Plan now to get your home ready for the holidays

Nobody likes to talk about the holidays months before they get here. But if you want to update your house for this year’s late fall-early winter entertaining season, you can’t afford to wait until it feels more seasonable.

If you’re planning to order furniture or reserve rentals, be aware that popular items can already be spoken for if you wait too long.

“People need to start considering it a lot earlier,” Ryan Winder of Jabara Carpet Galerie said of ordering flooring. Some customers will come in the week before Thanksgiving wanting new flooring installed by the holiday.

“Typically, that’s not possible,” Winder said. “Now, if they come in the week before Thanksgiving and want it by Christmas, that’s more doable.”

Still, Winder recommends buying carpet or other flooring and scheduling installation six to eight weeks before the holidays. Other times of the year, when demand is not as strong, three to four weeks usually is enough, he said.

Furniture deadlines are even earlier, said Nancy Elpers, a designer at Horton’s Furniture. This time of year brings a big influx of new pieces and upholstery to the store, she said, so the selection of what you can buy immediately off the floor is great. But if you come in wanting an item you’ve seen, say, online and the store doesn’t have it in stock, expect it to take 10 to 12 weeks to come in before the holidays, Elpers said.

“It used to be four to six weeks, then it was six to eight weeks, now it’s 10 to 12 weeks,” Elpers said. The biggest surge, naturally, is in dining-room furniture, she said.

“The one thing I always suggest is to paint the walls, clean the carpet before adding furniture and decorating. You don’t want to tear anything up when you start decorating.

“Always plan sooner, because things happen,” such as delays in shipping, Elpers said.

If you decide to rent furniture, dishes, linens or decorations rather than buy them for the holidays, the earlier you make your selections, the better your selection will be.

If you’re thinking of changing up your flooring, a carpet trend that is hot now is big, bold, colorful patterns, Winder said. People usually go for nylon carpeting because it’s so durable, but softness is picking up in importance, he said. In that category, DuPont’s Triexta is the softest.

For hard flooring, luxury vinyl flooring is big, Winder said. It can go anywhere in the house, because it can handle water and heavy traffic. It can look like wood planks or stone tiles and can be grouted or not.

This story was originally published September 13, 2014 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Plan now to get your home ready for the holidays."