What's Your Christmas Decorating Style? An Interior Designer's Guide to Holiday Decorating for Every Style of Home

How do you decorate for the holidays if red and green isn't your thing? Here's our guide to holiday decorating for every style of home

How to Decorate in a Classic Christmas Style 

Traditional Christmas decorating is all about reds, greens, and whites with classic motifs. We love to do themed holiday bedding, like the Pine Cone Hill Vintage Pine Boughs bedding collection. Add a velvet throw pillow like the Pine Cone Hill Gehry pillows. 

For dining rooms, we like classic table linens with a festive twist. Mix in some holiday inspired tableware like the Medici Festivo line. 

And of course, Seda France's Holiday Toile makes the perfect hostess gift or favor. 

How to Decorate in a Winter White Christmas Style 

Winter white is one of the easiest Christmas decor styles to transition into, especially if your home has a cottage or modern farmhouse style. Start with white blankets that work year-round, like our ultra-cozy Bamboni blankets. Top your bed with all-white bedding like Sferra's Pettine bedding, and layer in a velvet coverlet for winter like the Pine Cone Hill Parisienne. 

Your white tableware fits right in - add plenty of pretty floral arrangements for a holiday touch. Paperwhites mixed with evergreen and natural garland is a perfect look. 

To add holiday elements, try our velvet coasters or velvet stockings. 

How to Decorate in a Bright, Modern Christmas Style 

If you like more color in your holiday home, don't be afraid to mix things up! The easiest way to incorporate color into your holiday decor is by starting with pillows and throws. The Designers Guild Tasara throw is more traditional. The Isabel Multi Throw is a super gorgeous, colorful way to brighten up your home for the holidays. 

For your holiday table, we love the Vietri Mistletoe Serving Bowl paired with our Aaron glassware. 

Shop our entire line of holiday decor here! 

2022 Christmas Wish List: Best Self Care Gifts for 2022

 

Best Luxury Self Care Gifts for 2022

One of this year's biggest gift trends is self care gifts - for you or for your loved one. 

What are Self Care Gifts? 

Self Care gifts are little luxuries - soft robes, beautiful lotions, and spa-like essentials that help you take a moment to relax. You can check out our Gifts of Self Care curated gift guide here. 

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: whispering willow lavender body oil | lavender eye pillow | Mangiacotti lemon lotion | hudson made morning shift body wash | hydra bloom lavender relax bath salt | spongelle body sponge | love flutter body butter | pine cone hill sheepy fleece robes

How to Practice Self Care During the Holiday Season

The holidays are a fun but busy and stressful time. Here are some ways to practice self care during the holiday season. 

1. Set boundaries with your time - when the holidays feel like a marathon of nonstop work and running around, it's important to remember to enjoy this time, too. Don't feel like you have to say yes to every cookie swap, school holiday fair, or charity event.
2. Decorate for comfort and joy - try to let holiday decorating be a source of joy and fun, not stress. If doing Clark Griswold-level outdoor lights is stressing you out, skip the big display and focus on something more manageable. 
3. Give to yourself, too - treat yourself to a special gift or your favorite treat. 

Top Self Care Gifts for 2022 

Shop our curated gift guide for the top self care gifts of 2022, like bath salts, lotion, cozy robes, and bath and body essentials. 

Brands We Love: Designers Guild

Designers Guild is one of the most-beloved lines we carry in the shop. Founded by Tricia Guild OBE in 1970, this luxury line of fabric, homegoods, and wallpaper is based in London - and you can tell, as their aesthetic is pure upscale British chic. 

 Designers Guild has designed collections in collaboration with the royal household, with Christian LaCroix, with Laduree macarons - basically with all of our favorites. 

Designers Guild Design Inspiration

Tricia Guild's version of British style is far from stuffy, but she designs her wares in a way that allows you to incorporate them in to any space. Designers Guild's pillows, wallpapers, and fabrics can feel exuberantly colorful, sophisticated with an edge, or deliciously luxe and sexy depending on how you style the rest of the space.  That's why interior designers like us at Lavender & Company love their products so much. 

Does Designers Guild make curtains?

Designers Guild sells fabric that you can have made into made-to-measure curtains for your space. You can also find their luxuriously gorgeous shower curtains for your bathroom.

Order John Derian Tuberose Flower Fabric Sample here

Shop the Designers Guild Flower Birch shower curtain here

Shop the Designers Guild Peonia Grande Shower Curtain here

Our Favorite Designers Guild Pillows and Throws

Take it from Tricia Guild herself - throws and pillows are the best way to change up a space. 

There’s nothing like a new throw and cushions to refresh and recharge your living space. I love to have different sets of accessories that I change regularly. Some I have had for ages, while others are new and it’s exciting to mix them up for a different feeling. - Tricia Guild 

 

Shop the Porcelain De Chine Designers Guild Pillow here 

Shop the Designers Guild Mirrored Butterflies Throw Here

Shop the Designers Guild Widdale Brick Throw here

Our Favorite Designers Guild Wallpaper

Designers Guild wallpaper is bold, colorful, and stylish. We love it above the wainscotting in a dining room, on the walls of a beautiful library/sitting room, or covering a tiny jewel box powder room. 

Shop the Designers Guild Porcelaine de Chine wallpaper here 

Shop the Designers Guild Amrapali Peony wallpaper here

Where to Buy Designers Guild Fabric

Designers Guild fabric is sold to the trade only, meaning only interior designers, architects, and people in the industry can purchase it directly - if you're not, you'll have to buy it through them. 

You can get in touch with Lavender & Company for interior design services or to purchase your favorite yardage of Designers Guild fabric. 

Our Favorite Designers Guild Bedding

Designers Guild makes the most beautiful, luxurious bedding we've ever seen. To layer your bed in these beautiful silks and soft cottons is to truly sleep like a queen. As designers, we love how versatile the collections are to play around with and mix-and-match. 

Shop Designers Guild Pahari Cameo

Shop Designers Guild Chenevard Blossom

Shop Designers Guild Astor Shams

You've Got Mail New York City Style | Shop the Look

"You've Got Mail" is the ultimate fall movie, and we're sharing our favorite ways to style your home in the timeless shabby chic style from the film. 

Clockwise from top left: Jacaranda Living Christine pajamas |  Pom at Home Capistrano Throw in Blush | Kate Spade Book Tote | Seda France Lavender Three Wick Candle | Barr-Co Hand Lotion | Designers Guild Blue Daises Pillow | Taylor Linens Rose Pillow | Somerset Bay McClellansville Bookcase | Bella Bianca Plates

How to Get "You've Got Mail" Shabby Chic Apartment Style

Kathleen Kelly's light-filled apartment is the ultimate mix of updated traditional and 90s shabby chic. It's full of vintage-y painted furniture, chintz fabrics, and books as far as the eye can see. 

For the windows, these gauzey linen voile curtains are perfect to filter light through your windows without darkening your room too much. 

We know Kathleen loves daisies - here are some of our favorite daisy-inspired decor pieces. 

Taylor Linens Daisies Porch Pillow

Designers Guild Blue Daisies Sepia Toned Pillow

How to Decorate a "You've Got Mail" Inspired Bedroom

Kathleen's apartment is filled with chintz fabrics, like the Shore Rose print by Taylor Linens. To modernize the look, try layering it with a cool quilt like the Power Shake Scallop quilt by Pine Cone Hill.

We love Kathleen's painted furniture, like this Somerset Bay McClellansville Bookcase. For a small bedroom, it can double as major storage for towels, toiletries, and catch-alls. 
 

Where to Shop "You've Got Mail" Inspired Decor

Check out our cottage style section for more modern cottage decor, and get in touch with us for virtual design or interior design services! 

Fall Garden Cleanup: Don't Prune These - An Excellent Article from High Country Gardens

I still consider myself a new gardener even after owning my home 20 years. My garden has changed so much over the years and I have learned so much but always feel I need to learn so much more. Gardening is my favorite pastime and I love that there is so much to learn from other gardeners, garden centers and these wonderful online shops. High Country Gardens has always been a favorite of mine. This morning I was out in my garden and wondering what exactly to cut back and what to leave. Then I found this wonderful article. 

Getty Images from House Beautiful Magazine. 

Here are some tips:

Perennial Plants & Flowers 

Why leave perennial plants & flowers standing over winter months? Like ornamental grasses, it's a good idea to leave perennials standing as well. These plants will often provide the same shelter to beneficial insects as the ornamental grasses. 

Seed bearing perennials such as Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium), Hummingbird Mint (Agastache), Lavender (Lavandula), perennial Sunflower (Helianthus), and others, also provide valuable winter food for songbirds. Additionally, species with stiff stems and ornamental seed heads, such as Yarrow (Achillea), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Tall Stonecrop (Sedum), and others with flat or cone-shaped dried flowers, add to the garden's winter beauty.

Plus, perennials are more cold hardy when their stems are left standing over the winter. This is helpful for overwintering perennials that are living at the edge of their cold hardiness zones. For example, when native Sage (Salvia), Hummingbird Mint (Agastache), and Hummingbird Trumpet (Zauschneria) are planted in USDA zones 5 & 6, this will help them survive the winter cold. This is especially true for young plants (in the ground one to two growing seasons).

• Wait until mid-spring to cut back perennials.
• If perennial plants are exhibiting some summer/fall disease or are infested with injurious insects, then in these instances, these damaged plants should be cut back, and scraps thrown away in the trash, not the compost, to prevent the disease or pests from spreading.

Deciduous Shrubs & Trees

Winter is an ideal time for pruning deciduous plants (woody plants that lose their leaves), because they are dormant.

• Most fruit, flowering, and shade trees all benefit from winter pruning. This will help to remove crossed branches, gently shape their branch structure, and, with shade trees, help to maintain strong non-forked leaders.
• Don't shear the branches of spring flowering shrubs (Forsythia, Lilac, New Mexico Privet, Spirea, Flowering Quince, and others). These shrubs produce flowers on last year's wood, so removing old growth will reduce or prevent flowering. These plants should be pruned immediately after they are done blooming. 
• Summer blooming shrubs like Russian Sage (Perovskia), Spirea (Caryopteris), and Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii and hybrids) should be left untrimmed over the winter months.
• Russian Sage should be cut back hard in mid-spring, leaving stems 12-15" tall. This should be done every spring to keep them blooming heavily.
• Blue Mist Spirea and Butterfly Bush should be cut back by 1/3 to 1/2 of their height every third year (NOT annually) to re-invigorate the shrubs and encourage blooming.

You can read the entire article here. 

Here is another article from House Beautiful on fall gardening that I loved. 

An Interior Designer's Guide to Bedroom Styling | How To Style Your Nightstand and Dresser Like a Pro

 When it comes to bedroom styling, our interior design clients are often stumped by what to do with their nightstands and dressers. It looks so effortless in the design magazines - a lamp here, a candle there, and then you have the perfect look. But many people struggle with scale, layering, and making your surface look polished, not bare or cluttered. 

Here are our top designer tips for styling your bedroom surfaces like a pro. 

How To Style Your Nightstand Like a Pro

• First thing to do: pick out your lamp. A good rule of thumb is that nightstand lamps should be around 30" from the top of the shade to the bottom of the base, but this can vary based on how large your nightstand and tall your ceilings are. Very tall ceilings (10-12' or taller) will likely need taller lamps; you might want taller ones if you have a bigger nightstand, too. Historic house with lower or sloped ceilings or small nightstands may be able to accommodate smaller lamps. If you still can't decide, think about hiring a professional designer for their opinion. 
• Designer Tip: Can you do a sconce or pendant instead of a lamp? Yes, but unless your walls and/or ceilings are already hard-wired for the electric, it will be expensive to install it. Sconces and pendants do save space on your nightstand, though! 
• Find a catch-all tray. These small trays are perfect to hold rings, chapsticks, hair ties, phones, and anything else you want to keep in one place instead of all over your dresser top. 

• Add your favorite pretty candle. A pretty candle doubles as decor. 
• Layer in personal touches - like photo frames. 4x6' is usually the best size to start - if your nightstand is large enough, you can add a smaller round one. We love our Pigeon and Poodle Corinth frame. 
• Vary the heights with different decor like vases, pitchers, and book stacks. This keeps all of your decor from being on one layer, giving a more dynamic and interesting design. 
• Don't forget the coaster - you don't want to ruin the finish on your beautiful nightstand. 

How to Style a Small Nightstand: 

For nightstands 24" wide and smaller:

• Get a lamp that's lighter and airier. One with a base is especially helpful in easing up surface space. 
• Make your tray do double duty. Get a larger tray that serves as a catch-all and a piece of decor. 

How to Style a Large Nightstand

These can be deceptively difficult to style, since one long, blank piece of space can be hard to differentiate and can be hard to balance with decor. 

• Don't be afraid to use a larger lamp. A too-small one will look rinky-dink in the space. 
• Create two distinct vignettes instead of trying to cram all your decor in a row. This will make it easier to decorate. 

How to Style a Nightstand with a Shelf: 

What to do with the trendy double shelf nightstands? We like to put stacks of books, trays, and baskets. 

How to Style a Dresser: 

Dressers run into the same problem large nightstands do - it's too much decorating space for many people to know what to do with. 

Another dresser challenge is that TVs are usually above them or on top of them. If you don't have a TV on top of your dresser, it should definitely have a mirror (preferably mounted) or artwork for visual interest. 

Dresser Styling Tips:

• Cluster smaller decor pieces on a tray to avoid a cluttered look.

• Pair matching lamps on either side on a larger dresser. This is an easy way to create balance. 
• Display jewelry in glass jewelry boxes. This creates visual interest and keeps your favorite pieces on view. 
• Display pretty perfumes on a tray. 

Find your favorite bedroom furniture and decor at Lavender & Co. and get in touch with us for virtual design!