Full Service Design

This year more than ever our focus has been on offering our clients a true full service design experience. From construction of their home, to the furnishings, to holiday decorating services year after year.

Holiday Decorating

There is nothing more rewarding than returning to a client’s home after we have completed the construction and furnishing phase to help with their holiday decorating. Being asked to decorate our client’s homes for Christmas is a true honor. It’s such a personal process, and we take it seriously. Incorporating treasured family pieces, while bringing in a fresh perspective to make the home feel really intimate and special.

I grew up decorating trees for the holidays. At one point my mother had 7 trees in our house! I became a holiday decorating pro at a very young age 😉 I learned scale is everything, and you have to do enough, without doing to much… make sense? 😉

Decking the Halls At Our Highland Parkway House

You may remember this adorable house from the project reveal we shared a few years back, or on Instagram, and it has become a hit on Pinterest as well! Who doesn’t love a pretty navy house with major curb appeal? When our clients reached out to us this year asking for help getting their home ready for the holidays, we couldn’t help but be excited!

This home has always had a special place in our hearts, not only because of how pretty it is but the clients are just as lovely.

I love the blend of modern and traditional in this home. Our clients have fresh young taste and we always have so much fun adding hip cool pieces to their space.

They asked us for no Christmas tree this year, but to make sure the home felt festive and beautiful for their Christmas Eve dinner.

Exterior

We ordered the cutest tin bins for the front porch to hold a small tree {linked below!}, pine cones and some birch logs. Wanting to keep it simple, the porch needed to have a few well scaled pieces to fill the space but not get too busy.

We added fresh greens in the flower box. The goal is to have greens that feel festive for the holidays, but also last for the entire winter. With the navy exterior, we decided to stick with fresh greens and not add too much color keeping it simple and understated.

Making An Entrance

Adding holiday decor in unexpected areas is one of my favorite ways to decorate. In the foyer, we hung a wreath from the bench wall, and brought a beautiful brass basket with a few of the beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts to instantly get their guests in the holiday spirit. We changed out a few of the pillows for a deeper saturation of the original colors. You don’t have to use all holiday themed accessories- it’s fun to just change out the colors a little to make the space feel fresh and new.

Decorating Without A Christmas Tree

Our client’s family is somewhat dispersed across the country. Both children are away at college, and the mother works out of the country traveling back and forth to Minnesota. They wanted their home to feel festive for the holidays, but didn’t necessarily want to go thru the work of picking out a tree this year. We went heavy on the garland on the mantle to give that fresh evergreen feel. We brought in white candles and layered the fireplace with different textured stockings. It’s fun to mix the styles of stockings to give a more collected look.

Staircase Love

One of my favorite spaces in a house to decorate for the holidays is the staircase. It’s the area of the home that often gets forgotten but when done properly can have the biggest impact. On an open staircase like this one, it can be pretty expensive to buy garland every year. We often times will buy artificial garland, and add fresh greens to it. Artificial garland costs almost the same as fresh, and it’s a 1 time investment. Adding fresh greens like evergreen and eucalyptus is easy and much more cost effective over the years.

Setting The Table

In the dining room I love to set the table early for the holidays. There is no reason you can’t have it set a week or two before. 1, it allows you to enjoy the beautiful tablescape for a longer period of time, and 2, it saves you a ton of work on the actual day.

Final Touches in the Kitchen

I always like to take it easy on the kitchen. Adding a few simple touches is all you need. It’s important to leave the kitchen feeling functional for the season. Switching out the towels, adding a wreath over the window and adding a few small pieces by the backsplash is all this kitchen needed to keep if festive and functional.

Every year we love to feature one of our client’s homes that we have decorated for the holidays. Last year it was our Stillwater house, which was a much more traditional and classic feel than this more modern design. Which do you prefer? Modern or classic holiday decor?

Happy Holidays!