Interior: Simple winter style

Unlike some overstuffed holiday homes – mind the tangle of tinsel, heed the plastic Santas! – Lisa Besseling’s house is all about being mellow. In the entryway, pinned to the staircase by a cream-coloured ribbon, a solitary birch wreath signals the season. Similarly subdued are the Christmas gifts, simply wrapped in kraft paper and raffia string.


Homeowner Lisa Besseling
“I try to be mindful of every piece that comes into the house: Either I love it or it serves a purpose,” says the owner of Stony Lake Furniture Co., located in Lakefield, Ont., a quaint village 20 minutes outside Peterborough, where the decorator grew up. Lisa shares the 2,800-square-foot house with her boyfriend, Marlon Hazlewood, a photographer, and Owen, their Brussels Griffon, a small dog with a Marlon Brando under-bite and wispy goatee.

At one-and-a-half storeys, the home has a Scandinavian style. Awash in soothing grey and white paint, the interior’s fall-into-me furniture inspires lounging with a cup of hot tea and a book. A river runs through the backyard, and during December, when the snow settles on the tree branches, it’s like a cozy cabin retreat straight out of a travel brochure.