Home Decor Ideas & Inspiration
Warm up to winter
Ready your home for the winter months with cosy everyday upgrades that’ll give you comfort in the cold
With new-season TV lined up on the player, salads giving way to stews and soups, and cashmere and fleece back in rotation in your wardrobe, it’s time to think about entering hibernation mode. Yep, as winter approaches, so does the call to cosy up on the sofa with the curtains drawn.
Add a few soft textures, furnishings in richer hues and a scattering of personalised luxuries and, instead of dreading the long cold nights, you’ll revel in them as you retire to your retreat to recharge. Here are our top eight tips for rediscovering the joys of staying in.
1. Create a reading corner
With both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Booker Prize being announced in autumn, you’ll probably have a bestseller on the go RN. Take your reading experience to the next level with a quiet corner for hunkering down. Make sure there’s plenty of natural light – or a reading lamp, especially if you’re reading in bed. For awkward spots with no plug nearby, we now stock portable lamps that are rechargeable to give you hours of cord-free light with each charge.
2. Add layers
There’s something inherently soothing about blankets and throws. Drape a few over your bed, style one on your sofa or start an inviting pile ready for movie nights. Piglet in Bed and Bedfolk have luxury linens to die for in natural fabrics such as cotton or wool, but synthetic fleece has its place too – it’s crazily soft and warm, and washes like a dream.
3. Unwind with scent
Leave citrus and floral scents for spring and summer and instead lean into warm berry or rich oudh candles to set a cosy olfactory scene come evening. Jo Malone’s range of charity candles (with 75% of sales going to the Shining A Light On Mental Health Foundation) are as beautifully packaged as they are scented, with gooseberry in particular striking an unexpectedly autumnal note. As we get nearer to Christmas, look for diffusers or candles with a heart of cinnamon, ginger or pine. On a budget? Scent your whole home with this stovetop pot pourri.
4. Hang art you love
Surround yourself with artwork and images that make you smile. Print out phone snaps, do a doodle and frame it (or if your children are bringing artworks home from school, have a selection mounted), or remember a gallery trip with a print. Even just moving pictures around for a change of scene can be refreshing.
5. Set up a creative space
Even if you’re not working from home, create an area to help you feel inspired. Start a daily journal, noting down five things that make you feel happy, revisit a lapsed hobby, write letters to friends or start that novel you always planned to write…
6. Take up a hobby
Why not carve out time to embark on a small project, like knitting, embroidery or macramé? Craft is known to reduce stress by 88%. Alright, we made that bit up, but it feels like it when you calm your mind with busy hands and create something beautiful. Do it to some of your favourite music and lose yourself in the task.
7. You do you
Update a bare corner with a cluster of accessories. Walk around your home and pick out your favourite things, arranging them to create a vignette where you can appreciate them most. Lean frames of different heights on a sideboard, re-plant supermarket bulbs in a pretty pot, or decant taper candles into an empty vase for a quick update.
8. Turn in early
The control centre of your cosy universe is your bed. So now’s the time to consider whether you need to invest in a new frame. Fabric headboards make reading or watching a box set from bed an act of self-care in itself, and many come in an array of colours to fit with your scheme. If you want a quicker update, a mattress topper can transform the warmth or comfort of your existing mattress, or indulge in a heated blanket if you feel the cold.
