To help you get a head start on holiday decorating, Washington Spaces invited area designers to share their most creative ideas for their own or clients’ fireplace mantles. The experts suggest looking at what you have and expanding on it or starting from scratch and making a statement all your own.
Winter Palace
Start with the best elements and you can’t go wrong, says Gwen Seidlitz, owner and principal of Sage Inc., who designed two fireplace mantles for Washington Spaces. For her first holiday fireplace design, she was inspired by the Old World style of the distressed mantlepiece in her living room. Add a little color with bronze ribbon and some texture with feathers and the feel is festive.
Joe Waroquier, design consultant at Sage Inc. and collaborator on the fireplace designs, says Seidlitz’s fireplace took him to a Schaumburg castle where heavy, traditional mantles are prominent. Plenty of calla lilies, feathers, and ribbons, plus three straw peacocks bring natural elements and textures into this “turn-of-the-century” setting, he says. The ribbons are especially luxurious to the touch and the feathers symbolize prosperity.
“What I like about it is that it’s not holiday specific,” Seidlitz says. It could work from the end of October through January. As for the faux chinchilla throw, it’s Seidlitz’s favorite element. The three peacocks, which add a sense of family, are a close second. This design could work outside too, if you anchored the elements and added fresh garland, pinecones, and maybe some boxwood.
Bountiful Harvest
Seidlitz and Waroquier of Sage Inc. use Italian urns in a burnt orange tone to emphasize the bounty of the season in this country-style kitchen. To bring the floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace within reach, they curved a string of garland from hearth to ceiling and crowned the warming tray with goodies from Cenan’s Bakery in Vienna, VA, creating not only a heavenly look but also a fantastic smell. The freshly baked goods mingle with the smells of the berry and dried orange balls trimmed with cloves and cinnamon. The inspiration here is food, abundance, and gathering, the designers say.
Seidlitz and Waroquier embraced the height of the kitchen’s ceiling and found a way to take the design to that level. They used products from Sage Inc., ribbon the homeowner had, and an urn-shaped tree stand that Joe purchased in Pennsylvania to hold the holiday tree. “A wreath on the stone would have been expected,” Seidlitz says, and now that the homeowners have seen the garland draped along the wall, they’re going to leave it there indefinitely.
Dried pears, berries, artichokes, and okra bring the food elements to the fireplace setting, while wired ribbon, garland, feathers, and lights contribute to a design signifying the abundance of the season and the gathering of friends and family. Natural greens and even lemons and limes could make this décor work in the spring, while the pottery, which both designers love for its color, shape, and functionality, can be used year-round.
Fire and Ice
When Rouzita and Bita Vahhabaghai, sisters and founders of ita-design, think of the holiday season, they think of cold winter nights by the fire. “Our design began with the desire to accentuate our space by incorporating a conceptual winter landscape of snow covered floors and branches, melting ice, and dangling icicles,” Rouzita says.
To begin this transition in their home, they painted an accent wall a pale icy mint blue, BEHR’s Cool Jazz, and lined it with spray-painted curly willow branches. “These branches are a great seasonal alternative to plants since they allow the interiors to replicate the natural transitions taking place outside,” Bita says.
Next, envisioning a minimal space with crisp clean lines, they added orange bolster pillows on the Maurice Villency sofa for a single punch of color and softened the area with a white shag rug. “We wanted to repeat the white both as a backdrop and accent from the snowy shag rug on the floor to the frosty flower arrangement on the table,” Rouzita adds. An Inca glass tray from Z Gallerie, which looks like a frozen block of ice, is filled with glass cubes, illuminated by a candle, and mimics the recurring fire and ice theme. A white vase, to match the low profile of the Maurice Villency table, overflowing with bleached stardust from Michaels contrasts with the dark vases and pillows. These tie into the black surround of the fireplace.
The finishing touches are the spherical glass votives shaped like ornaments and hung at varying heights in the niche above the fireplace. Found online at CB2, these votives offer a sculptural element to the space while “almost disappearing into the white walls allowing the light of the candles to float,” Bita says. By adding holiday colors, such as bright ornaments or candles, and stringing lights on the willow branches, the space would become even more festive. But as is, the décor is not specific to any denomination and is instead a reflection of the season.
“We wanted to create a sleek, elegant space like a boutique hotel. It’s warm and inviting, yet cool and modern,” Rouzita says.
Rustic Elegance
When working in a natural outdoor setting, it’s important to keep the integrity of the surroundings. So Beth Stouffer, owner and interior design consultant of BKS Designs LLC, “created a sense of rustic elegance that was warm and inviting and befitting of the outdoors” when designing her fireplace mantle for the holidays. To accomplish this, Stouffer started with some items she had, such as wooden deer she purchased at Schoolhouse Earth near Deep Creek Lake as the focal point, with a twig rocking chair from her lake house and a Pendleton blanket from her son’s room for accents. A burlap remnant covers the bottom of the spruce topiary purchased from Hawkins Signature Landscapes with strips of the burlap used as ribbon throughout the mantle.
For fill, Stouffer added berries, spruce boughs, and magnolia branches, also from Hawkins Signature Landscapes, as well as faux rosehips, moss wreaths, and berry picks from Flora’s Feathered Nest. Using plants inherent to the season on the mantle and changing throw pillows to match the hues of the holidays are great ways to make this setting work for any occasion. “The entire outdoor entertaining space is interchangeable,” Stouffer says, and “draws people in.”
Another way to change the setting is to incorporate foliage that’s available at the time and add plenty of candles. “Candles inside and outside the home create a wonderfully soothing and elegant environment for any season,” Stouffer adds.
The Wonder of Whimsy
Using Lucite boxes, MoMA ornaments, graphic wrapping paper and boxes from The Container Store, plus items from their personal holiday decorating collections, Carlyn Guarnieri, CEO and co-founder, and Holly Polgreen, president and co-founder, of Carlyn and Company blend whimsical with modern at the Grand Regency Collection townhome in Victory Lakes in Virginia. This Miller and Smith townhome with its great floor plan and fun color scheme showcases the pair’s nontraditional holiday décor.
The collections can be used as tablescapes or groupings throughout the home as well. “A group of collected items is always a strong statement,” says Polgreen, who also suggests placing groupings of colorful ornaments around the room for added cheer. Try more traditional holiday colors or greenery, such as topiaries as substitutes for the silver trees, for a subtle effect.
