Lucy Small of State and Season has some great dining room ideas to transform your home this holiday season. As a licensed designer, MBA, and alternative living expert, she creates physical spaces that promote happiness and well-being in rural settings. See her tips inside…
1. Decorate your mantle or buffet, keeping the style in tune with your home. – The best styled Christmas homes don’t necessarily have the most amount of decorations, but they do have a plan! Before you decorate, come up with a plan that will outline what your Christmas style is (glam, cottage, traditional, etc.) and which items you want to highlight (bows, Christmas trees, religious items, etc.). The style will usually suit your taste in decor. Next, for a cohesive and magazine-worthy look, make sure you work with a color palette of 2-3 colors and 1-2 metallics, but mix a good deal of textures for a rich and classic look. For example, your traditional Christmas may use red, white and green, but also gold. And your textures would be a good mix of wood, glass and velvet.
2. If you want to experience the whole season at your dining table, take your meals al fresco and enjoy fall colors while you dine, incorporating foliage and holiday colors into your centerpieces and tableware. – I love eating outside, even when it’s cold out. A couple of heat lamps turn every meal into a holiday experience, with kids cuddling into holiday fleece and faux fur blankets, while grown ups sip a heated cup of mulled wine. The coldest countries are the ones that love to spend the darkest months outside – they know how to keep warm with holiday throws, roaring fires and mulled drinks. Incorporate natural elements like deer antlers (adorning napkin rings, centerpieces, glass stems), birch branches, and fir sprigs.
3) How to turn every part of your home into a holiday-themed experience!
1) Set the table outside with heat lamps, cozy holiday themed blankets, winter themed foliage and special drinks! (Mulled wine, hot toddies, mulled apple cider and of course hot chocolate).
2) ‘Tis the season for candles! If you are using your candlesticks and candelabra decoratively, time to invest in some natural beeswax candles or get your favorite holiday scents and get on board with the early sunsets. Candles are super hygge and a great way to beat the winter blues. If you’re nervous about the open flame, lit wax melters offer a similar ambience and great wax scents.
3) It’s the mantle’s time to shine! Birch logs in the fireplace, stockings hung on the mantle, a garland on top…no matter your holiday style, the mantle has always been the hearth, providing heat, light and cooking utility during the darkest months.
4) Get your family (pets, kids, relatives, etc.) to help decorate the tree with homemade ornaments. There are hundreds of ideas online with everything from popcorn garlands to clay rounds with puppy paw prints.
5) Make one console top display that is a cornucopia to an item representing that holiday. For Halloween and Thanksgiving, that’s a collection of 50+ pumpkins of all different sizes, colors and textures. At Christmas, a new, unique Christmas tree that would fit just right into your collection.
