Home trimmed for a holiday tour

In three hours, more than 100 people were coming to Julie Overbye Ledy's Roseville home for a fundraising cocktail party.

After that, she was expecting about 300 more people to come tromping through her house as part of a holiday tour.

Most people would be holi-frazzled, but not Ledy.

"I have four children and two dogs and other things have happened in my life that are a lot more stressful," she said. "So for me this is fun and I enjoy it."

For the Holiday Rose Home Tour, a benefit for Friends of Roseville Parks held in mid-November, Ledy's Cape Cod style home on Lake Owasso was beautifully decked -- from the lower level rec room to the master suite.

Ledy, a professional home stager and real estate agent for Edina Realty, didn't fill every corner with holiday decor herself. For the tour, she had the help of several local professionals who decorated the living room tree, dining room table and den.

Ledy designed, shopped for ornaments and trimmed nine of the 12 Christmas trees herself -- all in one week.

• For a pro-style tree. Choose a theme, such as snowflakes, and a limited color palette and repeat it throughout the tree. Pick ornaments in different shapes and textures. Her den tree is trimmed with white and silver birds, silver pine cones and tiny silver balls.

• Creative continuity. If you have an open floor plan with spaces flowing into one another, repeat the color palette and use similar elements in each room to tie them together. Ledy used shimmery silver, gold and champagne in her living and dining rooms.

• Proper topping. Wrap wired ribbon around the tree or make a bow at the top of the tree and let the ribbon flow down the sides.

• Theme rooms. Her son's room carries out the "vintage Santa" theme with pillows, little log cabin, wood-cut Santas and vintage area rug.

• Color play. Repeat color accents already in the room. She decorated a silver tree with teal ornaments in her daughter's teal and black bedroom.

• First impression. Ledy cuts branches from spruce trees, sticks them in pots by the front entry and adds twigs, pine cones, ribbon and lights.

• Kids' choice. "Kids love having a tree in their room," she said. "You can get one for under $20 and let them decorate it any way they want."

Lynn Underwood • 612-673-7619