OHI HOME STYLE

“Why does my house feel so great when it’s decorated for the holidays?” Asks our design client of over a decade.

“A lot of what you’re feeling is the powerful effect of room lighting,” I answer. The holidays are a time when we bring into play a design principle decorators have used for decades – layered lighting. In our Ojai home, decorative candles are lit, tree lights are hung, the dimmers are turned down low and the fireplace is aglow. The result is a really fantastic feeling space. Layers of light fill the vertical and the horizontal space of the room.

Our friend Michelle uses votives on her mantle to illuminate her vintage tree collection. If you don’t have a working fireplace, this is wonderful way to create a warm focal point even after the holidays.

Your holiday table is a great space to explore a variety of candle heights. We love using all sizes – small votives, tall tapers etc… We use a glass plate to display a variety of ivory pillar candles on our coffee table in the summer and a brushed gold tray in our holiday configuration. Combining glass and metal surfaces with candles is a great way to bounce a warm light effect throughout the room.

Setting light levels in a room can be just as important at a festive dinner party as the food. Low lighting makes an event feel more intimate. We added dimmers not only to our dining room but to our open concept kitchen as well. Lighting corner space with light cans (ideally behind a plant or chair), or using lamps made for seating level can also be a nice addition.

Designers normally work with three layers of lighting – ambient lighting (candles), task lighting(fixed lighting), and accent lighting (lamps, holiday lights). Remember these three lighting types when creating a well-presented room in your home, even beyond the holidays.

I overheard a great conversation yesterday while installing one of our home stagings. One of the handymen working on the home said to his co-worker, “I wish my house looked like this. I don’t know how I ended up with so much stuff!” Stuff, stuff and MORE stuff accumulates over the years in all of our homes. That’s why we work frequently with a de-clutter expert/home organizer prior to staging occupied homes. The handyman’s reaction coincides with so many of our seller’s comments post home staging.

“Why didn’t we edit our life ten years ago?”

“Why has it taken us 12 years to have a garage sale?”

“Why have I saved all of this stuff for so many years?”

Many people don’t take time to think how they COULD be living. The days pass, the months pass and life continues. One of the rare gifts of our 2020/2021 pandemic has been the closer look we have been able to take at our immediate surroundings. At my house, we finally changed the front exterior house lights that we said we hated two years ago but ignored. My husband remarked, “Those look great! Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

The hot days of summer can also be useful for projects inside the home. Enjoy cool air-conditioning as you de-clutter the kitchen junk drawer, re-organize the pantry and make a give away pile of ill matching mugs from your kitchen. Recently, I discovered how many drinking glasses had broken over the years and treated myself to new Crate and Barrel tumblers. They will be put to good used this summer, holding cool cocktails for warm evenings on the patio.

We often get asked, since we are in the business of simplifying and reviving spaces, if we “hold onto anything?” The answer is yes. We hold onto what we can use – items we KNOW we will use. I treasure a vintage wicker cooler we own that has a galvanized interior. I haul it out for summer parties, loading the inside with ice and cool drinks.

Editing the items you have stored away can be incredibly rewarding. Often, getting rid of excessive accessories allows you to use your favorite pieces more often. We often forget about the stuff we own that resides in the attic, or that hard to access cupboard above the fridge. If we have less to store, we become more conscious of what we own and can be put to use.

The days are still hot but the nights have gotten cooler. It’s that unpredictable time of the year when a warm throw blanket added to the sofa in the evening is a good idea, even though the air conditioning was on inside the house all day. In warmer areas, like Southern California the teasing of fall is often months on end. This creates a design dilemma… how do we visually create the feel of autumn in a fluctuating climate?

Think Color

The end of tomato season in my garden is normally September. The orange and red fruit is the perfect compliment to end of summer/beginning of fall meals. Our white summer table runner has been replaced with a darker one, and I’ve added orange candle holders, that compliment my tomatoes, into the mix. It feels too early to purchase real pumpkins and gourds so I fill a few modest bowls with faux reproductions. Orange feels too bold a choice, so I chose white – an easier color transition from summer.

Think Texture

In the summer I love to cut fresh flowers and plants from the garden – white roses, rosemary, citrus blossoms and flowering herbs. But in the fall, I fill our vases with branches, dried flowers and grasses instead. They add beautiful texture to the fall palette slowly emerging in our home. I decorate for the first month of fall with apprehension, slowly cultivating the first layer of design as one that can be built on as the months progress and the holidays get closer. In October, I will add fresh Cinderella pumpkins to our front porch and branches sparkling with orange lights. In November, dried cornhusks will be added to the collection of table gourds alongside burlap accents and dried leaves. I love easing into the fall. Let it begin…