French Cottage Christmas Decorating Ideas

outdoor dining table with vintage french chairs

Inspired by the Mediterranean, designer Lindsay Reid decorated her home with wicker, painted furniture, and cheerful patterns for effortlessly elegant style.

outdoor dining table with vintage french chairs

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French-Inspired Garden Dining

Camellias arch over an outdoor dining table draped with a Clarence House linen, Dahlia. "Crisp hemstitch linen napkins, candlelight, jasmine in a 19th-century bowl--these are simple and refined luxuries," Reid says. Chairs are vintage French.

a flower print under a clear glass paperweight

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Botanical Print

A book of botanical prints in designer Lindsay Reid's Pasadena living room reflects the palette of her house.

living room with ceiling fan and coral colors and wicker furniture

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Coral and Wicker

To give the living room an air of casual elegance, Reid furnished it with "unpretentious" wicker pieces, and she painted the walls Benjamin Moore's White Dove "to convey a lightness of spirit." Adding a pretty punch: garden pinks and pale greens on cushions in Kent-Bragaline Chinese Lattice, and an ottoman covered in Celerie Kemble's Betwixt for Schumacher. Greek key hurricane from Hollyhock. Tamara Clark crab print.

outside of cottage with a blue green door and a striped awning

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Cottage Living

"Our humble, charming cottage puts you at ease the minute you lay eyes on it," Reid says.

bed with green headboard and white pillows

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Casual Yet Chic

Crisp trim gives the master bedroom headboard instant elegance. Walls are Benjamin Moore's Balboa Mist.

blue and white guest bedroom with a striped rug and wallcovering

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Cool Blue Guest Bedroom

In a guest room Reid calls "an ode to my preppy upbringing and love of France," she draped a Les Indiennes Tree of Life wall hanging over an Ikea four-poster painted Benjamin Moore's Whale Grey.

pink flower in bloom

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Pink Camellias

Camellias are a favorite flower.

a textile hung above a bookcase with a red lamp on the wall in office

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Antique Pink Suzani

Another instant transformation: hanging a textile on a wall. An antique suzani adds soul and warmth to Reid's home office, painted Benjamin Moore's Gray Wisp.

yellow painted dining room with ikat seat covers

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Ikat Seat Covers

Fabricadabra's Cheeky charcoal ikat makes her heirloom Windsor chairs "look younger."

yellow dining room with blue lamps

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Yellow and Blue Dining Room

Instead of standard sconces in the dining room, she used a pair of Christopher Spitzmiller lamps on contemporary columns in front of gilded mirrors. Walls are painted Benjamin Moore Mother Earth. Aspen Iron ceiling light from Circa Lighting.

kitchen with gray cabinets and a braided rug

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Open, Gray Kitchen

Reid wanted her kitchen to be "as gracious as any other room in the house." A display of Michael Aram chargers replaced upper cabinets, and a window seat and kilim rug lend coziness. American Range.

comfortable family room with red and blue

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Easy Going

"The family room has what I'd describe as a cheerful disorder, a barefooted casualness," Reid says. "Everything is easy to live with." She mixed an oversize vintage lamp and narrow coffee table with an English roll-arm sofa in Marvic Textiles' Serafina, a chaise longue in Robert Kime's Arles, a wicker Loggia chair by Mainly Baskets, Pottery Barn's Capri lanterns, and a grouping of Sea Plant framed prints from Natural Curiosities.