2018 Holiday Tabletops – A Texas Christmas and Baccarat’s Table

Design House was so honored to host Baccarat, the renowned French manufacturer of fine crystal, with their own tabletop this year, which also revealed their fall collection. The President, Jim Shreve, was present to talk with everyone about the glamorous silver and crystal table. His goal is for people to use it every day and not just put it on display. To make that task easier, he explained how you can put the crystal in the dishwasher. The secret is to not let the pieces touch because this can cause chipping.  Shreve also advised using a dishwashing detergent that does not have any citrus added since this causes etching.

Among the oh-so-many beautiful pieces they introduced was a greyhound dog and a cat. These approximately two feet tall items looked almost like ice sculptures. Another interesting item was the acrylic plateau box used to elevate the dog and a huge vase. The interior of the box was filled with broken Baccarat pieces from the Baccarat Hotel in New York. These pieces were discovered in storage bins in the back of the hotel. I guess they just couldn’t put the broken pieces in the dumpster! Thankfully they kept them to be repurposed and recycled into beautiful plateaus.

The Design House 2018 Holiday Tabletop

Most people, when doing their tabletops, will probably do as we have to do in our showroom – use what you have to begin with. We used what table and chairs we had in stock, and combined the best suited lighting we had to start. This year with our theme, we ordered some fabric with a magnolia design to make slipcovers for some existing host and hostess chairs from our LeFevre collection. The most appropriate table we had was long, but not really wide, so the centerpiece needed to be narrow, but dramatic. The first thought we had was to use an antique trough that was carved out of a tree trunk to hold a lush display of florals down the center of the table. Well, this perfect trough was too long, and we couldn’t find another trough narrow enough to use, so we used a gutter with end caps, made to size. You could say our showroom went from Baccarat to the gutter! The gutter was filled with oasis floral foam and covered with moss to hold the maximum amount of florals. Then, we were off to the cooler to see what florals were available, along with another trip to prune some magnolia trees!