Comfort and Joy

Simple Decorating ideas for Christmas and its glorious season that bring joy to your budget.

Christmas is the time to celebrate tradition, and spend time with those that we hold dear. We like to decorate our homes with sparkle and spirit but sometimes the hustle and bustle of the season, the holiday shopping and budget tend to take priority. Keeping your decorating simple, casual and spontaneous will help you inject some holiday cheer into your home, even if you are short on time and money. Here are some holiday decorating tips that will help turn your home into a warm, cozy and inviting interior where the magic can take place even after the holidays are over.

Come Dine and be Merry

Around the dinner table is where most of the magic begins and the perfect place to hang some holiday sparkle. Cut some ribbon that matches your color scheme at different lengths and hang them from your chandelier. You can also add some Christmas ornaments to the ribbon for instant bling! One of my favorite things to do is to wrap a garland around the chandelier. It is quick, easy and creates a wonderful focal point around the dinner table.

You can find some festive garlands at Pier1 Imports that are perfect for the occasion.

Beaded Garland in red and green

$25.00

Jingle Bells Garland

$19.95

If you want to keep the garland once the holidays have come and gone, choose something like a pearl like strand of beads that compliments your existing decor. Or, you can go natural and choose simple elements like evergreen branches, ivy or anything leafy. Toss in some white hydrangeas and you have a look that can last you through the winter.

 

Razzle Dazzle

Dazzle up your table and serve up some sparkle by creating easy but, enchanting center pieces. You can fill votaries, vases, bowls or even cake stands with some Christmas ornaments that compliment your color scheme mixed with leaves or pine cones. You can line your table with two or three holiday plants like amaryllis, hydrangeas or poinsettias and add candles to set a warm and cozy holiday mood. 



If you wish to have your centerpiece grace your table throughout the winter months, fill tall vases with branches or pine, evergreens and cranberries.

Adding a table runner or festive tablecloth to your centerpiece will complete the look. One of my favorite finds for dressing up your table this holiday season is this beautiful golden toile available in both a tablecloth and runner through Williams-Sonoma. It has a charm that can fill your home with warmth throughout the wintry months. If this makes a dent in your budget, Bowring offers an equally beautiful but, more affordable French Knot Design Runner.

William-Sonoma Golden Toile                             Bowring French Knot Design Runner

Tablecloth $99.95                                               $39.99

Runner $79.95

If you are looking for a more casual and modern scheme, these table cloths and runners from Ikea can make your season bright for less.

Julfint Table Cloth $19.99                                                        Julfint Table Runner $5.00

Bring in the Comfy and Cozy

Bring the warmth of Christmas into your home with comfortable pillows and throws. I like to accessorize with items that celebrate tradition but, that can also have a nod to natures wintry

merriment.



 

Arbre Cushion $26.00

Zone Maison



 

Flurry Pillow $59.07 Crate and Barrel

Beaded Reindeer Pillow
Peir1 Imports $29.95



Mateo Plaid Alpaca Throw

$162.30 Crate and Barrel 

Redwood Cushion in Flax $39.99

Caney Stone Pillow

Monroe Charnavy Pillow
Crate and Barrel $50.26

Crate and Barrel $88.00

                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                   

Perdiz Pillow                                                                     

Crate and Barrel $37.68                                        

Quincy Ecru Pillow
Crate and Barrel $62.84

                                                                                                                          

 

Vintage Throw Bombay $47.00

  



Create a Winter Wonderland

Bringing the outside in is one of the best ways to help celebrate the holidays and all of winter's splendor.

The wreath is one of the most commonly used items for Christmas decorating.

This one made of bay leafs is simple, beautiful and elegant just on it's own. It is the perfect fit for any mantel, window or door. For extra holiday flare simply add a ribbon in the color of your choice or some festive flowers, lights or ornaments and you have something stylish, unique and personal. The best thing about it is, that once Christmas is over you can dress it up all over again for the seasons yet to come.

Less is always more when it comes to fashion and the same holds true for decking your halls. Spare can be beautiful. Bring in tall tree branches and decorate them with candy canes, red bows or crystal like ornaments. Bring in some candle light by placing candles in hurricane lanterns around your vignette to welcome in the warmth of the holiday. Use them on console tables, mantels or side tables and, once the holidays have passed, adorn them with greenery and florals to make a soft and sophisticated statement.

 

This gold leafed metal tree from Peir1 Imports at $55.00 will look great anywhere once styled with Christmas cheer. Once the holidays have come and gone, use it as a jewelry or picture holder and enjoy it all year long.

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Nothing screams winter more than snow. So, why not make different size paper snow flakes and hang them with ribbons of varying lengths. You can hang them from mantels, ceilings, chandeliers , staircases and tree branches. It is a fun activity that the children can do as well!

Glitter Birds $5.95
Bowrin

While creating your majestic land of snow don't forget about nature's pets. Accessories like deer, horses and birds relate to both the festive holiday and its marvelous season. Group them together and place them on your coffee table, mantel, console tables, or tree branches.



Bowring $49.99

Rocking Horse Peir1 Imports $3.95



Holiday Collection Silver Plated Dear
Canadian Tire $9.99



Standing and Grazing Reindeer
Peir1 Imports $49.00ea

   

 

 

Oh What Fun!

 Add instant Christmas cheer into your decor by displaying Christmas cards of all those you hold dear. A unique way to display all your merry wishes is to wrap a pin board in a colorful fabric that matches your existing decor and pin all your cards on it. Once the holidays are over, you can use the same pin board for different photos, messages or children's art work throughout the year.

Another way, is to hang them on display. Crate and Barrel has this innovative hanging chandelier where you can clip ornaments, Christmas cards and photos from metal clips on graduating lengths of wire for a contemporary custom display of Christmas memories both old and new.

Crate & Barrel $50.08

Bring in splashes of color by displaying Christmas candy and cookies. Fill bowls, vases or jars with you favorite sweets and present them with a side order of your most inspiring vintage decorations like ornaments, sparkling ribbons and bows or even wrapping paper or flowers.

                               

                                           

Always remember the unexpected. Celebrate tradition and bring in some romance by placing mistletoes in doorways, chandeliers, or even as tree tops. This one is a charming take on the traditional mistletoe. Pretty and modern, it will have everybody sharing in the kissing spirit.

Crate and Barrel $8.74

Bright Lights, Silent Nights

Don't forget the lights. Drape strings of lights across shelves, on tree branches, mantels, tables and staircases and watch them fill your home with the peace and wonder of twinkling stars.

Finally, go for the gold,.....or in this case, even the silver. Try decorating with gold or silver candlesticks, vases, bowls, mirrors and light fixtures. Year after year the metallic theme can remain the same but, the accent color can change. One year it may be green, the other red, icy blue or even fuchsia and purple! After the holidays, the beauty in the metals remains to amp up the elegance and glam factor in your space so that you can continue to receive guests in sumptuous style.

 

6 Design Tips on Getting a Practical and Stylish Room Layout

Furniture Placement and Arrangement. 6 design tips to getting a practical and stylish room layout.

As a designer, one of the questions I hear from clients on practically every consultation is “how do I arrange my furniture in this space”? Arranging furniture so that it can fit the room nicely, serve it's function, sometimes multiple functions and, maintain good traffic flow in a room can be challenging. When looking for ways to arrange your furniture, it is always best to follow certain basic guidelines. Always make your focal point the center of attention, and always keep the principals of balance, visual weight in size and scale, and the rooms dimensions, function(s) and traffic flow in mind.

Measure, Measure, Measure

 This is a critical first step to ensure that all the different furniture pieces that you will be bringing into the room will fit the room nicely. A quick and easy way to map out your rooms dimensions is to measure the length and width of your room and, then record these dimensions on a sheet of graph paper. Each square can be recorded as one square foot. Measure all your furniture and record the dimensions on the graph paper as well. Try to avoid pieces that are too large for smaller rooms and too small for rooms that are of a gander scale. If something does not fit, don't bring it into your space. Measuring the length and width of your room before you go out and buy furniture or start re-arranging furniture will save you both time and money.

Drawing Attention with Focal Point

Every room must have one and, when you are arranging your furniture, it is always best to arrange it around your rooms focal point. You must make your focal point the center of attention. It does not matter where you place yourself in the room, while you are in the space, your eyes should always naturally fall on the rooms focal point. Some rooms have natural focal points. Living rooms for example may have a fireplace or a large window. A natural focal point in any bedroom is the bed. The focal point in a dining room need not always be the table. It can be a fireplace, or a feature wall where art work is hung. When you are arranging your furniture, asking yourself what is the focal point of this room is always the best place to start. If you do not see a natural focal point, you must create one so that all the activity that will be going on in the room will center around it.

The below living room is a wonderful example of focal point, drama and attention. The natural focal point here is the magnificent view from the large floor to ceiling window. The designer has placed all the different furniture pieces around the focal point and no matter where you are sitting in this space, your eyes are naturally drawn to the view. In addition the two dramatic drapery panels and, two large palm trees on either side of the window as well as the large 

chandelier hanging in the middle, keep all focus on the focal point and help create high drama in this beautiful space.

Once you have determined your rooms dimensions, function(s) and focal point you can start placing your furniture. Your goal is to place your furniture around your focal point in such a way that it creates a sense of balance in the room in order for all the various components in the room to live in harmony. You need to consider balance in two ways. Firstly, the balance in how the various pieces in the room will be placed. Secondly, you want to consider the size and visual weight of each piece of furniture.

 Creating Balance and Forming a Healthy Relationship

When I look at creating a balanced layout for my clients, the simplest place to start is by drawing out a room and then dividing it into four equal quadrants. Think of these quadrants as a balance scale. If one quadrant has too much weight compared to the others, you will feel a “sinking” feeling each time you are in that area of the room. I then ask myself how much visual weight do the individual pieces of furniture that I will be putting in the room carry. The amount of space that a piece of furniture appears to take in a room usually has to do with its color, design and structure. White chairs or couches for example appear visually lighter than black ones. Glass tables appear to have less weight and take up less space in a room than wooden ones.

Therefore, to create balance in all four of your rooms quadrants, always spread out your “heaviest” pieces of furniture as evenly around the room as possible. If you have mainly large pieces, you will need to balance them out with smaller ones. For example, if you are placing a large sofa in one quadrant, try to place two chairs or a piece of equal visual weight on the wall opposing it as shown in the example below.

 In addition, try not to place too many pieces clumped together in the same quadrant leaving other quadrants empty or with few or little pieces to balance the scale. In the above example, our designers placed a media console as well as bookcases and accessories around the four different quadrants of this living room to keep each quadrant in balance with the other.

When trying to create a balanced layout remember to always place the “heaviest” pieces, the pieces that carry the most visual weight down first. By doing this, you will have a better sense of the rooms structure. Once your structure is established, the smaller pieces fall into place quite easily. Keep in mind also, that doors and windows also carry visual weight so you don't need to place as much furniture in areas that contain them.

Working with Scale

In terms of design, the term scale refers to the size of an object in relation to another object in the room, or in relation to the room itself.  A large dining room for example, needs to have a large dinning table. If it had a small one the table would look out of scale in the room. Similarly, placing a small coffee table in front of the long couch would also seem out of scale. When you are considering scale in design, unity is your aim. Try to avoid to many contrasts in height and visual weight. Similarly scaled pieces are more serene when used together but, a nice balance of pieces will create a harmonious atmosphere.

In this example the designer has used scale wisely to make this room visually interesting. The conversation area in this living room contains two chairs of the same size, shape and color that are grouped together opposite a large sofa. Two table lamps are placed symmetrically beside the large sofa and there are two built in bookcases and two windows on either side of the fireplace creating a sense of balance. The long rectangular bench adds great interest because it echoes the long horizontal line on the fireplace across from it and, the frame of the bench relates very nicely to the style and shape of the sofa and chairs.

Living In Harmony

Once you have considered the scale of all your different pieces of furniture, your next step is to consider the axis of your room. In design, when we speak of a rooms axis we are referring to the elevation of the room. In general, the focal point should dominate the eye from floor to ceiling. For example, if the focal point of a room is a fireplace, you will commonly see a large mirror or a piece of artwork placed above it as shown in the examples below.

Designers do this to first draw focus to the fireplace, and then extend the eye upward extending the axis up the wall.

Once you have created and established the axis on your focal wall, you will want to place objects on the axis of the opposite wall in the room. This will also help to balance the room. Try to use objects of equal weight as they should be high enough to establish their own axis. If you are arranging your bedroom for example, you could draw attention to the bed as a focal point point by putting art work above the headboard. Then, on the opposite wall, place your dresser with a large mirror over it. In the example below, attention is drawn to the bed with three pieces of framed art that are placed above the headboard. The art helps to extend the height of the headboard and thus, help finish the axis line all the way up the wall.  The large elevated scale is repeated on the opposite wall where the designer has placed a larger piece of art work along with two sconces above the fireplace. The placement of the bed across the fireplace and, the art placed on the walls on both sides help to extend the axis of these two walls all the way up from floor to ceiling in perfect balance and symmetry.

Getting Around Comfortably

When designing a furniture layout for my clients, it is equally important for me to know where not to place furniture. Therefore, your next step when you are arranging your furniture, is to consider your rooms traffic patterns. Traffic patterns are embedded lanes in each room that allow people to flow through. You should always take into consideration when placing your furniture that you must leave 36” in front of door openings and allow room for the doors to swing open. Keeping 12” in front of windows will allow people to open and close them. You would also like to keep the hearth of a fireplace clear.

In conclusion, knowing where and how to place furniture in any space is made easier by keeping balance and scale in mind. They are the fundamental concepts of design that designers and decorators use when they begin to visualize a layout for a room. As you start laying out your floor plan remember that variety is the key to a successful and interesting furniture layout. Try to avoid lining up furniture against the walls all around the room or placing it directly perpendicular to the walls in hopes that you will gain more space and that this will make the room feel larger. Instead, pull the furniture away from the walls and try different and interesting angles. By pulling the furniture away from the walls, you will instantly add more drama and interest and, the room will feel fuller and therefore bigger. Arranging furniture in a “U” shape pattern for example allows everyone seated in the room to face each other while they are socializing. It creates a comfortable and cozy conversation area. Always remember to start with your focal point and make it the most dramatic part of the room. Your furniture should be arranged in such a way that it emphasizes the focal point and, that it is balanced throughout all the four quadrants of your room. There should be a variety in how you place different pieces around your space. Try not to place all the heaviest pieces, or the pieces that carry the most visual weight together. Always make sure that the furniture arrangement does not interfere with the traffic flow of the room and remember to finish off the sense of balance you created with the furniture layout by addressing the rooms elevation or axis. This will give your arrangement the finishing touches it needs and, give it that designer unity and harmony that you are seeking.