Ideas to festive up my boring house

[hangingkebab]

Help! I live in a very ugly 70s semi and am looking for inspiration for Christmas. Last Christmas we'd only just moved in here so kept things minimal but that's not really my cup of tea.

PVC front door - how can I hang a wreath?

No windowsills or mantelpieces and door frames are flush to the walls, so no opportunities for swathes of tinsel greenery there.

I'll have a real tree, and have plenty of bookshelves and picture frames to stick holly on, but what else can I do?
So, inspire me, please! What do you do or would you do in a house like this?

Staircase garland? Use spindles to hang stockings?

Wrap stuff up the stairs? Clusters of baubles hanging from light fittings? Drape stuff over pictures?

I use this sort of thing on my front door - www.wilko.com/garlands-and-wreaths/wilko-christmas-over-door-wreath-hanger-silver/invt/0281705?nst=0&gclid=Cj0KCQiAi7XQBRDnARIsANeLIev5I7vq0s0uLzAeteSKmTQXKuVtpT2ckwxazZ1IaJ2hCkCuvqP9DPgaAnILEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

You need one of these for the wreath.

Ooh I didn't know about those door hangers. I bought two similarly weighted wreaths and I tie them together with the string resting over the top of the door. At least it looks festive inside and out!
A house nearby always puts red outdoor lights in a little hedge so that they look like berries at night. Stealing that one this yr! The idea not the lights.

How about chains of fairy lights draped everywhere a la Nigella Lawson Christmas show? It would look really pretty.

Some lovely ideas, thank you! Especially the wreath hangers, genius!

Alas, no banisters or stair spindles, but am definitely going to ramp up the fairy lightage

If you have a handrail going up the stairs, you could hang some garlands between the brackets. I did that last year and it looked really nice.
Also, i have hung (very cheap) gold christmas tree decorations over the top of a mirror.
There are lots of little churches or houses which light up inside or can have nightlights n them, look really nice on a shelf.

I bought some Christmas cushions and a few free standing decorations which I could stand next to fireplace, on shelves etc.

Never done this myself but what about baubles, pine cones or fairy lights in jars/vases/cloches that can sit on a dining or coffee table

I tie my wreath to the doorknocker. Also stops any light-fingered passer by having the opportunity to nick it (unlikely since I live in the middle of nowhere...)

Also The Range do a lot of little 'light up' battery powered ornaments, little houses and churches and things. They look great grouped together and switched on in a window/under a cloche/on shelves.

Put some really prickly holly or a nail surreptitiously hidden in your wreath to prevent thieves the cow from down the road from nicking it.

Paper chains!

I like a little Christmas tree - a live one in a lot - by my front door. I put little white lights on it on and it looks lovely.

I also love poinsettias and always have one in my kitchen.

*pot, not lot

String of fairy lights on each shelf of the bookcase

Net of fairy lights across one wall

Thanks so much everyone for the ideas - I can't believe I hadn't thought of paper chains, I used to love making those as a kid!

The wreath hanger is good, although we just have an upside-down coat hook stuck on the back of the door and hang ribbon over it, over the top of the door and down the front with the wreath. The hook stays all year though and confuses people as to why it's upside-down!

There are some nice window clings ( snowflakes or frost) try The Range or Lakeland Ltd.
I put them on the porch windows (on the outside so you see them on the way in). Not as messy as spray on snow.

I did try to grow some ivy (but failed ) so I'm going to cut lengths from the garden ivy , put it in a gold sprayed pot with an oasis and put a solar light in the middle.

One year when my DC were little we glued gold/silver stars down a length of invisible fishing wire hung from the edge of the divide between rooms.

I love the little round glass tealight baubles but they're safer with LED tealights.

Candles - look for the LED flickering flame ones. I got a large one (The Range) to go in a hurricane vase, it can have tiny baubles or holly/ivy round it as no heat.

I have a 3M stick on wreath hook on my white UPV door (I need to check its still ok for the wreath come to think of it )

Does anyone still wrap their front door in wide ribbon like a huge present? It was huge in our neck of the woods the past couple of Christmases.

I'm greatly tempted to buy this

Go OTT with fairy lights.
And get the kids it's actually only me that's interested to cut show flakes from paper for the windows.

I have this issue. Having previously only lived in Victorian & Edwardian houses, I find it difficult each year when I come to decorate. I may have hysterically declared to DH the other day that I couldn't survive another Christmas without dado rails! He pointed out that at least we were warm in this house.
I digress... my solution is to hang a lot of things in the windows. In one room I have thick cardboard Nativity figures, in another stained glass type things which the DC made, another has silver decorations and fairy lights etc. In a couple of rooms I have put nails in, in others I just use sellotape or blue tack and re-stick frequently!

Command hooks and strips are your friend. They are brilliant as long as you take them down after Christmas. We've had some up for nearly two years and they don't come off as easily, but in the short term they are excellent and genuinely don't mark.
I strongly advise against over door hangers as they damage the doors.

I have stuff everywhere!

Outside is all lit with outside lights.

I have two Christmas gnomes that sit either side of the front door.

The kitchen has coloured Val, shaped lights around both windows, the table seats have santa covers and I have a plastic (forget the proper name) Christmas table cloth.

The bathroom has a santa soap dispenser, Christmas hand towels and a Christmas bath mat.

Lounge has two large baubles on the end of the curtain pole. 6 foot Christmas tree with lights and decorations and lights on our tv unit.

I think that all.

DS wants some decorations in his room so looking at that too.

Not Val it should be ball. I also have Christmas cookie jars in the kitchen too.

Scented Christmas burners and candles as well.