Linda Holmwood adores decorating her home for Christmas.
Garlands up the staircase, rivers of red ribbons, a table set with glittering lights and silver accents on the mantle are just some of the decorative touches she adds to the holidays.
And this year, she and her husband, Dave, have a newly remodelled house in which to celebrate the festive season.
“We just finished a six-month reno during which we totally gutted this house,” she said this week.
“This is definitely our last reno. I’m going to put that in writing because we’re both in our 70s now.”
Her decorating style is very focused and the former florist believes that less is better. “If you have too much stuff, you don’t really see anything. So I like a few big feature pieces.”
She and Dave have a condo in Victoria and used to have one at Shawnigan, too, but they missed having a big family home, a welcoming place for all to gather at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and whenever the mood strikes.
“We love having large family dinners and living between two smaller condos just wasn’t working for us. We are too young for that life.”
Their new home on Shawnigan Lake has it’s own wharf and a lovely setting, but little had been done to it for 20 years by the previous owners, she said. “It was just a summer place, a party house and definitely not winterized.”
Chris Marshall at CJ Building undertook the reno which saw the kitchen and bathrooms gutted, and installation of new windows, insulation, drywall, heating and flooring. The latter is a wide plank, Russian white oak, which is “very forgiving.”
“I wanted it so the kids can run in and out with sand from beach … and the same with our furniture. It’s already beat up and distressed so we don’t worry.”
Having moved in at the end of August, they are still arranging furniture and artwork, but are now preparing for Christmas at the lake with five generations of their family. “My mom is 97 going on 60, and we have two children, five grandchildren and one 10-month old great-grand baby.
“They are all coming Christmas Eve and spending the night.”
This is the Holmwoods’ fourth reno using Urbana for kitchen and bathrooms and what Linda loves about the company is: “If I can dream it, they can build it. I wanted a different take on basic shaker cabinets, with old, poured glass in the doors.
“I wanted a beach-y look and something a little different. For instance, I designed a jelly cupboard to hide the microwave.”
Linda is a very visual, artistic person with great ideas, said Urbana designer Ellen Crystal, who noted her client wanted the kitchen, ensuite and laundry cabinetry to have a detailed, traditional furniture vibe.
They designed cabinets with feet, bump-outs, curved lines at the floor, multiple mouldings and decorative, door-like panels on the ends.
“The homeowner chose a face frame style, with trim around each door, modernized with new soft-close hinges and full extension runners, and we did them in maple, with a frosty white paint.”
Using the same cabinets in all these rooms lends a cohesion to the home and co-ordinates with the millwork too, including the wainscoting and unique trim around windows and doors, Crystal said.
Vertical stiles on some of the glass cupboard doors were another custom touch —“It’s an east coast element and something you see on furniture more than cabinetry” — as are the elaborate moulding profiles.
“We stacked multiple mouldings on top of the cabinets, and put some underneath too. It’s quite unusual to see three or four separate lines at the top of cabinets. And we used a latch common on old furniture and sailboats. Not your typical nobs.
“The kitchen is fully detailed in all quadrants,” Crystal said with a chuckle.
To enlarge the ensuite, they stole space from a hall closet that allowed for a deep linen closet at the end of the counter and enabled the owners to increase the depth of the shower by 30 inches.
“Linda is very dynamic and visual, and she has a great eye and great taste,” Crystal said. “Proportion, line and finish are really important to her and she works hard at putting together things with great function and lines.”
Linda said: “I’m big on mouldings, wainscoting and architraves over doors and windows. It’s the difference between being in a drywall box and an elegant home.” She and her husband credit George Linger at the Finishing Store for the millwork elements, as well as Rahim Khudabux at Max Furniture for custom furniture. “He can build anything you want.”
Linda sums up her style as a mixture of old to new, and everything from burlap to crystal. “My inspiration comes from my mother. She was a Martha Stewart before her time, who painted and wallpapered her farmhouse every year, whether it needed it or not.”
And Linda concluded she loves decorating, no matter what the season.
Her home used to have five bedrooms, but she turned one small bunk room upstairs into her creative closet and now stores all her decorations there in clear storage bins.
“I decorate for all occasions because I feel there are too many nothing-days in the year.”
