Deck Those Halls
By Mary Beth Schwartz
Whether you’re on a budget or the sky is the limit, five Lehigh Valley professionals offer their holiday decorating advice.
With the holiday season rapidly approaching, we all begin to fret about the size of our pocketbooks. How will we find the money for presents, entertaining, and decorating, especially in the state of today’s economy? Five Lehigh Valley decorating professionals assure us there is no need to worry.
Dolores Baker and Kira Jane Wright, owners of INTERIORS by Decorating Den, have been assisting homeowners in holiday preparation of entire rooms for 10 years. The award-winning interior decorating team provides carpeting and area rugs, upholstered and hardwood furniture, window treatments, lighting, artwork, and much more to Lehigh Valley residents.
According to Baker, holiday decorating can be simple and affordable. A mantle can look elegant with some basic touches: Simply collect a variety of candlestick holders—brass, silver, glass, bronze—and bunch them at one end of the mantle, with the high ones in the back and the low ones towards the front. On the other end of the mantle place a huge poinsettia plant. Use white candlesticks for a white plant, red for a red plant, etc. Add some greens between the two spaces.
The dinner table can look special with a variety of accessories. Holiday napkins can look unique folded as Christmas trees or angels. (Books on napkin folding can be purchased at local bookstores.) Another napkin idea—get plain white linen napkins and trim the edges with crystal beads for sparkle and pizzazz. “For a snow and ice feel, place a large mirror on the dining room table and on top place angel hair and votives,” Baker says. Stemware can be stepped up a notch by placing a simple red bow at the bottom of every stem. “During the holidays the fabric stores offer patterned lace. Take the white lace and trim the edges. Then lay it over a solid red or green tablecloth,” Baker adds.
Baker also offers a few tips for decorating coffee or foyer tables. Visit the grocery store and find fruits and vegetables unique to the holidays, such as artichokes and pomegranates. Place them in a glass bowl with small colored Christmas ornaments. Another colorful suggestion: fill cylindrical hurricanes with lemons, limes, and oranges. Add a few sprigs of holly in between the fruits.
Internationally recognized Scott Rothenberger’s PLACE specializes in event, holiday, and party decorating. Architectural and event designer Rothenberger is the person to call if you want your decorating experience to be larger than life—on a small budget or no budget. “I like to link holiday décor in with the client’s interior design. For a contemporary home with safari rugs and earth tones, I would use coppers and brasses. For a traditional farmhouse, I would use colors like sage green, raspberry, or burgundy, he says.
Rothenberger believes that holiday decorating should follow additional design elements. “I use white lights for decorating. Ornaments already have glitters and color and you just want to add a little highlight to them.” There is no rule that Christmas decorations have to come solely from the holiday department. “You can go to other departments. I am always thinking outside of the box. For instance, I have used fabric draped down a Christmas tree in place of tinsel, garland, or beading. I drape the fabric down to the bottom to create the tree skirt,” Rothenberger notes. Tablescapes should not be flat, but three-dimensional. “I like to raise things up a level with blocks. For example, in a contemporary home, I took glow sticks and broke them inside of glass blocks to give a glowing effect.” Outdoors, Rothenberger likes to highlight the landscape with white lights—the more, the better. “Instead of putting lights around the front of your house, really focus on the entry. I have taken pots on either side of the front door and filled them with branches, twigs, holly, etc., that I spray painted. Then I place lights in those planters.” Most of all, he will work with what clients have and incorporate sentimental things.
Holiday decorating can be simple and affordable: A mantle can look elegant with some basic touches; the dinner table can look special with a variety of accessories.
Rothenberger created a Dr. Seuss-themed Christmas for his holiday party last year. The invitations, menu, decorations, even the guests’ costumes, were all Dr. Seuss related. “I took white wire trees and created a 16-foot tall tree. Then I took artificial green garland and draped that down swirling around the tree, and then it flew off of it so the tree looked like it was growing all over the house. I hung ornaments on the roping. I suspended giant hula hoops from the ceiling and placed giant fluorescent exercise balls around the house. It was whimsical—it was like Christmas exploded,” Rothenberger says.
For homeowners who really want the exterior of their home to stand out, Tall Timbers Nursery can arrange a professional lighting display. According to vice president Trex Satkowski, outdoor decorating can be on a schedule and budget. The contract includes design consultation, installation, service & maintenance, and takedown, packing, and storage. (No more tangled wires, broken bulbs, and time-consuming trips to the attic!) The first year of the contract includes the purchase price of the lighting product. The following year, the homeowner is paying for the installation, service & maintenance, and takedown.
Tall Timbers Nursery is a Brite Ideas distributor for the Lehigh Valley and its surrounding communities. Brite Ideas offers Starbursts, prelit wreaths, swags, & garland, as well as lighting systems called Linkables. The linkable lights on metal frames have such popular patterns as candy canes, snowflakes, and icicles. “They don’t twist, curl, or get tangled up. They look the same as the day they went up,” Satkowski says. Clients can choose simple white lights or detailed displays with animated characters. LED lights also are available for families concerned with energy efficiency and saving the environment.
For those craving Christmas accessories, Distinctive Accents in Macungie offers accent tables, lighting, prints, framed mirrors, tabletop pieces, custom floral arrangements and more. Serving the Lehigh Valley for 20 years, customers can select from complementary in-store services, as well as fee-based in-home accessory consultation. According to owner Rosemary Tarola, glitz and glitter are popular this year. “Bronze, lime green, and purple are in. People still like the traditional golds, reds, and burgundies.”
“We do a lot of mantles. I start with a full garland. Then put in big Christmas balls, feathers, gold glitter pine cones, hanging beads. If the theme is more subdued, I will use magnolias, poinsettias, natural colored pine cones, perhaps some Santas and reindeers mixed in. The possibilities are endless,” Tarola says. Clients also call on Distinctive Accents for holiday table centerpieces, as well as doorway garlands. “We place garland around the doors, run lights, do ribbons. Then we place ornaments on the garland. When visitors leave, they take one home for a keepsake.”
For those trying to save some pennies, Distinctive Accents will incorporate what people already have in the holiday design. Tarola also suggests people using things from nature in their decorating scheme—pine, holly, fresh fruit, nuts and berries, pine cones, etc. To learn more about what Distinctive Accents has to offer for the holidays, visit their in-store Christmas open house the first weekend in December.
If you would like to have your own holiday open house, Cressman’s Lawn & Tree Care can help in creating a stellar outdoor display of greenery and lighting. Additional wintertime services they provide include firewood and snow removal. Just like Tall Timbers Nursery, they can work on a schedule and budget.
“Clients purchase the lights from us. We put them up and take them down. We store the lights in our facility. The following year they pay for installation, storage, and take down. The lights are guaranteed for years. It keeps people off of the ladders when it is icy and cold,” says president Shawn Cressman.
Cressman will visit the client for a consultation. “I come out with a catalog and a laptop. I take a picture of the home and show the client what their house will look like. A design quote is generated. We have done jobs ranging from $400 to $4,000.”
“The $4,000 job was beautiful. The entire house was outlined in lights, including the peaks and the roof lines. The trees were lit. There was garland wrapped around the front porch pillars. Some big wreaths were placed on the house. In the front yard was an inflatable train driven by Santa and his reindeer, along with some three-foot-high lit Christmas presents. Life-size toy soldiers kept watch on the porch. Along the walkway were mini candy canes, about a foot high,” Cressman notes.
Whether you want to decorate the interior of your home, the exterior, or perhaps both, keep your budget in mind. All five of these design professionals suggest getting consultations before the Thanksgiving holiday to ensure the availability of not only their services, but inventory. Now that they have taken away some of your unneeded stress, enjoy the Christmas season and all it has to offer!
RESOURCES
Cressman’s Lawn & Tree Care
610-838-9627
www.cressmans.net
Distinctive Accents
610-965-2751
www.distinctive-accents.com
INTERIORS by Decorating Den
610-432-4448 or 610-767-6923
http://local.decoratingden.com/dbaker
Scott Rothenberger’s PLACE
610-428-1801
www.designbyplace.com
Tall Timbers Nursery
610-395-1544
www.talltimbersnursery.com
Mary Beth Schwartz is a former editor of both home and garden books and magazines. She resides in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
