Interior Design Choices For Your Home This Winter
The best way to make your home comfortable during the winter months is to shake up your interior design.
24/08/2022
It may not feel like it at the moment, but winter is rapidly approaching in the UK. By the time September rolls around, it will be time to cosy up the house and prepare for long evenings indoors. The best way to make your home comfortable during the winter months is to shake up your interior design. A few touches here and there can make all the difference, especially if you are coming in from working all day outdoors. Furthermore, you have at least six months of dark skies and cold mornings ahead so these choices will last you a long time.
Fortunately, you live in a country where interior design is mostly focused on the colder months. It seems that the UK has to experience these temperatures for most of the year. As such, you should have no trouble finding things to warm up your home. The following ideas are just some examples of interior design choices for this winter.
Lighting
One of the hardest parts of winter is that it is dark when you wake up in the morning and dark when you come home from work. In the summer, you could solve this problem by going outside and getting some fresh air. Unfortunately, the winter weather does not always provide you with this opportunity.
Studies have shown that your mental health is likely to improve when surrounded by natural light, so make sure you keep your curtains open for as long as possible. Also, try to introduce lighting that feels as natural as possible. Overhead spotlights can achieve this a lot better than standing lamps. Invest in this type of lighting where possible and you won’t even notice the darkness outside.
Warm Colours
The colours of your living space will
drastically
affect your mood. Reds and oranges
have been shown to increase tension in people,
while yellows and greens are more calming.
However, colour can also affect how you perceive
your environment.
There is such a thing as a
warm colour. For example, a deep red or brown
will evoke the feeling of warmth throughout your
home. Some professionals suggest that this
happens because of the lifelong associations we
draw from these colours. Others claim it is
because darker colours produce less light to
make us perceive the room as being smaller.
Therefore, you believe that the room is cosier.
Whatever the reason, make sure that you splash
some darker paint on your walls this year to
give your home a comforting glow.
A Fireplace
Lighting a fire in your home is an obvious source of warmth; however, there are other benefits to installing a fireplace in your home this winter. Firstly, modern fireplaces are less harmful to the environment. This means that you can keep your home warm without worrying about causing damage to the planet. Sustainable living is important, after all. Secondly, a fireplace emits a warm glow as well as the natural heat that your home will need. Therefore, you can receive the benefits of the warm colours discussed above.
You may be wondering why anyone would choose to install a fireplace when it is only going to be used for six months of the year. Wouldn’t it just sit and collect dust for the rest of the time? Not exactly.
A fireplace can act as a centrepiece for your room, even when it isn’t switched on. This means that a fireplace acts as an ornament for your home as well as a practical heating device. What’s more, modern fireplace designs aren’t likely to go out of style.
Carpet
There is nothing worse than waking up on a chilly morning and placing your bare feet down on a cold, hardwood floor. Sadly, wooden floors have become fashionable in recent years because of their modern look and how easy they are to keep clean. These are two great positives, but they aren’t useful to those trying to stay warm during the winter.
Just because you opt for carpeted floors, that does not mean that you should sacrifice style. Carpets come in a wide variety of shapes and styles, and you will find plenty of chic-looking carpets at places like Designer Carpets. Keep your feet warm and your home looking classy with the right type of carpet this year. You never know, these carpets may eventually push hardwood floors out of fashion for good this time.
Layer Up
Now that you have some cosy carpets laid down, you should aim to get the most out of them as you can. a stylish rug can really pull a room together, especially if there is a contrasting colour to clash with underneath. Unfortunately, many interior designers only choose to place down rugs on top of hardwood floors. This is no use to anyone during the wintertime.
There is no reason why you shouldn’t put down a rug on your carpet and layering up on your floor. It can help to keep some of the heat from escaping your rooms. What’s more, you can mix and match your rugs to create a unique pattern for your floors, rather than sticking with a monochrome carpet.
Change Bathroom Panels
The coldest room in your house this winter is likely to be your bathroom. This is because of the water usage in the room, and every bathroom is designed to look sterile. This means that your bathroom is likely to be coloured in shades of white or light blue. These colours make it easy to keep clean, but a pain to warm up.
There is one solution you can use to warm up your bathroom without compromising your ability to clean. The sides of your bath and sink cupboard are probably coloured to match the rest of the room. Instead, see if you can replace these with something that is a warmer, more wooden colour. It is a small touch, but wooden side panels will make a big difference when you have to get out of the shower in the winter.
Room Dividers
Room dividers are a device that has come in and out of fashion over the last hundred years. They aren’t really used much for their original function. Most people simply roll them up to fill a space in the corner of a room. While a darkened room divider will improve your interior design this winter, it does have another benefit.
The harsh winter weather forces a lot of people to spend their weekends and evenings indoors. With everyone kept under one roof for so long, tensions can run high, and families find themselves looking for some extra space to escape. A room divider can close off one section of the room to give someone that bit of room they need to destress after work or read a book in peace. It is the small things in life that make a big difference, and you will be thankful that you have some room dividers on hand during the winter months.
Natural Furniture
Once you have your surroundings set, it is time to look at how you choose to furnish your home. Look at any Christmas card or winter home catalogue and you will notice that the design team have decided to incorporate wooden, rustic-looking furniture. These choices make the room feel natural, and the natural wood can serve to warm your home.
As such, you should try and swap out your furniture to recreate this feeling within your own home. Wooden furniture is very fashionable in 2022, and it matches the sustainable look that everyone is trying to achieve. You don’t even have to buy a matching set of furniture. So long as it is constructed from a darker wood it should serve to help give your home a warm, wintery aesthetic. If you ever wanted your home to look like a winter wonderland, then natural wood furniture is the way to go.
Blankets
Like a fireplace, blankets can serve multiple functions in your living area. Having extra layers of fabric about the place adds some other colours to your room, while also layering up your furniture to make it more comfortable. On the other hand, it is always a good idea to keep a few blankets within arm’s reach, especially when you first get home from work.
Blankets come in a myriad of shapes and sizes, so you are likely to find some to fit in with your current interior design. The best ones for keeping you warm in winter are definitely the bear skin blankets or fleece materials. Also, you can always find some end tables that double as storage for when summer comes back around.
Plant Life
It is always a good idea to keep some real plants in the house. These living organisms can improve the air quality around your home, while also helping to improve your mental health. You don’t get much of an opportunity to surround yourself with nature during the winter months, so try to bring this nature indoors for the time being.
Head to your local garden centre and see if you can pick up any jasmine, violet, or cactus seeds. These are all plants that will thrive in a cooler environment, and they should just be coming into season. A few of these can make all the difference, and they will spring back up again next winter.
Marble Surfaces
Another room in the house that starts to become cooler in the winter is your kitchen. What’s more, it seems that many individuals often neglect this area when redesigning their homes. It is seen as a room with a single purpose and that is it. However, you spend more time in your kitchen than you may think, so it is a good idea to give it a once-over with some trendy marble.
Marble surfaces are extremely popular at the moment. The best part is that many households are favouring darker countertops this year. This means that you can receive all the benefits of a warmer interior while also having surfaces that are easy to wipe down. Marble is a material that adds something sophisticated to your kitchen, so try to implement it in any way you can.
Candles
A complete design overhaul in your home can prove quite expensive. All the ideas above will help but there is no need to incorporate each one if you are on a tight budget. Furthermore, there is a way to add some warmth to your home for very little money.
Candles provide both heat and light, but they have a much more important function in your home. The feeling of warmth can come from building associations, and humans form most associations from past smells. Fortunately, we now live in an age when any scent can be synthesised and placed in a candle. Place some of these around your home and you will remove the sting of winter from your home in no time. Scents like brown sugar, citrus, fig leaves, and cloves have all been proven to bring about a warm sensation in your home. Add a few of these candle smells to your home and you won’t regret it this winter.
Artistic Décor
You will find that a lot of the cooler countries choose to decorate their homes with large paintings. These are frequent in indoor areas like Norway or Finland and for good reason. Firstly, these paintings add a touch of the outdoors to your home. Secondly, it can be soothing to stare off into a painting and imagine yourself in a warmer climate. These paintings add a bit of escapism to your home until the sun comes out once again. Shop around for nature-based canvases to put up around the house to give you some optimism when the nights begin to grow dark.
Conclusion
Keeping your home warm is essential when it comes to the winter months. However, you don’t have to do this by running up a huge heating bill. Add some of the suggestions above to your interior design and you will find that winter bites a little less this year.