The holiday season is a great time to spruce up your home and add festive touches that make it feel warm and inviting. Here are seven quick wins, roughly in the order we'd tackle them, that make a home stunning for the season.
Start with a clean slate
Before you start decorating, give your home a deep clean. A fresh space is more inviting on its own, and it gives your decorations a clean backdrop to shine against instead of competing with clutter.
Choose a color scheme
Decide on a color scheme before you buy or unpack anything. One palette carried through the whole house creates a cohesive look. Go traditional with red and green, or modern with blue and silver. If you need inspiration, our guide to popular light themes shows how each palette looks on a real house.
Add festive lighting
Twinkle lights are the fastest way to add holiday ambiance. String them around the tree, along the mantel, or over the windows. One trick from our crews: pick a single color temperature, warm white or cool white, and stick to it in each room. Mixing the two side by side is the most common reason a display looks off and nobody can say why.
Decorate your tree
The tree is the centerpiece, so give it the finishing touches. Choose ornaments that match your color scheme, then add garland or ribbon to pull it together. Lights go on first, then garland, then ornaments, largest at the bottom.
Add holiday greenery
Bring some nature indoors with wreaths, swags, or poinsettias. These natural touches add warmth and texture that lights and ornaments alone can't, and here in the Northwest, fresh evergreen is never far away.
Dress up your table
Create a festive setting for holiday meals with a tablecloth or runner in your chosen colors, plus napkins and a centerpiece to match. It's a five-minute job that makes every dinner in December feel like an occasion.
Don't forget the outside
The exterior is what welcomes guests and greets the whole neighborhood. Hang a wreath on the front door and add lights to the roofline, trees, or bushes. This is the step where a professional install earns its keep: custom-fit commercial-grade lights with the maintenance and takedown handled, and nobody in your family on a wet ladder.
Nick Hiatt
Owner, Saint Nick's Christmas Lights, Portland, Oregon
I spent 25 years on ladders around the Northwest before Saint Nick's was ever a company, and I've been designing and installing custom holiday lighting in the Portland area ever since. I write these guides myself. No fluff, just what I'd tell you standing in your driveway.