I know, I know, it’s only September…but it’s never too early to get some great ideas for decorating and entertaining family and friends for the holidays.  And besides, checking out the 3^rd Annual Holiday Table Scapes Contest Sept. 17 & 18 will be a nice treat after the summer we’ve endured! 

I love entertaining, especially for the holidays, so I try to take advantage of every opportunity to see various designs, colors, textures, and trends.  It helps stimulate my creative side and induce motivation (early) so I can get a head start planning my entertaining and decorating strategies…which ultimately helps me breathe easier as the season approaches. 

There’s just something about Christmas in Virginia; women here – at least the ones I know – tend to take holiday table setting very seriously and are always in search of ways to outdo themselves from years previous; it's almost as if we have our own inner 'contest' going on! 

From old-fashioned to trendy, traditional to modern, simple to elaborate, no matter what style might appeal to us from one year to the next, we in Virginia – who supposedly don’t do well with change – are always interested in new twists on old ideas and new ideas with old twists!  (Who says we don’t like change??)  Trying new things is fun…and my, how we love to hear all the oooohhhs and aaaahhhs our efforts generate!

This year’s Holiday Table Scapes Contest will include five local interior designers competing for the coveted ‘Best in Show’ title along with a nice monetary prize.  At past events participants have gone all out to bring attendees some of the most distinctive and impressive ideas imaginable.  With five different designers the possibilities are vast, and guaranteed to include the WOW! factor!

In addition to some fabulous holiday interior designs there will be much more to see at the 24th Annual Richmond Home Show, Sept. 17 – 18 at the Richmond Raceway Complex, including the Clever Cleaver Brothers who will perform impressive and fun cooking demonstrations!  Learn more at www.RichmondHomeShow.com.

Bring your camera and your Christmas spirit and be ready to be inspired!  And don’t forget to choose your favorite table scape and cast your vote for the winner for ‘Best in Show’.
 
See you there…with (holiday) bells on!

Follow a husband and wife team as they try to remodel a historic farmhouse

Rehabilitiating a historic home is quite the undertaking. Pipes burst. Bricks crumble. Budgets go through the roof. Add a young family with a one-year-old daughter trying to weather a corporate layoff and things can get a bit tense.

Between naptime and diaper changes, Sal and Ashley Guttuso are attempting to take their Amelia County farmhouse from a paint-peeled fixer-upper to a modern dream house. They plan to transform the 3,000-square-foot former tobacco plantation and surrounding outbuildings into an auction house, events venue, and bed and breakfast before their moneyruns out and Sal is forced back into the field of pharmaceutical sales.