Holiday Table Setting Inspiration
As the holidays approach, there are likely dozens of things on your mind that trump a table setting, but holiday table settings are pretty essential when entertaining. Table settings can complement your food and set the mood for your big or small gathering Is it formal or casual?
Rustic or sleek?
Do we even need a table runner?
Table settings are often left as last-minute items on our to-do list because it can be intimidating to figure out what to feature. You’ve likely seen dinner tables decorated in everything from fruit and vegetables to candles, bowls, and crafts. But how about you go with what feels right for your style, home, and budget?
Here are some holiday table settings to inspire how you decorate your table this year. Whether you use a tablecloth, pumpkins, candles, or a simple table runner, we’re sure your guests will enjoy the time spent together! Happy and healthy holidays!
West Elm
This table is traditional, rustic, and simplistic. We love the pumpkins, eggplants, and artichokes, the singular tapered candles, and the dried flowers that don’t obstruct your view of the other guests.
West Elm
Felt placemats and a garland of greenery running down the table delivers a casual and cozy vibe that we love. Get a similar look with this garland of faux leaves.
West Elm
West Elm
No fuss, no muss, but this table setting is very elegant. The color scheme is kept in the off-white, beige, and brown range and the candles are the only accessories. My concern is that there are just so many little flames on that table, but they’re likely flameless candles, like these. If so, you can really go to town for a stunning candlelit table vibe.
OK, this candle display makes us feel better :) The whole thing comes together so nicely from the tablecloth and placemats, to the dinnerware, napkins tied in a knot, and yes, the candle centerpiece.
West Elm
This is a brunch set-up that works just as well for a holiday dinner table. The pumpkin-colored napkins and gold-tone silverware are a nice combination. For that elevated paper plate-look, try these melamine reusable plates.
West Elm
This classic holiday table setting is beautiful and incorporates many of the elements mentioned above — the table runner garland, candles, and fruit.
We found this holiday table setting on Pinterest and adore it. It is simple but stands out because of the centerpiece created by small plants, dried flowers, and candles. Even the way the silverware, napkins, and plates are arranged at a slant gives this table setting a unique flair.
Patterns and Prosecco
If all of the neutral tones are not giving what you need, how about this black-and-white-themed table setting? We found a black faux fur table runner for under $30! And the little dried wheat and plenty of options for the faux white flower situation, too. This table setting also works amazingly for an elegant birthday or anniversary celebration and even a New Year’s Eve dinner. Go awf!
via Inspired by This
If you’re hosting a smaller holiday gathering this year, let this table setting serve as a bit of inspiration. Even if the chairs don’t match and the table is draped with one large scarf, there’s also personal attention paid to the guests. The placemats and napkins complement the blue tablecloth and each place setting has a name card. The three candles and little pumpkin at the table center are also a nice touch.
Here’s another holiday table setting for a smaller group that has kept things elegant, but not fussy.
This holiday table setting speaks to us with the gold charger plate and matte gold silverware, knotted pumpkin-colored napkins, a garland of faux leaves, table cloth, table runner, name cards, pumpkin table decor, and flameless candles! And all of the elements mentioned above work together seamlessly.
Collecting Fine Art 101: Osei Bonsu's Tips on Curating Art for Your Home
An art expert gives advice on curating fine art for your home.
Sans titre, 2019, from the series Ca va Aller from African Art Now
Osei Bonsu is a British-Ghanaian curator, critic, and art historian who is currently a curator of international art at Tate Modern in London. His new book African Art Now (Chronicle Books, $55), available now, is a deluxe hardcover book showcasing hundreds of paintings, sculptures, photographs, textiles, collages, installations, and more from 50 of the most exciting African artists working today.
Art historian Osei Bonsu, photo by Noelle Hoeppe
African Art Now, Chronicle Books
Make sure to pick up African Art Now which features gorgeous, full-color reproductions of the work of some of the top contemporary African artists of today. As this book shows, contemporary African art is undergoing a cultural and artistic renaissance. No longer confined to the margins of institutional and commercial visibility, African art has taken its place at the center of a global narrative of permanent change.
Xolani Ngayi, eStanela, 2009, from the series Country Girls from African Art Now
Bonsu has lectured widely on modern and contemporary African art and has written for a wide variety of arts publications including ArtReview, Frieze, and Vogue. In 2020, he was named one of Apollo magazine’s “40 under 40” leading African voices. We thought it would be interesting to get his take on curating fine art for those looking to start a collection for their home.
KW: Why is art such an essential element in a home?
Osei Bonsu: “Art is something people connect to an idea of belonging or a sense of place. For many, however, the very idea of owning an original artwork is simply unachievable. People may not always be aware that there are so many ways to live with art; you might discover art in an online auction or thrift shop, you might collect a print from a museum, or collect coffee table books full of rich illustrations.
For my book African Art Now, I tried to address readers who may be new to the field of contemporary African art. I hope that by reading the book, readers feel inspired to learn more about the diverse histories, cultures, and visual expressions that inform the way artists make their work.
The book might serve as a starting point for someone who wants to support contemporary African art, which is fast becoming one of the most dynamic and creative areas in the international art market.”
MRS DJENEBA DOS by Joana Choumali from African Art Now
When creating a vibe for your home, what are some of the moods that art can convey?
OB: “I try not to think about art as setting a mood as such. That usually comes from the temporary elements of a home like food, music, and good company! The key is to live with objects that tell a story about who you are or where you have been. I often think of the Ashanti stools I grew up with as a child in a mixed British and Ghanaian household. These simple and elegant stools were traditionally used as the royal and divine thrones of kings of the Ashanti people and the ultimate symbol of power. You can buy them nowadays from tourist markets throughout Ghana and West Africa, but they still tell a story using various signs and symbols.
One of the artists in African Art Now, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, uses references to West African Yoruba deities in his richly colored paintings. Oftentimes, his palette is drawn from the Nigerian landscape. Capturing the sacred relationship between spirituality and nature, his works are filled with a sense of atmosphere and would likely transform any room!”
I've read that it's best to start with small sections of your home when finding art instead of purchasing a big feature piece for behind the couch. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
OB: “I believe that such rules are made to be broken. I would encourage anyone who loves a work of art or pieces of design to build the room around it. It could be a painting on a matchbox or an enormous hand-carved sculpture; the spark of inspiration can come from anywhere.
African Art Now book includes artists such as Massinissa Selmani, who create works on paper about political events and fictional scenarios. His work is sometimes drawn on tiny pieces of paper that would otherwise have little to no value. What if a person designed their entire home around a strange little drawing of a blue dog peering through a fence? The possibilities are endless!”
Sleep, Crawl and Carry, When Dust Settles, 2018, Installation view, from African Art Now
Budget and personal style are big considerations when buying art. It can be intimidating for a newbie. What are some of your best tips for curating art for your home?
OB: “I wrote the book African Art Now for anyone who is curious to learn more about contemporary African art. Personally, I would say that books (be they fiction or history, cookbooks or artbooks) are a great way to add warmth and character to a home.
When I was a student, I would go to charity shops in Notting Hill, where you could find old Tate and Royal Academy catalogues. I remember buying a Richard Long book for $5 and feeling as if I’d won the lottery.
The great thing about most books, the good ones at least, is that they follow you throughout your life, long after your tastes and finances have changed. My hope is that African Art Now will live with people for a long time, not just because it’s my book, but because the artists deserve a place in people’s hearts and minds. Thank you!”
Thank you, Osei!
Amazon Finds That’ll Instantly Elevate Your Home’s Style — and They’re Under $50
image: house and home magazine, june 2017. via pinterest
It doesn’t take a ton of money to have a big impact on your space and make an old room feel new. A few colorful accents or statement-making items can do the trick to make your home feel especially upgraded.
From colorful throw pillows to unexpected pieces of decor, small changes can cause a huge transformation. When you’re in the market for something to spruce up your home at an affordable price, Amazon is a great option. Below, we rounded up 10 chic Amazon finds for $50 or less that will help you bring new life to your home.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I'll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you.
Vintage Coffee Mugs
If you enjoy making your coffee or tea time a special moment, these amber mugs will support your luxurious goals. They’re gorgeous and delicately designed, yet sturdy and hold 14 ounces of liquid. These mugs are ideal for a fancy brunch you’re hosting this fall, but also perfect for daily use. The Gezzeny vintage coffee mug set comes with a sunflower pattern mug, a raindrop pattern mug and two spoons. It’s also available in clear, with a gold rim, a rainbow hue, a gray and a clear with a wooden top.
Jewelry Box
Guilty of having jewelry strewn all over your bedroom and bathroom? Try this chic jewelry organization box. This jewelry box features two pull-out trays and is topped with a clear glass tray to store all of your most display-worthy pieces. Shown here in white but it’s also available in a pretty forest green, black, blue, and gray.
Throw Pillows
Pillows are so basic, but these are next level. You’ll be surprised how an extra set of pillows on your bed or sofa (or both) can add luxe vibes. These Utopia pillows are best-sellers on Amazon for a reason — they’re soft, durable, and at a great price. Pro tip: Order the 20X20 size to fill 18X18 pillow shams. for that designer home look. They also come in 12 x 12, 14 x 14, 16 x 16, and larger sizes. These velvety soft pillow covers are my favorite, I have them in light brown.
Storage Baskets
We’re all about elevated luxe for less but also organization, so these baskets come in clutch. Whether in the living room, office, bedroom, kids room or bathroom, woven baskets like these are so much more appealing than those plastic storage bins you use to hide the holiday decorations. These baskets are for stylishly gathering blankets, towels, books, slippers at the front door, toys, gadgets, socks, anything!
Sharecook Silverware Set, Matte Gold, set of 20, at Amazon, $27
Sometimes it’s all about those everyday items that help elevate our days. This set of silverware can zhush up any meal. It also comes in matte black, silver, really pretty matte champagne, and a few other quirky colors. Do you, boo!
Play Beyonce’s Renaissance album while you light up Harlem Candle Company's new scent for 2022, The Renaissance, which emanates luxury. It’s bold yet delicate with notes of “fresh tea leaves, sparkling yuzu, and cardamom gracefully leading to a velvet heart of tonka bean, heliotrope, and wild orchid blossoms. Aromatic tobacco leaves, burnished suede, and sheer musk bring a warm, sensual finish to this extraordinary blend.” OK?! It has an impressive 80-hour burn time from just one single wick and comes in a beautiful gold glass jar. All the candles from Harlem Candle Company, a Black-owned and women-owned company, are handcrafted in New York City.
This LED table lamp light the way to a whole new ambiance wherever you decide to put it, from your desk to your nightstand. It comes with 4 preset light colors to ensure the perfect lighting for your mood. There’s a 60-minute timer button that will automatically shut off the desk lamp light, and a USB port for charging your devices.
Chic Ideas For Your Nightstand
Urban Outfitters Huron Nightstand
Nightstands are really personal since they house all the goods we need for our nightly routines. I definitely need water, my phone charging, usually a book, the TV remote, a small container of the skincare I put on right before bed, and my Gua Sha tool for a little pre-snooze face sculpting. It sounds like a lot, but these are all the things I use upon going to bed or waking up.
All of that is to say that I take my nightstands seriously. Below, I’m sharing some ever-so-chic nightstand options ranging from contemporary and classic to minimal and colorful.
Which one is your fave?
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I'll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you.
Colin King Studio LLC
A Pinch of Lovely
Design by Tali Roth
Holtwood Hipster Blogspot
Kate Spade
Dear Lillie Studio
Clark and Aldine
How To Make Your Home Feel Bigger
Live large.
Rising rent prices, shrinking property sizes, and increased demand for multi-functional homes (more folks are continuing to work from home) mean we’re living in smaller spaces now more than ever.
But that doesn’t mean you have to skimp on style. Here, we’re sharing simple but game-changing furniture and design ideas to make you feel less cramped and more expansive, no matter the size of your space. Even if you’re not moving to a new place or starting from scratch with a whole new set of furniture, there’s still a lot you can do to freshen up almost any area of the place you call home.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I'll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you.
Here are some of my best design tips to make your home feel bigger and less crowded — no interior decorators needed.
Optimize bedroom storage
Besides your bed, the dresser is usually the next largest piece of furniture in your bedroom, so it’s important to decide on a layout and design that won’t overwhelm your small space. Here’s a sleek and beautiful bedroom dresser for by Mopio, but if you can, go as big as possible with the dresser since it’s a smart way to maximize storage while having minimal furniture. In the bedroom below, the dresser cleverly serves as clothing storage and a nightstand since it’s so close to the bed. You can place jewelry, a glass of water, and a book there and they’ll be easily within reach.
image: Domaine
Highlight Windows
Small spaces don’t always have big windows to play around with. But don’t fret if that statement applies to you. A great design trick is to create an illusion to make windows look larger by hanging curtain rods higher and wider than the window frame. This will make the window frame seem larger than it actually is. As a general guide, try to overhang curtain rods by around 15 inches width past the window frame and 6-10 inches taller.
image: RoomForTuesday
Decorate With Lighter Colors
Dark colors are a stunning way to add a chill and intimate vibe to a room, but they also absorb light and make the room feel smaller. To open your space up and trick the eye into thinking the room is bigger, choose lighter colors. Any neutral tones work well and coordinating the color of your furniture and walls will create an illusion that makes the room feel bigger. Add fabrics with texture, accents of black or metallic (or both), and interesting furniture shapes so the room doesn’t go into a bland and boring zone.
image: Havenly
Use Mirrors To Reflect Light and Add Depth
When positioned creatively, mirrors capture light and reflect it into darker parts of the room, making the space feel bigger. This can be used for both natural and artificial light. Hanging mirrors opposite or adjacent to a light source will reflect the light into darker areas and make the space feel more open. Mirrors can also be used to add depth and appeal to a room, making it feel larger. Try this: on a plain wall position a mirror to highlight an object in a different part of the room that has a contrasting texture or pattern. This gorgeous mirror, below, is less than $200 on Amazon.
Play With The Scale Of Furniture
If you don’t want to use multifunctional furniture and you’d like to have everything in one space, then you’ll want to scale down on the size of your furniture. Keep it low-profile and compact, opting for one or two larger pieces which will keep the room visually balanced. Alternatively if you like a minimalist look, you can use less furniture overall but with larger-scale pieces. However, make sure you measure your space including doorways and all access points before you purchase a large piece of furniture, to ensure you have adequate room to both walk and transport it through your home. The size of a rug can also play a part in how big the room feels. Rugs should be large enough to tie the room together, which brightens and opens up your floor space. A rug that is too small for the furniture around it will make the room feel smaller.
Declutter
How many times have you cleaned your home and instantly felt lighter? Most of the time, right? That’s because the easiest thing you can do for your home to clear your mental space, elevate your mood, AND make any room feel bigger is to clear the clutter away. We’re not suggesting you go all Kim Kardashian decor style with an extremely minimal space (though I’m not mad at it), but purging the room of unnecessary items will make it feel much larger. If you just can’t bear to get rid of any stuff, then additional storage is your best friend; baskets under tables, floating shelves, and hanging storage behind doors will keep your rooms organized, spacious, and clutter-free. Other ways to declutter? Coordinating your colors will help to keep the visual story of your space simple and easy on the eye. A minimal palette of three colors max will help to create a cleaner look.
Home Tours: Meridian Adams’ ‘Bright And Open’ Dream House
It’s often said that your home is a reflection of your personality. So it’s no wonder Meridian Adams describes her San Francisco home as “bright and open.” When you spend a few moments with the mom of 1-year-old Jace, you’ll easily come to describe her in the same way.
Getting the bright and airy home of her dreams didn’t come as easy. Adams and her husband, Justin, a finance portfolio manager, bought their 1938 Edwardian-style home in 2010. (The home had only one previous owner before they moved in!)
For the couple, settling in Potrero Hills, which Adams describes as a “gem of a neighborhood,” was key. “It’s got the best weather, the views of downtown, and it’s close to the freeway and downtown for my husband to get to work.”
But after living in their pad for less than a year, they decided they were ready to start a family and wanted to make the house a home—which meant moving out and completely gutting the place.
Though it was in immaculate condition, the two-bedroom/one-bathroom property needed major updates to suit their needs—mainly an additional bedroom, an open concept living space, and an updated outdoor area. “In San Francisco, having a yard is a pretty good thing because not a lot of places have them,” the former global production manager at Gap Inc. says. “So we put in a lot of work in the backyard and made sure the house connected to the [outdoors] with great windows and doors. It’s great for entertaining and we spend a lot of time out there BBQing and entertaining.”
Next, it was about transforming the house into the minimalistic contemporary style they both love. “We’re not about a lot of stuff,” Adams explains. “I like little things with character, maybe a token from a trip…so having kids and a big dog [their blue Great Dane, Trooper, who weighs 141 pounds] lends us to wanting even more minimal style.” With the help of their good friend and architectural designer Gazelle Garner, they began to draft initial drawings and decide exactly what they wanted to do with the home. Garner collaborated with another friend, Seth Brookshire of Porro Designs, when it came to construction.
“It was great to have them working with us because they were very much about the aesthetic we were trying to find,” she explains. “San Francisco has a lot of new and modern design going on, but there’s also a lot of traditional architecture; we wanted to make sure we got that modern design we were looking for. When it’s people you know, you can really be honest. They collaborated with us well, [and] even Gazelle’s boyfriend was our contractor on-site. ”
One of the advantages the Adams had when it came to designing their new home was that they were able to live in the space for a while before construction began, so they could envision how they would live there and cater the dwelling to their needs. “We were pretty naïve like, ‘Ok, they’ll jack up a few walls,’” she says. “[Then] you come in and they’ve demoed the house! But we’re glad we did it.
“If we would have bought the house and not lived there and immediately started to tear down walls, we probably would have had more regrets,” Adams continues. “We realized that we spent more time in the backyard than we thought, so we were able to design an open concept where our kitchen was part of the living space, which flows into the outdoor space. Everyone can enjoy themselves and see each other; that’s important for us.”
Of course the open concept presents its challenges too, like when her husband wants to listen to football super loud. “I’m like, ‘Really? The TV’s right there,’” Adams says with a laugh.
Another big part of their design was storage, which is at a premium in any home. When they built the deck out in the backyard, they were able to include a big storage area. They also created storage under the staircase to their master bedroom. “That’s also the benefit of gutting a house,” says Adams. “You’re able to maximize every nook and cranny—and we did. We tried to find as much functional space as we needed.”
The one thing Adams would change if she could be to have all the bedrooms on the same floor. While the main level features the open-concept kitchen, living room, outdoor space, as well as the baby’s room and a guest bedroom, the downstairs level is where the master bedroom and bathroom are located, along with an office and small workout area.
The biggest and best production for the Adams by far has been their son, Jace. And when it came to designing and decorating his room, the bright and open theme continued. “We wanted that same modern sense that we have in the rest of the house,” Adams explains. “We didn’t want to do any painting, so we kept it really minimalist and white to keep it light and airy. But we did infuse more color than we would in our living space. For his room, we invested really well on his crib and dresser because we knew those would stay with him for a while. Then we got a playful rug that wasn’t too ‘baby’ so that can grow with him as well.”
The home adds up to a clean and contemporary space that is still warm and inviting. “It was a long process, so I don’t know that we’ll do a whole house again, but it was all worth it to have a home we absolutely love.”
Reprinted with permission from MaterMea.com