At Home This Fall
Fall in New York is the season when home starts to matter. The weather pushes you in, but in a good way. I still carry my Leica through the West Village on clear afternoons, but most of the time, I’m glad to be inside. A day at home in fall has its own routine, and it makes the season feel sharper, calmer, and a lot more enjoyable.
The day usually starts with coffee—or for me, more often chai. Black tea with cardamom and ginger on the stove does two things at once: it wakes me up, and it sets the right pace. No rush, no need to line up outside for something in a paper cup. By the time the tea is ready, the apartment smells warm enough to make you forget how cold it was stepping out of bed.
The light in the morning is different too. It’s softer, lower, and it doesn’t last long. That’s when a good lamp matters. I’ve been using Louis Poulsen’s VL38 floor lamp in the living room, and it changes the way the room feels at the start of the day. It’s not about brightness—it’s about making the space usable when the sun isn’t really doing the job.
By the afternoon, fall has its way of slowing things down. This is when I usually make another round of chai, sometimes with milk, sometimes without. It’s the easiest break from work, and it feels different from pouring another coffee.
This is also when the house itself starts to feel like a place worth being in. A rug underfoot—something heavy, in deep reds and blues—makes the floor feel less bare. It’s not just decoration. It changes the room from somewhere temporary to somewhere you actually want to sit down and stay.
Afternoons at home in fall are also when scent makes the biggest difference. I’ll light Byredo’s Bibliothèque candle when I want something steady, or spray Trudon’s Ernesto when the mood calls for something stronger. Either way, the room shifts, and suddenly it feels less like just an apartment and more like somewhere you look forward to being.
Evenings in fall stretch out differently. The days are shorter, so you end up inside earlier than you expect. This is when small routines make the time feel worthwhile. I like reading—sometimes a novel, sometimes a history book, often just a magazine I never finished. The important part is that it’s not a screen.
Lighting plays a role here too. I use a smaller lamp—the Louis Poulsen Radiohus—by the bed. It gives off the kind of glow that makes you want to read a few more pages before calling it a night.
None of this is complicated, and that’s what makes it work. A few objects help—a lamp, a rug, a candle—but they’re not the point. The season itself does the work for you. All you need are a few routines that make the day feel good: tea on the stove, softer light in the room, something to read at night.
That’s fall at home. Not elaborate, not planned out, just the small things that make staying in the better option.
