Home Decor Volume I - Holiday Decorating

Even though my blog’s main topic is Seattle Real Estate, I’d like to venture away from home sales, marketing information, and my own opinions for a moment to share with you my newest feature. Each month, I’m going to be posting at least one article about a local home, sharing with you ideas for design and décor from some of the Seattle area’s most interesting (at least to me!) homes. To kick things off, I decided to begin with some amazing holiday decorations from the Bothell home of Vickie and Jim Kahlke.

Each year, Vickie starts early and fills her home with creative and wonderful decorations for all of her guests to see at her legendary Christmas Eve feast. This year her home was filled with beautifully decorated trees and she turned her dining room into a snowflake-filled winter wonderland. Many of the decorations are handmade, and she puts it all together into such a beautiful package that I thought it would be a wonderful day-after-Christmas start to my newest blog series.

Let’s start with the trees. Yes, I said trees. By my count, there were at least 4, but I may have missed one somewhere… The main tree is in the living room, set back in front of a set of bay windows. It’s decorated with holiday bears, cute little holiday signs, and tied all over with bows. And of course, the presents under the tree all match the theme.

Because the Kahlkes are wine aficionados, there are two more trees – decorated in wine theme. One for white wine, one for red, placed on either side of the living room. The lights are grapes on the vine, and ornaments are all themed to red or white wine.

The living room decorations create a warm and festive environment, but it’s the dining room and especially the table centerpiece that really caught my attention. Because we’ve had record snowfall in the past week leading up to Christmas, she decided to add some very snowy decorations. With two feet of snow outside, she said “I’m not going anywhere, and it’s a winter wonderland outside, so I may as well make on inside, too!” Based on some garlands she’d seen decorating a store, she took fishing line and white pom-poms and made beautiful snowy garlands to hang from the chandelier. She took more, smaller pom-poms and threaded wire through them to make some very clever napkin rings. Placemats were made with sparkly white felt and cut in the shape of snowflakes. Other snowflakes were scattered around the center of the table, making the table festive and fun.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first in the series, and that each and every one of you have had a wonderful holiday. Have a safe and wonderful 2009!

Next month’s featured home: a custom condo with modern finishes in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood.