A Maximalist Holiday House Tour with Easy DIYs

Welcome to our maximalist holiday house tour full of globally inspired DIYs, floral, fruit, and garland mixed with colorful room designs.

Greetings friend! I’m thrilled to be joining my talented friends in sharing our Christmas home tours with you all week. This festive seasonal blog hop is hosted by Marty from A Stroll through Life and whom I have the honor of following today.

If you are coming from a Stroll through Life, a special howdy! I’m Kathy, a Christmas baby (and identical twin), pianist, mother, veteran, Marine spouse, and have never met a stranger. 😉

We are a retired military family living in Fort Worth, Texas for the last three years. After so many years of renting and living overseas, I’ve discovered that I decorate with a more is more approach and can’t get enough of modern traditional style with lots of colors and patterns now that I can do anything in our home.

A Maximalist Holiday House Tour

Every year I kick off the holiday season with my friend Stephanie from Casa Watkins Living in a fun series where we create twelve days of globally inspired Christmas ideas. You’ll find lots of DIYs and references to those stories in this tour today.

And make sure to pop into the rest of the tours all week. You’ll find the lineup at the bottom of this post.

Come on in!

Holiday Minimalist/Maximalist Foyer

We have a cute little foyer that I’ve styled with a DIY copper leaf sign and not much else. I kept this area a little simpler because there is so much going on in the rest of the open layout!

The remaining area of the foyer wall showcases my new DIY pomegranate wreath and a collection of art from local artists with a signed playbill by Cole Porter. The beautiful walnut cabinet was my grandparents and you’ll probably hear me mention many of our items come from them or estate sales.

Holiday Maxamilist Piano-Front Living Room

The front of the house has a large picture window and where I teach and play the piano. Yes, that is Handels’ Messiah right now on my music rack! I’m singing in it next week. It is such fantastic musical work. Did you ever sing it in school or church?

A sweet picture of my cousin, twin, and I wore dresses my grandmother sewed was taken by my photographer Uncle. You can see one of grandma’s trees in the background. 😉

A few of my plants are getting extra sunlight and artificial light with Christmas lights in the window during the winter months.

Behind the piano is my romantic, natural, and maximalist tree. Isn’t that a mouthful? I’ve always wanted to do an all floral tree and I finally did! It was actually much easier than I thought. You can read all about how to decorate a tree with flowers in this story.

The tree is in front of my grandmother’s portrait and I think she would have fallen in love with it if she has seen it. Her trees were always show stoppers. I added DIY pomegranate potpourri ornaments and corresponding potpourri gift tags to go with the floral theme.

Just to the left of the piano is my music cabinet which was my grandpa’s display cabinet. It was also one of the first pieces I made over when we moved in.

Above it is a display of my husband’s twenty-year Marine career, needlepoint by my grandmother, birdcage we bought when we were in Hong Kong’s-Kowloon bird market, Japanese caligraphy decoupaged ornaments, and a rooster from Portugal.

Oh and the cute elephant pillow we found in a night market in Thailand. The black wood farmhouse chair came from an interior store in Japan. American styled furniture was really expensive over there so that chair will have to be a family heirloom for our kids. lol

See? It’s hard to decorate minimally when you have so many great souvenirs, family heirlooms, and an estate sale addiction. Ha!

Christmas Decorating in the Bird Office

I gave a peek into the office earlier through the French doors with garland. Our traditional ornaments are on a smaller tree in there and it is super cozy with the two armchairs that usually sit behind the piano.

My mom saved the pair of chairs for me from my grandparents’ house until we moved back stateside. They are the first and only pieces I’ve had professionally reupholstered. I feel like such a grownup. 😉

Just to the right of the doors is a desk with a large oil painting of birds by a local artist. I love that thing. It’s almost neon!

Maximalist Living and Dining Room Decorated for the Holidays

And that brings us to the actual living room and dining area. Our house is just under 1800 square feet and has 3 beds, 2 baths so it isn’t that big. But after coming from two duty stations in Japan, it’s plenty for the four of us. And I kind of feel like we are living more eco-friendly with small square footage.

At least that is what I tell myself when I trip over the dog or shove a chair out of the way just to get to the next room. 🙂

Greenery is really all this room needed for Christmas. I decided to completely clear off the coffee table this year for a DIY advent wreath centerpiece. I love how large it is and the wreath matches the greenery on the mantel.

Step around the sofa with me and you’re in the dining room. The close quarters do make movie-dinner night easy peasy. I’m pretty sure it was meant to be the breakfast area with the dining room being where my piano studio is. We make it work!

If you love the more is more approach to decorating, I would love for you to read about my globally inspired holiday table and chandelier decor! I really had fun setting it and the family and I have used it every night. We even had a four-course meal one evening. So fun.

You really can see the whole house standing almost anywhere. I’m not a huge fan of the open layout as I would love to have more walls to wallpaper, paint murals, and hang things on but this little house has grown on me. 🙂

Join me on Instagram for behind-the-scenes, DIYs, decorating tips, room tours, and home inspiration. I’ll see you over there!

I didn’t do much in the bedrooms this year but I love using garland and there’s a floral tinsel tree decorated to match our master bedroom decor.

I hope you sign up for my free 5-day decorating course and newsletter if you love this type of home style. Thanks so much for coming by!

And that’s the house all ready for Christmas! Please leave a comment if you have any questions on where things came from or DIYs. I’m happy to answer those for you!

Next on the tour is Our Southern Home who always has a beautiful home to share! I’m taking a break from blogging the rest of the week to enjoy home tours every day while I sip my coffee. You should join me!

Monday, Dec 6th

A Stroll Thru Life – Up To Date Interiors – Our Southern Home – Southern Hospitality

This Is Our Bliss – Southern State of Mind – Inspiration For Moms

Tuesday, December 7th

Making it in the Mountains – Decor to Adore – Pink Peppermint Design – Thrifty and Chic

Cuckoo4Design – White Arrows Home – Hymns and Verses

Wednesday, December 8th

StoneGable – Whispering Pines Homestead – Worthing Court – Grace In My Space

DIY Beautify – Remodelando la Casa – LeCultivateur

Thursday, December 9th

Designing Vibes – The Stonybrook House – A Pretty Life – Calypso in the Country

Clean and Scentsible – 11 Magnolia Lane – Chalking Up Success

Friday, December 10th

Fox Hollow Cottage – Follow The Yellow Brick Home – Casa Watkins Living – Quarters One

Noting Grace – CitrineLiving – County Road 407

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