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PHOTOS: Party Pics from the 2025 Western Living Design 25 Awards Party
Announcing the Winners of the 2025 Western Living Design 25 Awards
WL Design 25 Winners 2025: Curves Ahead
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Aly Velji's winning home this year.
Many thousands of votes later, the people have spoken: “Holiday Magic” from Alykhan Velji Designs is our 2020 WL Home of the Year!
you've a very lucky client when your interior designer not only designs your home, but also comes back to help you put together your own holiday lookas designer Alykhan Velji and his team did for these homeowners in Calgary. Velji and senior designer Katie Nelson worked with Alloy Homes to craft the interior design and build of this home in the city's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood for a family of three back in 2019, and then returned in time for Christmas to give it a little warm holiday flair.
The holiday decor riffs on the home’s design itself, where Velji’s team played with soft pastels against a black and white palette with marble accents. A strong midcentury influence is seen in the asymmetrical black millwork mantel, and the reupholstered dining chairs in pale pink and grey fabric.
The holiday decor plays off the casual sophistication of the space: peach, blues and mint greens that hint at its midcentury style, with a bit of black in the mix. You don't see a lot of black when it comes to holiday decor,” notes Velji, “but we thought it would be an interesting add-on, and create a bold statement. Something totally different.
Velji is a fan of using both silver and gold in a decor mix, and you'll see that throughout, too. Really, his philosophy on combining these two metallics might well serve as his overarching concept for this holiday designand the design of the whole home itself. So many people are stuck on using gold or silver, he says. But the mix makes it all so much better.
Congrats to Aly Velji and his team at Alykhan Velji Design for winning our 2020 WL Home of the Year! And thanks to our sponsor, Pacific Art Stone, for their support of the program.
Scroll through the pics below to see the rest of of the space, and read more about the home here.
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