Things To Do In Roswell During the Holidays

There is always a lot to do in Roswell, especially during the holidays! If you are looking for things to do with your friends and family, we have some great ideas for you. Have your own favorites that we didn’t mention? Be sure to post a comment, we’d love to hear from you!

Tour One of Roswell’s Historic Homes
Learn a little about the history of our wonderful city by taking a tour of one of Roswell’s fabulous Historic Homes. The houses are all decked out for the holidays, making this the best time of the year to visit. Plus, there are some neat special events, like High Teas!

Take In a Show
Spend a relaxing few hours enjoying a theatrical presentation by some of Roswell’s fine performers. Roswell is home to several first-rate playhouses and the Cultural Arts Center hosts wonderful theatre, music and dance productions. Here are some of our favorites for the holidays!

• Red Door Playhouse – Auntie Clause (An Interactive Christmas Play)
• Kudzu Playhouse – Showing three plays this holiday season: A Christmas Carol, The Worst Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and A Chris “Mess” Carol. Kudzu Family Playhouse and Sprouts Series shows are great for younger theatre-goers!
• Cultural Arts Center – Atlanta Dance Theatre’s Babes In Toyland

Strap On Some Blades
Technically, The Cooler is located in Alpharetta, but it’s so close to home, you don’t have to leave the area to participate in the traditional winter sport of ice skating!

Chop Down a Tree
Start a new family tradition by taking the family out to choose and cut your own tree from one of Georgia’s many Christmas Tree Farms.

Experience the Joy of Giving
North Fulton Community Charities has been helping folks in Roswell and the surrounding areas for over 25 years. This is one of the most challenging times of the year for them and donations are low, so consider giving a needed item to the food pantry or toy drive, or giving your time or making a cash contribution.

Home Decorating Tips

Furniture Placement

• What your mom told you about making a good first impression is true, even with inanimate objects.  If the view from a doorway includes looking at the backs of chairs and dressers, or rows of uninviting furniture pushed up against the walls, a visitor won’t feel welcomed in.
• Use balance to bring a designed feel to a room.  To achieve balance, draw an imaginary line through the room and balance the furniture placed in each half.
• The traffic pattern is probably the most important factor to consider in furniture placement.  You should be able to enter and move about the room, getting to and from the most used items with ease.
• If you have the space, furniture moved to the middle of the room, instead of against the walls can create a great traffic pattern, as well as being warm an inviting.
• Allow 24 to 30 inches between furnishings for walking, (18 inches between sofa and coffee table) and be careful not to obstruct doors or windows.  Keep chairs and sofas no more than 8 feet apart for easy conversing.
• Rooms are more inviting if they are not overfilled with furniture.  If you have a piece that is too large, or is seldom used, consider moving it to another room, storing it, or selling it.

Focal Points

• A room should have a focal point.  It can be a fixed element, like a fireplace or a picture window, or a non-fixed element, like a favorite piece of art or furniture.  If you have a room with two or more things that compete for attention, such as a bedroom with a fireplace, you may choose to pick one and downplay the other.  If you want to highlight the fireplace, even though the bed is larger and more imposing, you can dress the bed simply while placing an eye-catching arrangement on the mantel.
• If a room lacks an obvious focal point, create one.  Choose to showcase your collectibles, a quilt or piece of art.  Add an artificial fireplace or a mirror.  Accent this focal point with lighting and anchor it with a piece of furniture such as a table, sofa, or a bookcase.
• Live in a great setting?  Create a focal point of your view by leaving a window free of heavy window treatments.

Color

• If you have patterned furniture, a rug, or large piece of artwork, pick colors you like from the pattern.  Choose a neutral wall color from the pattern’s lighter colors and secondary accents from the rest.
• Choose colors that you love.  Take a look at your closet for inspiration.  What colors do you wear the most often?  Even if your favorite is too bright for a wall color, pick a complimentary neutral for the wall and accent in the bright shade.  In contrast, don’t choose colors you don’t look good in, or you won’t want to spend time in the room.
• An accent color is a color that stands apart from any of the other colors within a room. Accent colors appear less frequently in a color scheme but, as a result, often have the greatest effect. Used wisely, they are excellent for highlighting architecture and furnishings within a space.
• Try the 60-30-10 concept.  Use 60% of the main color, 30% of a secondary color, and 10% of an accent color when decorating your room.
• Add accent colors in layers by using accessories like a sofa throw, tablecloth, china, pillows, or a lampshade.
• A light flooring color will draw the floor up to the eye, while a darker floor tone will drop it away from your eye. If you have low ceilings or want to increase the visual height of your room, add a deeper floor color.

Above All, Make Your Own Statement

Remember that your home is an expression of who you are and your personality should shine through.  Don’t just copy pictures from magazines or the latest look from a TV home show.  If you design rooms with your lifestyle in mind, that you will be comfortable living in, you can’t go wrong!

Planning the Perfect Living Space

Planning the Perfect Living Space - For You!

The cold and rainy weather is here and we are going to be spending more and more time indoors. After being outside so much during the warmer months sometimes at this time of the year I can feel trapped inside. If your home is feeling like it’s closing in on you, it might just need a little kick to give it some life. Check out the tips below on space planning and use the complimentary tool from Outrageous Interiors to create your ideal floorplan. Arranging your existing furniture, art and accessories in a new way can make a tired old room feel brand new!

Ready for Change

First, really think about how the area is used and the activities that take place in the room. You may have a formal living room with gorgeous exotic hardwoods, but if your children spend a lot of time in it on the floor playing games, you may want to move a rug from another part of the house to give them a soft place to sit (and to prevent wear and tear on your floors!) At this point you will also want to take a look at the current room and take notes about what is working and what you would like to improve. Do you continually find yourself moving chairs from one room to another to accommodate guests? Maybe you need more seating in one area and less in another, or the areas need to be repurposed to better fit your needs.

For Good Measure

You’ll want to work from a floor plan that is scaled to the correct dimensions of your room, so take measurements of the walls and all the structural features such as doors, windows, entranceways, closets, etc… Click the floorplan icon for a space planning tool compliments of Outrageous Interiors that lets you easily enter the measurements of the room, add and arrange furniture and accessories and save and print your plans.

Taking Inventory

Once you have your scaled floor plan set up and an idea in your mind of how the room needs to function, look around your entire house for items that you may want to use in the room and take their measurements.

Check out your storage areas for items like Aunt Beth’s dresser that you really love but never used because it didn’t match your bedroom furnishings. It might be the perfect place to store CD’s, DVD’s and games in your den. And remember, you aren’t really moving the heavy furniture at this point so don’t be stingy, it is better to have more than you need to choose from than not enough.

You’re Virtually Done

Look at the “blank slate” of the scaled floor plan as it is now in the space planning program and visualize the traffic pattern of the room. You will want to enter and move about the room with ease. Consider often overlooked things like windows you like to open, as well as the room’s entrances and closets. Using the software, create icons for your potential furnishings from the list you made earlier. Make sure that you resize the items to match their measurements. Move the icons around to find which placements work best for you, making sure that traffic can flow around all the items in the room. With this software, you can save multiple versions of the same room so that you can compare printouts side by side.

While your personal style and taste will ultimately determine the arrangement of your rooms, there are many guidelines the experts say you may want to consider.  Click Here for some tips from the “design” side of space planning.