If you haven’t already started, then you’re most likely giving serious thought to how you’re going to decorate your mobile home for the holiday season. With all of the festivities just a few weeks away, it can feel intimidating just thinking about where each decoration will go, or how you’ll even get started.
Thankfully, this handy guide from the elves at the MHVillager is here to help. Here are some of the most important things you should know about decorating your mobile home for the holidays.
(Note: if you live in a mobile home park, make sure any holiday decorating follows your park’s guidelines).
Work In Your Seasonal Furnishings
In your home, it’s very possible that you’ll have some furnishings that you switch out depending on the season. These can include:
- Blankets
- Pillowcases
- Curtains
- Towels
- Rugs and Doormats
- Cabinet Decorations
- Countertop Decorations
- Tablecloths
- Seat Covers
Why not make some of these items holiday themed? If you have specific blankets that you use for the winter season, make some of them holiday themed for some effortless decoration! You’ll get the family more festive at dinnertime AND stay warm!
Same goes for tablecloths, curtains, doormats, and other items you tailor to the season.
The Key to Smart Tree Placement
Like many families, you may be thinking about setting up a Christmas tree in your manufactured home. Depending on what your floor plan looks like, you’ll likely have a few different options for placing your tree in an area that makes sense:
If your mobile home has an open floor plan, with large areas that blend rooms like your kitchen and living room, consider placing your tree either in the corner of your living room or near a support beam. If you go with the latter, this helps serve as an improvised “wall” that helps with traffic flow in your home – something that’s important to think about if you’re hosting family this season!
If your home has a fireplace or mantle, your tree can look great in a corner on the same wall as those fixtures. Just don’t put your tree close to the fireplace – you don’t want your ornaments to go up in flames!
Stockings Stuffed!
Stockings are a pivotal holiday decoration, and commonly hang up on the wall, on your entertainment center, or above a fireplace.
Stockings are also a highly effective storage tool for a number of different holiday odds and ends. And no, this doesn’t just include using the stockings as stuffers for small gifts for your family.
You could also use stockings to hold strands of ribbon or bows that you’ll need for wrapping gifts closer to the holidays. Not only does it look festive, but it’s purposeful, too!
Also, you can put other gift-wrapping necessities such as tape and nametags at the bottom, while the colorful flashes sit at the top.
Think About The Outside, Too!
Outdoor holiday decorating is becoming more and more popular. In fact, some communities are taking after neighborhoods and hosting decorating contests for manufactured homes!
There are two types of decorating that we’ll cover when it comes to your mobile home: lights, and inflatables.
Of course, decorating your home in lights is what most people think of when you’re decorating the outside of your home. Whether you’re hanging strings of lights around your roof or covering the entire home in a dazzling glow Christmas With The Kranks style, your mobile home can stand out from the rest with a smart, effective placement of lights.
The big thing to remember when hanging lights is safety. Don’t staple lights into your roof (we’re looking at you, Clark Griswold). Don’t hang up lights that have damaged or frayed wiring due to risk of fire. And, don’t hang up lights on your roof without the proper safety equipment, including and especially a properly-used ladder.
One idea that you should consider is decorating your windows with PVC frames that are wrapped in Christmas lights. You can measure the frame around your window, create a frame out of PVC pipes and elbows, and wrap your lights around the frame before hanging it up around or in your window. The best part about this idea is that you can keep the frames in your mobile home’s storage shed, and make decorating with your lights an absolute breeze for years to come.
Inflatables, on the other hand, can be much easier to set up. If you’ve ever seen a blow-up Santa, reindeer, or Frosty the Snowman on someone’s front lawn, then you know exactly what we’re talking about.
These are a great, fun way to decorate your lawn without tangling with lights if that’s not your thing. Here, you’ll want to make sure that you have a front lawn or yard that can mount stakes a few inches into the ground to keep the inflatable from flying away. Pair them with a snowflake light projector, and you’ll practically have a light show right in your front yard.
Hopefully some of these holiday decorating ideas put you in a festive mood to dig out the lights and start setting up your tree! If you’re looking for other ways to spruce up your manufactured home, check out this guide from the MHVillager on giving your home a new, fresh look inside and out.
