Decorate Your Home for the Holidays
What's more welcoming than festive holiday decorations throughout your home? Set a merry tone with inspiring holiday decorating ideas from the custom home builders at Gordon James to make your decor as unique as your home. From the entryway to the great room, here’s everything to consider as the holiday party season approaches. Get every room in your home holiday-ready with these festive ideas from Gordon James:
Entryway
Your home’s entryway is your first chance to impress guests and introduce your holiday spirit. So gather together some of your favorite holiday decorations and recreate your entrance space. From trees and wreaths to cozy throws and holiday pillows, string lights, and glittering ornaments, impress your guests with your unique taste. One way to make a magical entryway is to decorate your banister in elaborate holiday decor with lights, bows, and garlands. The banister is also an excellent alternative to hanging stockings on the fireplace. There’s nothing more welcoming than a stunning entryway, so make this space a priority this holiday season.
Dining Area
From enjoying Christmas Eve dinner with your family to decorating cookies, the dining area is a high-traffic space during the holiday season. This year, consider giving your dining room the decor it deserves for the holidays. Try decorating your chairs with elegant ribbons and fir branches. Enhance the natural light in the room with wreaths and garlands surrounding the window. Assemble an eye-catching floral centerpiece for the dining room table. Embellish the look by surrounding it with all-white candles. Opt for a simple, faux tree in a corner of your kitchen to warm the space. Bring the warmth of the season into your kitchen and watch it transform from standard to exemplary.
Great Room
Your great room is the heart of your home all year long, but it feels especially important as the holidays roll around. Not only is it the backdrop for intimate family gatherings, but also the go-to location for your Christmas tree. And, if you have a fireplace, it’s also Santa’s primary entrance. For these reasons, it’s especially important to fill this space with an extra dose of holiday cheer.
Of course, the large Christmas tree that we open gifts under is often found in this room. So it’s important to have one that not only suits your style but also stands tall season after season if you decide to invest in an artificial tree.
You could venture to the bolder side of the spectrum with an ombre tree or remain with a classic red-and-gold palette. Christmas holiday decorations are all about evoking that cheer and warmth the season brings throughout your own home. From traditional to modern, natural to glamour, your tree should reflect your taste and personality to fully embrace the season.
Prepare Your Home for the Holidays with Gordon James
Partner with the professional Minnesota home builders, Gordon James, to start building your dream home. Our dream homes are architecturally exciting and structurally robust, with elegant interiors and refined exteriors. They are designed by architects to mirror each client’s personality and lifestyle needs. The Gordon James team orchestrates the intricate process through which a confluence of people, events, talents, and dreams will produce perfect results – your dream home! For more information, contact us at info@gordon-james.com or call us at 763-479-3117 today.
Kitchen and Dining Designs for a Stylish Space
If you host New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, or any of the holidays in between, you know exactly how important a well-designed kitchen and dining space can be: a kitchen that is too crowded or a kitchen that doesn’t flow? Too much open space or not enough?
When you’re ready for a kitchen and dining redesign, all of those entertaining issues can be addressed. Consider these kitchen and dining ideas to design a stylish and functional space:
Open Kitchen and Dining Room
One of the attractions of an open dining room layout is being able to visually and aesthetically connect several interior living spaces, such as the kitchen, living room, and dining area. In an open-concept dining room, you have an unobstructed view of other living areas. For those who prefer casual and frequent entertaining, this is a great layout design. An open dining room allows you to mingle and converse with dinner guests while you're in the kitchen for a convenient entertaining option.
Traditional Kitchen and Dining Room
On the other hand, a formal dining room separate from the kitchen provides a more intimate dining space that's removed from visual and audible distractions, such as television, children playing, or dirty dishes. While the traffic flow in a formal dining room differs from that in an open layout, it often reduces the busyness and noise surrounding the kitchen. Formal dining rooms offer charm and nostalgia as many people grew up sharing holiday meals in the formal dining room.
Butler’s Kitchen
Today, a butler’s kitchen may not come with a tuxedo-clad steward or an extensive collection of antique kitchenware, but there are plenty of reasons why this design is becoming popular again. Butler's kitchens were used to store, polish, and count silver, dishes, and china, while a butler would keep the pantry under lock and key to protect the family heirlooms.
The butler's pantry is located just off the kitchen, serving as the perfect area for dining and entertaining prep. If you require a unique kitchen upgrade, a butler's pantry may be the perfect solution.
Host in Style with Gordon James
Partner with the professional Minnesota home builders, Gordon James, to start designing or renovating your dream kitchen and dining space. Our dream homes are architecturally exciting and structurally robust, with elegant interiors and refined exteriors. They are designed by architects to mirror each client’s personality and lifestyle needs. The Gordon James team orchestrates the intricate process through which a confluence of people, events, talents, and dreams will produce perfect results – your dream home! For more information, contact us at info@gordon-james.com or call us at 763-479-3117 today.
How To Cozy Up Your Home For The Holidays
As winter approaches, the feel and functionality of your home become more integral to scaring off the winter blues. Here are some easy ways to cozy up your space for the holidays as you prepare to entertain, relax, and hibernate.
Keep It Light
Playing with illumination can imbue any space with a festive, cozy aura. As the days darken, artificial light plays a larger role in your home. Adjust the ambiance of any space by adding dimmers on existing lamps and light fixtures to create different levels of light. This provides versatility to the room, allowing for festive parties at full brightness and cozy movies at a lower setting.
Mixing and matching your light sources creates warm, comforting layers. A reading lamp or a well-placed accent fixture provide pools of focused light, while the dimmer controls the aesthetic of the rest of the room. But don’t simply run out for new lamps this winter: three-way bulbs provide multiple illumination options and adding the warm glow of tea lights, you can turn a 3-story into a storybook.
Festive Fabrics
Winter is the perfect time to showcase custom needlework and hand-made quilts. Throw one over the back of your couch to give it a festive, yet functional, flair. As the snow piles up to the windows outside, ditch the airy cotton drapes for heavy velvet or flannels. This gives depth and tone while providing inherent warmth and a snugger feeling.
Rugs, throw pillows and bedding are other areas that enhance your aesthetic in the winter. Fiber arts are especially stylish, and thick, shaggy carpet in your bathroom warms the space, physically and aesthetically. Rich velvets and thick comforters transform your guest bedrooms from summer home to private chalet in minutes.
Holiday Hearth
Using your wood-burning fireplace warms your home while inviting those in it to draw near. The roaring flames in the hearth and the faint smell of woodsmoke add a north-woods note to any gathering space. If you don’t have a functioning fireplace, decorating with clean split logs or pine boughs creates a centered, hearty feeling.
Arranging your furniture so your guests can gather together, giving a more centralized focus on the fireplace, creates an idyllic winter-lodge tone. A cozy atmosphere for guests and family to spend time interacting, or to observe the falling snow, is the most important decoration this holiday season.
Happy Holidays From GJ
From the obvious decorations that surround the holidays to the subtlety of changing your color scheme, Gordon James is here to help. Our luxury home building team knows a thing or two about how to design the inside and outside of a house. For any questions you have about making your home cozy for the holidays, contact us at 763.479.3117. Gordon James wishes you and your family a very happy holiday season!