using deeper tones in your home's colors to achieve similar results. The dark tones will still go with your colors, but give a fall look. 

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Just like that, easing a little fall decor into my French Country kitchen with ideas and colors you can use to give a little fall to your home also. 

♕ Neutral gray kitchen linens 

♕ Neutral white canisters 

♕ Neutral tone-on-tone French quote 

♕ Replacing summer peaches with fall pears 

♕ Using charcoal, black, and dark blue items in table vignette 

♕ Adding a vintage Paris scene postcard in dark colors  

Does Fall arrive with a bang at your house or does Fall gently ease into your house? 


In case you would like to know where to find some of the things I am using to transition my kitchen from summer to fall, you can find them at the sources below.

S O U R C E S 

White Canisters ~ HomeGoods 
Blue and White Striped Placemats ~ HomeGoods 
Gray French Floral Kitchen Linens ~ Botanic Bleu 
Vintage French Seltzer Bottle ~ Magnolia.com (similar) 
Vertical Blackboard on Stand ~ Botanic Bleu 

{Disclosure: If you buy items from Botanic Bleu, I receive compensation. See my Disclosure & Privacy Policies for details.}

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Thank you for taking the tour of my French Country kitchen summer-to-fall tour. You can find an entire collection of more ideas from the amazing bloggers below who are also sharing a tour of how they transition their homes from summer to fall. 

So many talented ideas and beauty gathered in one spot! 

Thank you, Amber Lyon Ferguson at Follow the Yellow Brick Home, for gathering all of us together. 

Next up on the tour is super talented Angelina who blogs at Petite Haus. You KNOW I love everything she shares because we share a love for FRANCE! Her new French Country home is a dream come true, and she uses authentic French design which makes my eyes dance. If you did not know she lived in California, you would think you are peeking into a house in France. 

Tell her Judith says, "Bonjour, mon ami." (Hello, my friend.) 

et, adieu, à vous, mon ami 

(and, farewell, to you, my friend) 

I hope you visit again.