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We are about to make the annual leap from harvesting the grapes to ringing in the New Year, with a smattering of parties in between. All of these festivities will leave us spinning if we’re not careful. As you enter this next season with the knowledge that friends will be over, now is the time to fine-tune your décor. After all, the holidays are all about eating, enjoyment, and ultimately, entertaining. So, before you are smack dab in the middle of the busiest time of year, take the opportunity to set the stage for the gatherings you’ll be hosting. What can you do to be ready?

Do It Now

The best hosts make throwing a party look easy, and one secret to simplicity is getting the work done far enough in advance that you can sit back and enjoy the merry making with your guests. As you turn the lights out after your last trick-or-treaters, look around your space and begin to visualize the next couple months of dinner parties and holiday soirees. Begin the work of holiday decorating ahead of time, so you’re home is always party-ready.

Practice Your Way to Perfect

The best way to figure out if your home is warm, welcoming and fully equipped for a holiday party is to practice with a few friends first. Inching your way into entertaining will provide you with insight as you evaluate what works and what doesn’t. During each smaller gathering, pay close attention to how your friends react as they arrive, and strive to see your party through their eyes. Should you adjust your seating areas to improve flow? Would moving your drink station keep your guests from congregating in the kitchen? Read the signals of those first visitors, tweaking your décor and arrangements as you move on to host your next gathering.

Get Close for Comfort

When it comes to entertaining, floor plan is everything, so don’t be afraid to move things around. Furniture placement has the power to make your guests feel at home, and since you’re practicing early, try out a few different combinations. Can you change up the spaces that always seem to remain empty during parties by creating more intimate furniture arrangements?

Harness Your Creativity

The key to a beautifully decorated room is not an overabundance of decorations as much as a light dusting of holiday cheer. Use items that bring comfort, texture, coziness, and shimmer. Purchase (or pull out of your closet) these important touches, and have them displayed or within reach:

• Lighting – lamps, candles, lanterns, strings of Christmas lights
• Accents – cable knit pillows, and throws
• Greens – wreaths, topiaries, fresh flowers
• Drinks – crystal glassware, decanters, punch bowls, carafes, serving trays
• Music – playlist of holiday favorites

As the days get shorter and the season of entertaining stretches out in front of you, take hold of the opportunity to start your planning immediately. As those first guests arrive, may the anxious, shoulder-shrug mantra of “Ready or not?” be for you a blissful “Ready and waiting!”

Though the well-loved carol celebrates this as the most wonderful time of the year (and we wholeheartedly agree it is), the holidays seem to be the busiest season as well. So tips for saving time are always appreciated, especially when it comes to decking the halls. Are you staring at a blank slate in a new home after a rebuild? Or do you find yourself dragging tired old boxes of decorations out of storage for the umpteenth year? No matter your situation, this busy time demands low maintenance but high impact decorating tricks.

We’ve compiled a list of tips for nailing that festive décor that’s high style yet effortless and accessible. So whether you’re starting from scratch or making a few small but significant changes, these ideas will guide you toward what’s ultimately most important – less time decorating and more time celebrating.

STREAMLINE YOUR COLOR

Be intentional when you choose a color scheme, and carry it throughout your entire house. If your home’s color palette is already bold, don’t feel the need to fight it. Work in your holiday cheer with neutrals like white and metallic. But if timeless and classic paired with a neutral palette is your everyday, incorporate unconventional colors like pink or teal with gold or silver. This is your chance to add color. Lots of it.

BRING THE OUTSIDE IN

Gathering greenery from the rich bounty of Sonoma County’s outdoors is an excellent way to add a natural element and a piney scent to your holiday décor. Mantels, dining tables, and mirrors are ideal places to display wintry, rugged boughs and branches. Mixing your evergreens, like cedar, eucalyptus, and holly berries, add texture and color to otherwise lackluster spaces.

TAKE A RISK

Take risks with statement pieces and quirky holiday accessories. Substitute trinkets with festive throw pillows to add a cozy feel to your space. Hang your wreath in an unexpected place, like on a mirror or over your bed. You may like its placement so much that you’ll simply remove the bow after the holidays and leave it up all year.

LET YOUR LIGHTS SHINE

Nothing screams holidays like sparkling lights. Let candles and the tree light up the room. Layer your holiday lighting while dimming the overhead lights. The glow from multiple sources elevates mood and adds warmth to your home.

AND THAT’S A (GIFT) WRAP

If wrapping gifts isn’t a lost art in your home, you’d probably like to put that hard work to more use than the few moments it takes your loved ones to rip open the masterpieces you’ve created. Make the most of your efforts by strategically placing festively wrapped presents around your home as accents or bookends. You might even be pleasantly surprised by how well the ribbons naturally coordinate with your holiday décor. Cheers to that!

And if you’re fresh out of time and creative energy, let our design crew help you with:

• Trimming your tree
• Setting your table
• Styling your mantle
• Arranging your furniture
• …And more!

Our team of brilliant designers make everything easy, merry, and bright.

Book your design crew appointment today!  (707) 568-4044

 

Cokas Diko Home is excited to add a fabulous new stain and fade resistant fabric to our already great repertoire of performance fabrics. InsideOut Performance Fabrics® is a great new All-In-One performance fabric that can satisfy all of your needs and withstand the elements, both inside and outside. InsideOut Performance Fabrics® pairs superior design and unmatched performance to weather any storm in your home, sunroom or outdoors. With its fluorine free technology, you can rest easy knowing you have made an environmentally conscious choice! InsideOut Performance Fabrics® are perfect for today's world with no pilling, easy clean-ability and best of all .... made in the USA! Stop by your nearest Cokas Diko Store to discover the ideal InsideOut fabric for your next upholstery project.

As all of our lives have changed in the past few months, so has the use of our homes. No longer is a home simply a place to live, relax and find comfort in. Many of us are working and home schooling our children there as well. With all of these changes, our home has to adapt to accommodate our new lives.

Functionality is essential so selecting pieces that can be used in more than one capacity. If you are limited on space, your dining table could be an additional work space, so having storage near by is critical. A sideboard that once housed your entertaining supplies can now house work essentials such as a printer, school & work supplies and additional electronics. These pieces are ideal for storing your "work" life when you are transitioning into "home" life.

Lighting is important in any work area so try to maximize natural light and supplement with task Lamps with a soft glow will create comfort and inspiration while brighter lighting may help you focus on specific tasks or work. Having a combination of each in your room will help you transition from work to leisure.

Variety is the key to creating a productive work space. Adding an additional chair or sofa to your home office area will help you gain a new perspective. Simple changes can motivate you and they may be as easy as changing the artwork, adding additional lighting or repositioning your furniture. Variety will allow for greater productivity.

Don’t forget... this is your home, so any and all decorative additions to this space will just enhance your enjoyment of what otherwise, may just be boring work!  Everyone deserves a beautiful and workable space to create and thrive.

So, you pulled the trigger on that sofa you have been stalking for months. The order is placed and your wait time for delivery is 6-8 weeks.....typically. Well, welcome to the new world of pandemic delays. Unfortunately, our society has been touched by unforeseeable circumstances and the furniture industry is just one of the many effected.

Why is Norwalk lead time effected even though it's made in the US? 

We are proud to say that our sofas are completely built in the US. Most of our components that make your sofa are also domestically sourced, however, many of the components such as foam and metal parts come from sources outside the US. While many companies are inclined to downgrade their raw materials to cut costs and get parts faster, Norwalk refuses to use materials that would jeopardize their commitment to high quality that is sustainably sourced. Obtaining these parts has been complicated by an imbalance in international trade and a shortage of container shipping.

To further complicate things, Norwalk (like most companies during the pandemic) was forced to shut down for 2 months. When the factory re-opened, not everyone was able to come back to work, whether due to illness or mandatory quarantines, lack of childcare, etc.  Because our product is such a high quality, learning the skills to produce our product, can take months to learn therefore creating a shortage of skilled labor. Even though Norwalk extended their operational hours and worked 7 days a week, they are still trying to catch up to the current demand.

Should you still order that show stopping, centerpiece for your family?

The answer is YES, YES and YES! Why you ask? Most quality sofas involve some level of customization and even if your selection seems simply, it may involve much larger and more complicated pieces. We know that you have a choice with where you purchase your upholstery, but when you purchase with Norwalk, you can rest assured that as a result of your patience, you can feel confident in knowing that the piece you ordered is exactly what you ordered without compromising quality and integrity along the way.