Ep. 442: Transitional Style & Holiday Decorating with Sara Hillery

How to Decorate

Caroline McDonald

Arts, Business, Design

4.4 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're excited to welcome interior designer Sara Hillery to the show! Based in Richmond, Virginia, Sara’s firm blends function with one-of-a-kind decorative pieces to create story-driven rooms. Named a "Next Wave Designer" by House Beautiful and featured in Veranda and The Wall Street Journal, Sara joins Caroline and Liz to demystify "transitional" design and share her spirited approach to holiday decorating. Sara explains how she balances antiques with clean lines to create timeless spaces, her method for editing a room like an onion, and how she reinvents her holiday decorating theme every single year. She also shares her secret for keeping Christmas trees alive and her favorite way to spark conversation at dinner parties. Quick Decorating Takeaways: Peel the Onion: When defining your style, pin up everything you love on a board, then "peel back the layers of the onion" by removing items until you reach a harmonious balance of favorite pieces. Create a "Thread" Between Rooms: You don't need to paint every room the same color, but rooms should have equal "tonal weight" and a unifying thread (like a specific welt or texture) so you can move a chair from one room to another without it looking out of place. Hydrate Your Holiday: To keep fresh greenery and trees from drying out, soak garlands in water overnight before hanging them, and add a little Miracle-Gro to your Christmas tree water to keep it fresh and prevent needle drop. What You’ll Hear on This Episode: 00:00 Introduction to the How to Decorate Podcast 01:00 Sara’s background and defining "Transitional Design" 04:00 The art of mixing clean upholstery lines with antiques 07:00 The "Onion" method: How to edit a room and find your style 11:00 Using monochromatic palettes to play with texture and scale 14:00 Connecting open floor plans without matching every room 19:00 The story behind the "Hot Pink Chairs" and lacquered ceiling 22:00 Holiday Decorating: Why Sara changes her theme every year 27:00 Using ribbon and Christmas cards on the mantle 30:00 This year's theme: Pineapples and a nod to Bermuda 36:00 Hosting tips: Pre-planned questions and dinner party quizzes 44:00 Tips for fresh greenery and using Miracle-Gro on the tree 49:00 Closing notes & where to find Sara Also Mentioned: Sara Hillery Interior Design | Website Follow Sara on Instagram: @sarahilleryinteriordesign Maymont House (Victorian Christmas Inspiration) Shop Ballard Designs Please send in your questions so we can answer them on our next episode! And of course, subscribe to the podcast in Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. You can always check back here to see new episodes, but if you subscribe, it’ll automatically download to your phone. Happy Decorating! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home.
0:09.1	I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz. I head up the creative team.
0:14.8	We're your host. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers, stylists,
0:20.9	and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each
0:24.8	episode. We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us at podcast at balderdesigns.net.
0:30.5	Now on with the show.
0:33.8	Today, we are excited to welcome interior designer Sarah Hillary to the show. Her Richmond, Virginia
0:39.0	firm blends function and one-of-a-kind decorative pieces to create story-driven rooms across the southeast.
0:45.3	She's been named an index wave designer by House Beautiful, has been featured in publications
0:49.1	like Miranda, the Wall Street Journal, and Southern Living. And today, we're going to talk about
0:53.3	transitional design, holiday decorating, and more. Sarah, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.
0:58.1	I'm excited to be here. Thank you for joining us. And I know Liz and I, Taryn's not here today,
1:05.6	but Liz and I are just loved pouring through your portfolio. And what really struck me about your rooms is that you do such a beautiful job
1:15.4	combining antiques and kind of special pieces with more clean-lined, you know, real edited rooms.
1:25.1	And it creates this real timeless space that it's just really unique but
1:32.3	it feels like it could be it have been from any decade. So I really love that about your
1:39.0	work. Thank you. Yeah, I, you know, we try to make every project unique and tell the homeowner's story. But I think, you know, somebody said, oh, all your projects look alike. And I remember going, really? I feel like they're all so different. But I guess there's like a thread of, I would say that edited sort of balance between old and new that
2:03.9	kind of runs through everything. Yeah, you know, your work starts off feeling very traditional,
2:10.6	but then you're throwing twists in there. And there's a term that you use transitional,
2:16.1	which is a design style that I think is really fantastic.
2:21.4	But do you think that you could explain it to our listeners so that they can have a better
2:25.5	understanding of where traditional starts and then where transitional picks up?
	...

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