How to Decorate a Farm Table for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time for celebrating with family and close friends and enjoying all the colors and beauty of the fall season. Thanksgiving is also time for a celebratory meal with all the family. If you have a large farm table or a rustic dining table, you are halfway to creating a fall table decorated with the fruits, colors, and foliage of the season. A farm table is ideal for a Thanksgiving meal; it's large enough to seat all your guests and provides a strong focal point for the day. When decorated, your table will be an eye-catching centerpiece, laden with the special dishes you create for Thanksgiving Day.

A fall-themed or Thanksgiving table centerpiece is the first thing to consider when you are decorating your autumn table. Don’t go too big, as you won’t leave much room for food, but the centerpiece can be bolder and bigger than you would usually consider. You could try a traditional cornucopia piece or make your own floral arrangement with autumn branches, dried flowers, leaves, and pine cones. Scatter nuts and leaves around the centerpiece. You could also use a hollow carved pumpkin to hold a floral display. If you want a little sparkle, use some glitter on the petals of the dried flowers. Set candles around the centerpiece (be careful not to place them too near dried flowers or leaves) in metal candleholders or glass bowls. Use candles in autumn colors that match the colors in your centerpiece. You could also decorate the candlesticks with berries or autumn grasses. Be careful if you are using scented candles, though, as you don’t want the smell to overpower the scents from your Thanksgiving kitchen.

Set the Thanksgiving table with a tablecloth and a central table runner, place mats, and festive napkins. Use solid colors to match your candles and centerpiece display so your table doesn’t look too cluttered. If you have time, you can decorate your napkin rings with Thanksgiving motifs and make place cards especially for the holiday season.

One good idea is to use large autumn leaves as your place cards. Simply clean and dry the leaves, and then write your guests’ names on the leaves with a gold felt-tip pen. The leaves can rest in the center of the guests’ plates. Use autumn-colored china and dishes, or a neutral color to contrast with the fall colors on the table.

Antique Mantels: Top Decoration Tips

If you have a marble fireplace or an antique fireplace, you may also have an antique mantel to match. Antique mantels are beautiful pieces of furniture in your living room. Antique mantels provide a focal point and a centerpiece for your room, drawing the eye of everyone who visits. Mantels are also easily decorated for a new look to your living room, whatever the season.

Decoration is simple and there are a few tricks to the trade to make the end result more effective. One trick that designers and decorators use for fireplace mantels is the “three-plus-one” method. The “three-plus-one” scheme is a way of balancing and defining your mantel with a set of related objects shown to best effect. To create the “three-plus-one” look, you first need to select three similar objects. These objects should be of different heights, but they shouldn’t vary too much in height from each other. The objects could be items that reflect your interests or hobbies, like sailboats or decorative rocks. You could choose three framed pictures of your family, in different-sized frames with a matching color scheme. Match the colors of the objects to the colors already in the room. Try three candles of different sizes in a collection, three large sea shells from your last beach trip, or three fossils. You could use clocks, pottery pots, or decorative beer glasses. Choose objects that mean something to you and that are decorative and eye-catching.

Place the three objects on one side of the fireplace mantel. Try not to place them in a straight line as the end result looks a little stiff. Instead, stand one behind the others, or layer the three objects so the smaller ones are in the front. The objects don’t all have to face into the room; some could face into the fireplace or away from the others. Leave some space between the end object and the edge of your fireplace to create a sense of space and safeguard the objects from falling off the mantel.

Then you need to find one larger object to place on the other side of your fireplace, the opposite end to the group of three objects. The one object should be around twice as tall as the group of three objects, or it should have the same visual mass as the three objects. Ideas for the single item include pictures, a large plant or a tall vase with silk flowers, a tall candlestick, or a large ornament or sculpture. The single object should be somehow related to the three other objects, for the best effect.

How to Decorate Antique Mantels

Antique mantels make a great centerpiece for your living room. With antique mantels, you can enjoy a cozy open fire surrounded by an antique marble, metal, or stone surround. Often, however, a mantel can get neglected—but there are a number of different ways to decorate your mantel and create an even more effective centerpiece in the room.

Depending on the season, decorating ideas use natural materials, flowers, and leaves, along with décor constructed from items you already have in the home. The mantel is the ideal place for displaying artifacts, collectibles, and the items you’ve found that you want everyone to see. Artwork is one idea for decorating your antique mantel. Decorate the mantel with drawings or paintings, photographs, or collages that you love. The artwork doesn’t have to be expensive; it can even be homemade.

The mantel is also a great place for family photos. Display your favorite photos in different frames and group them on the mantel in layers of different heights and sizes. Or, you could go with one single, bold painting to form the showcase artwork above your mantel.

Mirrors are also a good decorating idea for the mantel in your living room. Mirrors seem to expand the space in the room and create a striking impression when you walk in. Large vertical mirrors can make the ceiling appear higher. Both ornate and simple mirrors look great in the space above a mantel, and they are also functional pieces of art. Alternatively, a clock above the mantel is an effective, interesting decorative object as well as also being functional.

For a natural look and an inexpensive way to decorate your mantel, use items from the great outdoors. Pick up decorative pine cones, ornamental tree branches, acorns, stones, and shells. Anything beautiful can work well on top of the mantel — and you can change the décor theme according to the season. Beach stones and shells are ideal for the summer months, while pine cones and pine branches make excellent Christmas decorations.

If you have a collection of artifacts, objects, or art, the mantel is the ideal place to display it. Make the mantel a focal point and visitors will naturally gravitate to the mantel to see what you have displayed. The good thing about a mantel is the ease with which you can change the decoration, making the mantel an ever-changing showcase of your art and design taste.

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Olde Good Things specializes in architectural and altered antiques for your home and garden. Visit http://www.ogtstore.com/architectural-antiques/antique-mantels.html for antique mantels, farm tables, vintage décor ideas, furniture, lighting, antiques, and artifacts.

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Antique Farm Tables and Chairs – Just two of the Goodies on Sale at OGT

Antique farm tables and matching chairs are just two examples of the hundreds of different goodies available for sale at a company which specializes in genuine antique and vintage furniture, fixtures and fittings for the home and items of architectural interest from roof tiles, guttering and stained glass windows.

Their name is safe for the moment and it will be mentioned later on but for the time being just imagine a remodeling job on your suburban home, loft apartment, condo or rural retreat far from the maddening crowd and envisage a complete furniture style change depicting some of the classic lines and style of antique farm tables, drawer and cupboard free standing cabinets. Picture also glass lite internal French doors, brass and other antique and vintage light switches and fittings, mirrors and small occasional furniture items and internal architectural pieces such as cornices, wood paneling and other highly sought after genuine antique and vintage salvage items all at really keen prices.

There are purists who believe that items of furniture such as antique farm tables and other furniture pieces and fixtures and fittings from differing eras of history should be mixed and yet isn’t this the norm? Look around any modern home which has modern furniture in it and there may be antique lamp fittings and switches and older furniture and effects which may have been handed down or indeed bought as presents. Maybe, just maybe they have been bought with no apparent thought to the era that they come from simply because they are things of intrinsic beauty and therefore of great value to the current owner.

If your penchant is for older more beautiful items such as farm tables and occasional furniture, furniture which was made in an era of craftsmen who put a little piece of their heart and soul into every piece they made, rather than in the mass produced soulless pieces of furniture seen in stores and furniture showrooms in out of town shopping malls, it is far better to spend a little more for a timeless piece which will in all probability be around and thriving when we are pushing up daisies and feeding the worms.

Create a unique furnishing style in your home starting today with some of the most beautiful yet practical antique and vintage furniture, fixtures and fittings all of which have been salvaged from buildings and homes built in a more genteel and less hectic time. 

Individual antique occasional and farm tables together with hundreds of other genuine vintage and antique furniture, fixtures and fittings can be found at the Olde Good Things store in New York, Los Angeles and their national warehouse at Scranton PA. Alternatively browse the website at http://www.ogtstore.com/antique-furniture/farm-tables.html and order direct from hundreds of beautiful antique and vintage items just waiting to adorn your home.