The holiday season is upon us and we’re sharing our favorite, helpful design tips to deck your halls, your living room or wherever you entertain. Whether you’re entertaining for a few intimate friends with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, a large gathering of relatives and friends with endless platters of food, or perhaps a full dinner, these are some things to keep in mind when getting your home ready.
Bring Color and Life to Your Holiday Get-Together
It’s always a good idea to plan ahead, especially when it comes to holiday entertaining. We recommend starting with a good, honest look at your home as a whole. Is your carpeting worn down in certain areas? Is there a noticeable stain or some discoloration? Installing new carpet and/or flooring in certain areas of your home can make a huge difference. While it might sound like a big undertaking, we can make it both affordable and timely as you prepare for your guests.
If a new floor isn’t an option, adding attractive area rugs can be the perfect solution for disguising a worn carpet or flooring surface. Area rugs can create a festive and colorful ambiance for your dining, living, and family rooms as well as other common areas while protecting your existing flooring from the inevitable spilled food or drink.
A colorful area rug may also give your home a warmer and more inviting feel when it comes to hardwood or tile surface flooring. Area rugs work nicely under a beautifully set dining table or perhaps in your living or family room. In fact, we often find that thick area rugs can make a room so cozy that guests feel comfortable enough to sit on them whether near the hearth of your fireplace or within reach of a coffee table resplendent with appetizers.
If your project is on a smaller scale, a remnant may be what you need. Since New York Carpets & Flooring carries large rolls of in stock carpet, remnants are usually the ends of these rolls. Remnants are great for small spaces, custom area rugs and updating your staircase.
Your Décor
Do your sofas and chairs need some attention? Perhaps a warm winter blanket over the top of your sofa and some simple attractive throw pillows in holiday colors will make your living room that much warmer looking and cozy, especially with a warm fire crackling in the fireplace.
Alternatively, there may be some rooms where moving out excess chairs or sofas might be a good idea, especially if you need to accommodate a large crowd for cocktails. It’s important to maximize movement and flow for your guests so they don’t feel crammed and uncomfortable. Using similar or complementary color schemes on rugs and wall decorations will entice your guests to explore and move from room to room. Using similar decorations and treatments can also help to avoid overemphasizing the importance of any one single room that may not accommodate all of your guests. If you’re entertaining a large roster of guests that won’t all fit into one room, it’s important that they don’t feel left out no matter what room they’re in.
Formal or Informal Dining
Family holiday gatherings usually call for a sit-down meal. If you are serving a formal dinner, make sure the table is large enough for everyone. It may seem obvious, but it’s best to avoid uncomfortably squeezing everyone around a table meant for a smaller group. Renting additional tables and chairs is very easy and affordable for your larger family or guest gathering. If you are having a formal dinner, it’s best to set the table ahead of time so your guests know that the table is reserved for dining and not for milling about with cocktails. It’s incredibly more difficult to set a table mid-event while interrupting guests or asking them to move to another room.
For larger gatherings of either family or friends, it can be much more convenient to serve buffet style and show off your beautiful holiday spread arranged on your kitchen counter and/or island. While this can permit everyone to eat where they would like, it also increases the likelihood of spilled food, especially with children. Try to remember that accidents can and will happen – take it in stride!
Add Some Cozy Nooks
Look at your floor plan and think about those corners or spaces where you might add a couple of armchairs, a few nesting tables for drinks and appetizers, or bench around a throw rug. This will give guests to freedom huddle away from the main crowd and catch up in small groups or get to know one another.
Low lighting, perhaps with a few unscented candles in protective glass holders, and a fire in the fireplace, will also help create a cozier ambiance rather than having every light in the home blazing. Avoid holiday candles with strong scents as they interfere with the flavor of the food that you’re serving.
Adequate Planning Helps You Enjoy the Party
If you’ve taken the time to decorate and prepare each room and make sure that there’s enough food and drink for everyone, then you should relax and enjoy the party yourself. If you need to hire a catering service or people to serve appetizers and drinks so you can mingle with your guests, you may want to do so. Keep in mind, food and drink may be spilled at some point during the occasion. It happens. Carpets and area rugs can be shampooed and cleaned later. Hard surface flooring can be instantly cleaned with a moist paper towel. Quickly attend to it or have someone other than a guest do so, then move on, relax and enjoy the evening.
Visit Our Showroom for More Ideas and Area Rug Samples
Did you know we have remnants of many of our most attractive and popular carpets that can be cut and finished to any size or shape you need and often ready in a matter of days? Have a need for an area rug in a precise color, texture, size or shape? Feel free to bring in some photos of the rooms you plan to use for your holiday party and a New York Carpets & Flooring representative will recommend the best area rugs for the occasion and help you transform your home for the holidays. Visit our showroom in Anaheim and let’s get started.
1225 South State College Blvd.
Anaheim, CA 92806
(714) 778-3585