How to transform your home into a winter wonderland
Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. Whether you’re having the whole family around for fun, games and far too much food, or you’d prefer to have a cosy night in just relaxing, you’ll want to create the perfect home for the occasion.
In this style guide we’ll provide you with the perfect hints and tips you’ll need to turn your home from a simple, but cosy cold weather getaway to a stunning winter wonderland. Create a snug living room ready to relax in, a dining room fit for the whole family, or a hallway ready to invite everyone… including Santa, into your home.
Cosy Christmas colours
When choosing the colour scheme for your winter wonderland, you have two main options. You can choose a traditional Christmas theme, with a lot of greens and reds accenting your normal style. These stereotypical colours are perfect for creating a warm and comforting environment that you can relax and let the days drift away. Due to the darker tones this may make a room feel a little smaller but is ideal if you want to create that quintessential Christmas feel. Alternatively, if you’ve already got a dominant colour in your home, such as a turquoise or purple, you can incorporate that into the rest of your design through decorations.
Your other option is a more modern interpretation of the Christmas period and this includes using golds, silvers, and greys to create a lighter and more contemporary look. Use these lighter tones if you want your room to continue to feel large and inviting, but don’t want to skimp out on the wintery feel.
Another style choice that you can maintain throughout your home is the use of patterns. Stripes, spots and those bold “Christmas jumper” designs are a perfect way to make your Christmas motif stand out. You can find these in accented cushions, Christmas decorations or even a number of candles throughout the room, which can be lit late at night for even more of a cosy feel.
Bring the outside in
When you think of Christmas a lot of what comes to mind is very natural, think holly, wreaths, robins, reindeer, trees, and snow. So, when you think about your winter wonderland style try and incorporate some of these aspects into your home.
This is beyond the lovely large and decorated Christmas tree you’ll have as a centre piece; this could be holly attached to windows or picture frames to include a bit of greenery, or mistletoe to add a dash of romance. If your colour scheme doesn’t include any greens or reds, you can use a smart, but bare branch and wrap it in fairy lights to create a natural looking, but effective statement piece. As an alternative statement piece, bring your wreath inside. It no longer has to be limited to your front door. Hang it on the wall in your dining room to provide a stunning decoration that really grabs your attention.
You can also bring nature into your home in your flooring, real wood is the perfect way to bring the outside in and provides you with a classic floor that will help define your style for the rest of the year. You could also choose to include a wood-effect vinyl or laminate plank instead if you so wish, or require a floor that needs to stand up to splashes and spills. Just remember, when choosing a real wood or wood-effect floor, the darker the colour, the smaller your room will feel, but will also feel cosier in those winter months.
Yuletide living rooms
When you think of the living room during Christmas, you think log burning stoves, the lights down low and everyone snuggled together watching something decidedly festive on the television, while the tree twinkles as a centrepiece of the room.
You don’t have to have a large room to help make this a reality. Use a free-standing electric fireplace instead to help warm your toes and help provide the feeling of a log burning stove. If you don’t have the space for a full-sized tree, you can also create a fantastic wall display using ornaments, lights, and branches to create a more abstract alternative. Candles are another way to help your living room feel even more inviting, the soft light helps set a relaxing mood, creating a calm and homely ambience. Just be careful when placing your candles that you don’t put them too close to any flammable decorations, as it could certainly cause a Christmas you don’t want to remember.
Both real wood and carpeted floors are perfect for to help create a cosier and snugger feel. Carpets, in particular, can create a warming environment with our softer, more luxurious piles providing a soft and inviting atmosphere.
Dashing dining rooms
Christmas is a time for families to get together and enjoy each other’s company, but more importantly, food. On Christmas day, no matter who you’re having round for dinner, you’ll want to create a dining room that is both practical but brimming with style. This could be as simple as decorating the table, to a larger statement by furnishing the whole room to match the rest of the home.
A large tablecloth is a must in all decorations, this could simply be a white cloth to provide a canvas for you to work on, or you could style this to match any red, green, silver, or gold accents you’ve included around the rest of the home. You could create a stunning centrepiece for the table simply out of a nice, stylised branch adorned in fairy lights and you certainly don’t want to forget setting out the good cutlery. Mismatched chairs are almost a given with larger get togethers, but this will only further add to the charm of your design.
When looking at your dining room flooring, you can certainly have the more comforting real wood and carpet floors, but you may also want to look at something a bit more practical, yet stylish, especially if you have a large open plan kitchen dining room. Our laminate and luxury vinyl are both easy to clean, with any unfortunate spills just needing a wipe up, so if your little ones accidently spill some gravy, it’s not a worry.
Deck your hallways
Beyond the wreath and lights adorning the front of your house, the hallway is the first impression guests will get of your home. Your entranceway doesn’t need to be as impactful as the rest of your home, but it does need to provide those entering with a taste of what’s to come.
Decorations can come in the form of tinsel or greenery wrapped around handrails and any furniture, add a few Christmas styled decorations to brighten up the mood, such as reindeer or Christmas cushions near the coat hooks. Another quick win could be attaching fairy lights to your skirting boards to help guide people through the hallway and further into your home. Fairy lights can be a softer way to introduce your guests inside, feeling a lot more welcoming and not as harsh.
When it comes to flooring, think about installing a herringbone or chevron design to provide a directional pull through to the living room, dining room or kitchen. This can be in the form of real wood, or even laminate or vinyl planks, which can help if people accidently bring any mud or snow into your nice, clean home.
Creating your perfect winter wonderland doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive, you just need a few statement pieces that you can re-use every year. It also doesn’t have to be all candy canes and elves on shelves either, you can keep it simple and modern if you wish and if you don’t have masses of space, there’s certainly ways to still make your home a place you can create incredible Christmas memories.
