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