Creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere at home this Christmas

Christmas is merely 6 weeks away which means that the time to get your home prepared for the big occasion is rapidly running out. It is the time of year when family and friends visit and you will want to pull out all the stops to impress them.

Although 5 weeks is not that long, it is still time enough to organise your house so that you feel completely confident when visitors arrive. Here are a couple of tips to creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere at home this Christmas:

Refresh your main rooms with paint

Most people know which rooms will be the setting for the guests’ entertainment. You might have a dining room at home where everybody sits around the table over Christmas, or perhaps everybody congregates in the living or family room. Whichever it is, you will want to ensure that this room looks its very best when guests arrive.

To achieve this you will need to decorate it in time for the big occasion and choosing the right colours is fundamental to achieving a spacious, warm ambience. To create the illusion that a room is bigger than it actually is think about the effect of colours: dark wall colours bring a wall towards you whereas lighter ones make them seem further away. 

If you are decorating a relatively small room choose light colours such as Wevet or Ammonite from Farrow and Ball and create a contrast using darker colours such as Stiffkey Blue (left) or Pelt.

Christmas Decorations

Christmas decorations evoke a warm, welcoming and festive atmosphere which is personal to the homeowner and will likely be a talking point among your guests.

Here are some quick tips to creating a warm atmosphere using Christmas decorations:

-Buy a real tree: plastic trees have not been fashionable for many years; real ones are more authentic (obviously), tend to have thicker branches, look healthier, and bring a taste of nature indoors

-Bin the tinsel: likewise, tinsel has not been trendy for many years, it creates mess on the carpet as bits fall off & can look tacky (depending on the colour scheme). There are all sorts of baubles, candy canes, cherubs, robins and ornaments that can be added to your tree to make it look lively and festive.

-Add as many lights as possible: whether you choose white ones or coloured ones, they are what makes a tree truly sparkly so never scrimp on lights.

References

Tree image: brentwood.thefuntimesguide.com

 

 

Little Greene

As their name suggests, Little Greene is dedicated to producing paint in an eco-friendly way which has little or no negative impact on the environment. For Little Greene, “from big business to the smallest everyday tasks”[i], every decision that occurs is made with the consequences on the environment at the forefront of their mind.

However, the company is not just renowned for its green credentials; it produces high quality paint in a vast range of different colours as well.

Here at Kent Blaxill, we are proud to provide our customers with Little Greene paints and recently we have expanded our already large collection:

 

As you can see, there are lots of different shades for you to choose from, from the very light such as the Loft White (top right) through to the Lamp Black and Toad No. 235.  

Alternatively you might choose to use the pale versions in the Little Greene Collection (below). These are light, airy colours which are particularly effective if you have a relatively small space that you want to decorate in a way that will make the room look bigger:

Pastel colours are often associated with the spring time and because of this they are often featured in baby room because they are soft, delicate colours (find advice on how to decorate a baby room here). 

However, these gentle colours can also look sophisticated in a living room, kitchen or family room.

Light colours such as magnolia and off-white are often used because they are thought to make a room feel bigger. However, colours such as these can become bland if used throughout a house. The Little Greene shades above allow you to inject some colour into a sophisticated room without the risk of making it dark or look smaller.

Explore our Little Greene range online now, and if you have any questions please contact us.