Dining Through The Holidays

The dining space of any dwelling often represents the real heart of the home. Dining rooms bring together family and friends for sustenance, celebrations, and are a place or warmth and connection that nourish the body and the soul. The dining room is a unique place that reflects your family heritage, and makes new friends feel at home.

Choose your décor for this special space from the heart. You can create a warm, but fashionable room that invites and excites.

The dining table is the natural focal point of the dining area. You could choose from a world of shapes, styles, sizes and even materials when selecting your dining room table. Make use of fresh florals as your centerpiece for a stunning display of nature in all its elegance. For efficient use of space, and an extra-close dining experience, try replacing one side of your dining chairs with a bench. This ‘communal seating’ is a trick of the trade in the interior design world to add more space.

Lighting creates the ambiance for the room. Whether your space is filled with flecks of reflected light from a distinctive chandelier, or is less formally and more dimly lit by trendy wall sconces, your lighting can be flexible. Depending on your lifestyle, or the occasion – you might opt for the glow of an alabaster light or choose to make full use of natural light, if you have windows in your space.

Your furnishings, fabrics, accessories and lighting can transform your dining area season to season, reason to reason for a charmingly elegant space to gather.

Image from Christopher Guy (Dining Rendering) for more details on this collection click here or contact J. Douglas Design.

Brand Spotlight: Taylor King

There is nothing like coming home from a long day and relaxing in the place that you call “home”. Home is where you relax, enjoy life, family - and make memories. We all want furniture in our home that makes us feel warm, comfortable and welcomes others to our residence in style.

Taylor King Furniture is a leading brand for comfortable, durable, upholstered seating and other furniture for your interior spaces. From the luxurious feel of the fabrics, to the detail of the beautiful French nails - every piece is designed with beauty and comfort in mind.

Handmade with kiln-dried hardwood lumber and frame stock cut by hand – you simply won’t find better quality furniture than Taylor King.

J. Douglas Design is honored to be a retailer of this wonderfully-made designer furniture. The pieces are rich with color and texture, which adds to it's distinctive style, and has for years passed Mr. Bradford's discriminating selection process for his showroom. When picking our your furniture for your home or office make sure to visit the J. Douglas Design's showroom located in Dallas and see Taylor King furniture, and many other exclusive brands - and experience luxury at it’s best.

Ornamentation Isn't Just For Trees This Holiday

Decorating your living space, and especially your holiday table, for the holidays is important to your family tradition and holiday entertaining. Once the decor is in place, it's as easy as starting a roaring fire, turning on the White Christmas CD and commencing to making magnificent memories with your family traditions.

Follow these tips for adding spectacular stress-free seasonal sparkle to your home:

Keep your colors schemes simple. Choose your holiday colors, and then go with the flow. Holiday decorating isn’t about re-doing your living space every year, it’s about enhancing what you have, and adding special (and memorable) touches to your existing decor. It’s ok to mix colors in most cases, but keep in mind - for the holidays, you truly can never go wrong by decorating with gold and silver. Adding a metallic to your existing palette will add shine and sparkle; you know the old Christmas song... “silver and gold”? Get inspiration from it!

Decorate with candles, trees and ornaments throughout your spaces. Ornamentation isn't just for trees! Hang ornaments throughout your home, and decorate your tables with random ornaments and glass balls. Have little trees? Use them as centerpieces on your tables or place small trees in your hallways and on your porch. Take a old bowl and fill with beautiful vintage glass Christmas tree balls for a lovely addition to the table.

Whether you are beginning in a new place or continuing traditions in a home you have been in for years, it’s ok to change things up each year, add in some personality and make new, different memories each year.

Christmas Ornaments - Crate and Barrel

Lightening Up Leather

Leather furniture is so classy and clean – that is why so many people decorate their home and work space using beautiful, durable leather.

Rich leather can often darken a room as well and make it dreary. Learning how to decorate properly around your leather furniture is key. Add colorful window treatments in the room where the leather furniture is. You also can throw some fun and light throw pillows on the furniture, or utilize a throw blanket as well to bring in some lighter tones.

The darker décor is ok in a library or office because you want to create a darker calmer atmosphere however in your living space that you use everyday you need some color to add some personality. If it still needs to 'lighten up a bit' - incorporating lighter, earthy colors can open up the room and the room will seem bigger as well.

Use light colored, 'modern' accents to compliment your darker traditional leather pieces - such as rocks, and concreted knick knacks on the mantle and around. Couple your leather with rich woods, and modern elements for a clean, sleek look for your interior design. Use colors to suit the season such as mustards and oranges – they will match your holiday decorations to change things up from time to time and add a pop of color.

Spending a lot of money on nice leather furniture is a sure way to add class and luxury to your room, so go ahead and buy that leather furniture; you cannot get much richer than that.