Decorating & Design - Christmas Decorating

Michael Holigan: Well now that the holidays are back on us, it's time to decorate. But how do you do that without blocking the view of the TV and making the whole house unfunctional. We've got Randy Kalis for Gabbert's back with us. Good to have you here, Randy.

Randy Kalis: Great to be back. Thank you.

M.H.: How are we going to lay out the house without destroying the uses, the function?

R.K.: I think you have to evaluate each room and look at your space and look at your ceiling heights and just make it a very livable room, as it is before the holidays. But just moving things slightly, and bringing in different accessories, size wise, correctly with the scale of the room, can really give you a big impact without changing a lot within the room.

M.H.: Well, I've noticed one place here. You've actually backed the tree up into a corner in the foyer.

R.K.: By moving your tree back, I think you're still going to keep a nice spacious entrance. And yet you're going to have a very dramatic entrance when you do walk in. The tree being a large center area that the staircase swirls around, and so what we need to do is, we decorated, we went all the way up, because your eye, as someone entering the home, automatically looks up, and we finished those holiday decorations all the way around, just to complete a nice soft feel with the decorations.

M.H.: What do you do to the rest of the rooms to carry the holidays through but, again, keep the function of the rooms?

R.K.: I think that you need to consider your color scheme and go ahead and use your same color scheme. I think you can bring in a very much holiday feel by using your colors. It doesn't have to be red and green for Christmas. In the living room here, what we've incorporated is pretty much the very neutral living room. Beiges on beiges and taupes. But we've come in with the Christmas ornaments and done a real unusual color scheme with some deep purples and golds. And we spread that out throughout the house, again, in just small things like ribbons and ornaments and garlands. Not overdone by any means but very sophisticated, using the spaces that we have. And if you'll notice in the bedrooms, we done just little touches of ribbons on pillows on the bed and different areas that are dressing areas and so forth. Even in the bedroom here, we have a small Christmas tree. What a nicer way to have the holidays just for ourselves. This is a treat for ourselves, to do the entire house.

M.H.: How about the decorations in the dining room? They look great but it doesn't look like it cost a lot of money.

R.K.: What we've done here is just move some things around from different parts of the house. Some real live plants and added some holiday gold balls and different festive gold accessories. Ribbons and crystal pieces, again, to give you a real holiday feel, but not taking over the room with ornaments and arrangements that take away your walk patterns and movement throughout the room.

M.H.: So the whole house is still functional plus it looks great for the holidays.

R.K.: Absolutely.

M.H.: Thanks, Randy.

R.K.: You're very welcome.

Episode 014 1995 - 96 Season

| Standard Trim | Driveway Oil Spots | Custom Trim | Instant Concrete | Christmas Decorating | Leveling Thermostat | Credit: What is Acceptable? | LIST |

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