If you've never been inside Santa's workshop, Dallas designer Jennifer Houghton wants to take you there -- without the expense of traveling to the North Pole.
Her 5 bedroom, 9 bathroom University Park home is dripping in Christmas decorations, and not the kind pre-assembled stuff you buy at a craft store. Houghton has commissioned slip-covers for her chairs and placed more than 1,000 ornaments on her 12 trees with 15,000 lights. She hung her eight stockings. With care!
Really, there needs to be a special hall of fame for designers who do Christmas like this:
Houghton has five children. So how, oh how, did she find time to give several rooms in her home a complete makeover? "Decorating for the holidays is a family affair," she says. "We all pitch in! I also have a dear helper-elf friend who comes a couple days to help me with the big items." It takes her three weeks.
She designed the Tiffany blue foyer with snowflakes and snowmen (which, surprisingly, includes plenty of items from Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby). Then there's the candy land Christmas family room teeming with faux lollipops and gingerbread houses; the peppermint wonderland in the kitchen; and a pink and white Christmas motif in the piano room.
In the offseason, the Christmas decorations live in a specially-built storage room in the garage. It's full: "I do just as much for Halloween, Valentines and Easter," she says.
Check out this seriously Christmasy Dallas home:
All photos by Alison Worthen. Find more photos and info on turtlecreeklane.com.
