We all want to be the perfect host at Christmas, to create a warm, welcoming, beautiful home to cocoon treasured friends and family.
A place where guests feel truly looked after with comfortable furnishings, elegant decor and little touches designed to surprise and delight.
A place they won’t want to leave when the festivities are over.
While downstairs rooms always take up the biggest slice of decorating effort at Christmas, giving your guests a space to call their own shouldn’t be overlooked.
And although we all love the togetherness that Christmas brings, it’s always nice to take a moment to ourselves, to quietly unpack, settle in, wrap last-minute gifts and to sleep soundly when the dancing’s done.
Creating a beautiful guest bedroom shows your holiday visitors just how much they mean to you.
Holloways Interior Designer Annie Blackledge shows you how to turn your spare room into an oasis for your favourites.
Furniture
A beautifully crafted bed – the largest you can comfortably fit in the space - will always be the starting point for a stylish guest bedroom.
Upholstered or wooden headboards on a traditional frame, topped with a luxurious mattress, will help your overnight visitors sleep soundly and enjoy a much-needed lie in.
Tall headboards like this buttoned George, pictured here and in our showrooms in Harry Cloud linen, gives an opulent, boutique hotel feel.
Add textured throws - faux fur, cashmere or velvet are a particularly luxurious addition for chilly winter nights.
Shop our collection of beds, bed frames and headboards here.
Giving your house guests beautiful bedroom storage so they can comfortably unpack is a practical, yet generous touch - roomy wardrobes, chests of drawers and bedside tables are a must. And preferably not pieces that simply don't have a home in the rest of the house.
Long-lasting, well-made storage is an investment that won’t be wasted, since you can use your chosen pieces for packing away spare clothes or linen when your guests have vacated.
For pared-back simplicity which works year-round, try the Larsson collection, the wardrobe and dressing table pictured here in handprinted Antique Sea Salt.
A pretty occasional chair in fur or fabric is a homely touch, somewhere to sit and read quietly, or a handy overnight clothes horse.
It's a chance to use fabrics and colours you wouldn't use elsewhere in your interior schemes. We love the faux fur of this Fairy chair, pictured here in Wolf, or the super-tactile boucle of the Missy or Otis.
View our collection of occasional chairs here.
Bedside manners
A basket of goodies makes your guests feel loved and wanted.
A pouch of garden-grown lavender, their favourite magazines, a treasured book, a little box of homemade fudge or miniature mince pies and a spare phone charger are always so welcome. Lavender spray, to help your guests’ sleep well in unfamiliar surroundings, is a thoughtful touch.
Filling a group of vintage glass vases with sprigs of greenery - think ivy and mistletoe and spruce - from the garden will bring the outside in.
You’ll find lots of vintage-style vases and Venetian glass bottles in our gift shop.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
A mirror to get ready in – preferably full–length – will take the stress out of getting ready for the big day and frees up the bathroom for other guests.
Try the full-length Chichester tall mirror, which comes in a huge range of Neptune paint colours.
Shop mirrors here.
Bits for the bathroom
Cotton wool, a luxurious selection of miniature toiletries, slippers and a fully bath robe on the back of the door avoids the awkward dash from the bathroom to the bedroom.
A pile of white towels, beautifully folded with a sprig of garden greenery tied with ribbon on top, brings a boutique hotel touch to your guest room.
Neptune’s botanical bath and body range, beautifully branded, comes in fragrances from English Fig to Bluebell & Honeysuckle and Rosemary & Thyme. They’re all available in our Neptune store-in-store with candles and room fragrance in the same scents.
In our gift shop, you'll find Holloways new range of botanical scented candles and wax melts, along with the Bath House luxury apothecary-style bath and body collection.
Drink and be merry
A decanter of port, madeira or sloe gin, with crystal glasses, placed on a side table or chest of drawers is a generous nightcap. Fill a carafe with fresh water, and leave tumblers next to it in case the festivities make your guests thirstier than usual.
Try Neptune’s Mayfair decanter and Greenwich water jug, with matching glasses – available in-store.
Let there be light
Bedside lights and lamps create a warm and restful glow in your guest bedroom, making it look and feel so much more inviting.
Discover a huge collection of lighting in our Worcestershire showrooms, or shop online for pieces like this Brompton Table Lamp in Nickel or Antique Brass, pictured here.
Richly-scented candles – try the new Holloways range of botanical candles and wax melts, inspired by the Worcestershire countryside – create lovely pools of light.
You’ll find them in our gift shop, in fragrances including Hedgerow, Country Garden and Plum & Rhubarb along with pretty burners for long-lasting wax melts.
Tags, paper, scissors
Wrapping last-minute gifts and those you’ve run out of time to do, is always stressful, particularly when you’re away from home.
Leaving a basket of stylish wrapping paper, velvet ribbon, sticky tape, scissors and tags in your guests’ bedroom, making sure there’s a flat surface to wrap on, puts the joy back into the eleventh-hour Christmas preparations, and stops the frantic hunt for scissors when you’re trying to stuff the turkey.
You’ll find everything from baskets to wrapping paper and ribbon in our gift shop.
Looking for inspiration for your decorating scheme?
Our interior design service is free. Visit our showrooms and book an initial consultation, and our experienced, approachable design team will walk you through your project, helping you choose everything from furniture to lighting, paint colours to accessories – all designed to make your house a home.
Learn more about our FREE interior design service here or call us on 01886 884665.
