Decorator gets creative at holidays
From the front lawn to the exterior of the Haney's home and through the entire first floor, Betty-Anne, an interior designer, has adorned the home's everyday scene, with creative holiday accents.
And one of the main reasons she does it is for her husband Bill, a manufacturing representative, and their children Ryan, 16, and Jillian, 14.
"I think being creative is really important no matter what it is," Betty-Anne said. "It doesn't matter if it's decorating a house or taking care of a yard or keeping a mailbox nice."
As a woman who works out of her home, through her design business, Subtle Aspects Interiors, Betty-Anne says being creative also adds to the year-round atmosphere of a home.
"It helps you raise the kids, it gives you a focus of staying at home, being with them, giving something nice to your family," she said. "It's important."
Betty-Anne's children offer testimony to her philosophy in their view of her efforts.
"Most people just do what's standard, and she goes above and beyond and never ceases to amaze me," Ryan said.
Noting that Betty-Anne's seasonal touches help to set the mood of the holiday, Jillian says, "She works really hard at it. One day I just come home and there's like so much stuff decorated. She does it with Halloween and every holiday, too, but really Christmas."
The Christmas decor begins outside with a simple, but inviting scene of two grapevine reindeer and a white sleigh in the large circular front lawn garden.
The vast exterior of the home serves at the backdrop for the scene, with white candles illuminating every window, festive wreaths and swags adorning front doors, and white-lighted Christmas-tree shaped evergreens all along the way.
The outdoor wreaths and swags were custom made by Betty Ann, as were all the holiday accents throughout the home, following two of Betty-Anne's basic holiday design principals.
Abiding by the first principal, Betty-Anne utilizes everyday items of the home to create her holiday accents, avoiding the need to bring out so many holiday items each year, and keeping the task of decorating as simple as possible.
In creating the holiday accents, Betty-Anne, a member of the Association for Botanical Artists and a member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, always strives to include botanical items in her displays. One way she does this is to enhance artificial greenery, berries and so forth, with fresh greenery, berries and other botanical items.
In the front foyer, Betty-Anne has done this with several displays, featuring the type of swags she creates every year to adorn the oak bannister and white spindle railings of the stairway and balcony.
For these swags, she has combined real grapevine, pine cones, ivy and holly to an artificial base of greenery.
For special accents to the swags, she has added a cream-colored organza ribbon, raffia balls, which she spray-painted gold and then glitterized, sphere-shaped ornaments, which she glazed in a shade of roseberry, and several replicas of grasshoppers, butterflies and other insects in a variety of materials.
To give a fresh scent to it all, as she does with many of her displays, Betty Ann has also woven fresh cinnamon into the swags.
As one of the ways in which she utilizes everyday items, Betty Ann has adorned the Bombay chest along the stair wall by placing holiday items among the existing items both on the chest and the floor.
Santa collection
Such items include an antique gold tray filled with different types of berries and mosses, as well as a botanical violet. Behind the tray she has placed a few of the many German Belschnickel Santa figures that the family collects. On the floor, set against the staircase, tall antique bronze candle holders that year-round display white candles, now display burgundy candles, and white poinsettias are set next to them in stone vases with greenery and glitter.
There are several other holiday accents in the foyer, as well as the adjacent living room and study, but the most impressive holiday scene is at the back of the home, where the view spans 63 feet all at once from the dining room on the left through the kitchen and into the family room.
Throughout this view, Betty Ann has created a display of holiday accents in a coordinated color scheme of cream, gold and green, with touches of other color here and there.
In the dining room, where an oak floor continued from the living room, she has placed a display of greenery, ivy, pine cones and organza ribbon on the two-tiered brass chandelier that hangs from a white ceiling medallion.
In between the everyday items on the sideboard, she has interwoven greenery, gold-glittered pine cones, tiny ornamental gift boxes and berries - just a few things to add a little sparkle from the light, she says.
Among the various displays in the kitchen, where a beige ceramic tile floor is complemented by white custom cabinets and ivory quartz countertops, Betty-Anne has adorned the wide ledge above the stove, the wide ledge of the triple casement window and the countertop below.
Amid more German Santas, an ivy topiary, ribbons, greenery and ornaments, she has placed in decorative glass containers the greenery of bulbs, such as paperwhite narcissuss and hyacinth, which she is forcing for Christmas blooms.
But, the highlight of the entire 63-foot scene, is in the 18- by 20-foot sunken family room, where Betty-Anne has adorned the fireplace, with a variety of ornamental and botanical accents on its marble hearth and white mantel.
She has also adorned the brass wall sconces in between the mantel and the tall casement windows with basket displays of eucalyptus and white pine.
In the corner of the room near its step-down entrance, the family tree is decorated with a mixture of ornaments and family treasures from many Christmases. The items are numerous and make for a tree chock full of trinkets, such as Ryan's Red Sox and Patriots ornaments, and Jillian's tiny mouse ornament.
Despite the enormous amount of decorations, including organza ribbon and gold metallic garland, Betty-Anne has managed, as she has everything else in the home, to make the tree look softly festive and elegant.