Christmas 2017 Home Tour

Happy Saturday friends! We are now in full swing celebrating the holiday season, and boy are we busy! Trips to the mall for Christmas shopping, building gingerbread houses, seeing The Nutcracker, and going to Chicago, Naperville, and Lisle for sightseeing, Christkindlmarkets, and the Morton Arboretum’s lights festival are just a small part of our December schedule.

This year, we’ve really had a LOT of fun decorating our home. Today’s blog will feature the porch and lower level of the house, including the foyer, a living area and our dining room. All of the rooms on the lower level were given a particular color theme, which allowed us to create a different look for each space and utilize various decorations. A breakdown of each room includes the following:

• Porch: Red and Green
• Foyer: Green and Gold
• Living Room: Silver and Gold
• Dining Room: Gold

The Porch

Similar to the ideas implemented in “Indoor & Outdoor Fall Décor,” we kept the wagon and flower pots out on the porch, but swapped the decorations inside each with something new. Sue took unused boxes, wrapped them up with paper and ribbons to look like gifts, and stuck them in the wagon, making it look like Santa arrived early! Strands of garland and colorful Christmas bulbs filled up the empty space, and one of the many sparkly green-and-red bows purchased at the Dollar Store completed the look.

Around the front door, we tangled garland, Italian lights, and green mesh together to create a glamorous border. This was also topped with ornaments in red, green, and silver as well as more bows.

Finally, beautiful poinsettia arrangements were placed inside the flower pots. Set in the center of a wreath, the pots included the poinsettias themselves, glittery silver pinecones, sparkly red and green sticks, and shiny white and green beads.

The Foyer

Going into decorating the foyer, we had absolutely no idea what to do. Staring at the credenza, Sue and I panicked, wondering, What in the world can we possibly put up here? But within one hour, we were able to put something together that we are incredibly pleased with!

We wanted to keep things on the simple side by leaving open space in case visitors need to set their belongings down. At the same time, we were able to dress it up by using elegant candle holders topped with our favorite flickering candles, a framed mirror topped with a birdcage filled with green and gold ornaments and a family photo, a small angel statue, all wrapped between bunches of gold and brown flowers. In the middle stands a tall gold mirror covered in more garland and a wreath with a glittery gold bow.

The Living Room

The centerpiece of our household proudly and prominently stands in our living room: OUR TREE! Immediately after last Christmas, Sue found the steal of the century at Target with this AMAZING silver tinsel tree. We’re sad to admit that our pictures do no justice, but in person, we believe it to be one of the most beautiful sights we’ve laid eyes on. It only took us half an hour (?!) to put this tree together, and it certainly helped that the multicolored lights were already on it!

Since Sue put up silver and gold curtains during the fall season, we kept the same color theme by decorating our tree with silver and gold ornaments and clear, dangling icicles. Our coffee table is topped with everything silver—a tray drowning with tons of shiny garland, a ceramic church, reindeer, snowflakes, tiny blinking lights, and more.

The Dining Room

And last, but certainly not least, is the dining room! We also limited the decorations to a minimum by upgrading the table’s floral centerpiece and keeping the same twinkling lights on our tree in the corner. However, the credenza in this room was also dressed to the nines, complete with a long straw-colored table runner, another thick strand of garland, candles of different shapes and sizes, and twisted yellow ribbon. Select lights intertwined with the garland have been topped with plastic star covers and surrounded by sparkly emerald snowflakes.

We hope you enjoyed this detailed breakdown of our lower-level decorating experience! 

As a friendly reminder, you are more than welcome to send us any questions or comments or ask for more inspiration via email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest!

We also love seeing your finished projects, beauty tricks, and favorite outfits, as you inspire us too! Tag your pictures with @thechictechnique or #thechictechnique, and either email them to us at [email protected], or message us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. We can't wait to see what you have been working on!