The Home Front: Get inspired and give back with Homes for the Holidays tour
Credit to Author: rebeccakeillor| Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2019 13:15:15 +0000
Get into the holiday spirit early with the Vancouver Kids Help PhoneHomes for the Holidays tour. This year, the two-day self-guided event, which takes place Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, includes seven beautiful homes scattered around Metro Vancouver, all professionally decked out for the season.
Tour-goers will be able to mingle with the designers and homeowners while supporting Kids Help Phone, a charity that provides 24-hour-a-day online, text and telephone counselling services to kids across Canada, and which is particularly busy at this time of year.
The tour, now in its 15th year, is an annual tradition for many, such as interior designer Trish Knight. She attended the tour for 10 years with her girlfriends as a fun way to kick off the holiday season before joining the Homes for the Holidays organizing committee.
This year, Knight is decorating one of the homes on Vancouver’s west side, designed by architect Peter Rose, along with her business partner Nicole Varga. Aiming for a classic Christmas feel, the two are using lots of natural, handcrafted decor elements from Indigo and Goodge Place, with floral arrangements by Jehna Chrysler of Hilary Miles Flowers, and trees from Hunters Garden Centre.
The Homes for the Holidays tour holds a special place in interior designer Gillian Segal’s heart, as it was while on the tour, and viewing one of the homes decorated by interior designer Kelly Deck, that Segal made the decision to become a designer herself.
“Homes for the Holidays is what sparked me to go to design school,” she says.
This year, Segal is opening up her own home for the tour, which will be Hanukkah focused.
A modern take on Hanukkah decor by Gillian Segal, whose home will be on the Vancouver Kids Help Phone Homes for the Holidays tour.
“I’m excited to do something different, and show people that it can be just as exciting as Christmas,” says Segal, who will feature a non traditional tree using olive branches.
“An olive tree because Hanukkah is very much about oil,” she says.
Segal says she will use also use a lot blues and silvers, but in a modern, contemporary way, with floral elements by Celsia being a key part of her overall decor.
Also included on the tour is a West Vancouver West Coast modern home with expansive views of Howe Sound. The home of fashion retailer Marilyn Diligenti, it will be decorated by interior designer Dexter Dolores.
“This home is quite nestled in the forest, amongst all this beautiful natural landscape, so we want to bring that in and take our cues from it. Lots of natural colours, materials and textures, with hints of silvers and golds, and maybe some reds.” says Dolores.
Marilyn Diligenti’s West Vancouver home decorated by Dexter Dolores for the Vancouver Kids Help Phone Homes for the Holidays Tour 2019.
Diligenti says she’s looking forward to taking part in the tour this year, both in terms of supporting Kids Help Phone and seeing what Dolores and his team do with her home.
“I like the traditional Christmas, but it’s giving me fresh eyes,” she says.
The tour runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 30 and Sunday,cxzxghjk
Dec. 1. Tickets can be purchased at kidshelpphone.ca