home design

Winter is coming, the house is getting cold, and it’s finally time to start making moves to make the house a cosy place to come home to. With the darker nights drawing in and the harsher weather outside, you want to make sure that the drop in temperature doesn’t make you surfer on the inside. You will use over 70% of the energy consumption in your home on your heating bills, but you want to reduce this figure and still maintain the warmth in the home.

The biggest problem that you will find is that you want to keep your house warm without using ten extra radiators to drain your finances. The house needs to be comfortable and cosy when you get home from a long day at work. You need the tips below in place and you can embrace every aspect of winter without worrying about shivering your butt off just because you’re inside! With this in mind, here are some of the best tips you didn’t know you needed for the colder months!

1. Use the curtains in the house as much as possible. If your windows only have blinds, install a curtain pole and hang double lined curtains in front of them. During the day, use the heat of the sun to warm the rooms in the house with the curtains and blinds open all day. Once the evening draws in, shut the blinds and curtains to trap the heat inside. As long as you ensure that there are no gaps around the edges, you should be able to stay warm all evening.
2. Adding timers to your central heating is one of the best things that you can to prioritize your energy. You can program your boiler to turn the heating on half an hour before you wake and at a lower temperature the rest of the time, it’s cheaper to have it consistently running rather than blasting hot air at intervals. Of course, that doesn’t include when you aren’t in the house! Turn off the heating entirely or program it to be timed for when you are almost home!
3. If you have any furniture blocking the radiators in the house, move it out of the way. If you move the furniture away from the radiators, you’re going to allow the heating to circulate the room properly. You should also keep curtains and wet clothes away from the radiator, too. While clothes will dry off, you are having them absorb the heating and you will end up colder. You want to get the most out of your heat sources if you’re at home. It makes for much better comfort if you have radiators that are exposed.
4. Get up into the roof and add to your insulation up there. A lot of the heat is lost through the roof but if the attic is well insulated, you can prevent this from happening. You can have more insulation added to the space, too, that will help you to keep your heating bills much lower than you had them before.
5. Wrap yourself up in blankets and slippers, but think about how your boiler needs to be wrapped up, too. Your hot water tank needs to be as wrapped up as you need to be – the more you insulate it, the longer your water remains hot. You can upgrade the old jacket of the tank and help your home to remain warm.

6. Invest in good outerwear! It sounds rather daft, but you need to start investing in clothes for outside so that you can remain comfortable when you are on your way home. You have to consider ensuring that you need to remain warm when you walk into your house. If you spend some money on good outerwear, you should think about spending good money on a dressing gown and slippers. Ugg slippers are perfect for the winter nights, and a good, thick dressing gown will keep you warm on the inside. You need to make the right investment, though, or you will find that you will be shivering!
7. Start blocking out draughts with homemade draught excluders and DIY draught proofing with rubber seals on the doors and windows. Getting the doors and windows sealed will keep the cold out and the heat in and it’s a simple solution to a chilly problem. You need to feel comfortable and you cannot feel that way if there is a draught blowing through your house. You can do this with the upper levels of the house if you have them, and keep the bedrooms as warm as the rest of the house!
8. Add rugs in the house! You want to layer up the carpets and flooring with rugs from https://www.cowhiderugslondon.co.uk/ and feel toasty every time you walk into the house. It doesn’t matter if you already have a high pile, you can add a rug and make the room muted, pretty and warm at the same time. With the right rugs, you can make your house look beautiful at the same time as making it warmer. You’d add throws to the sofa and the bed, so adding rugs to the floor will have the same effect.
9. Get a boiler upgrade and be quick about it if you want to have it installed before the cold weather really takes hold. Boilers should last for up to ten years, so if yours is older than that it’s time to get it replaced and working well for definite in the winter. You want a boiler that works efficiently at all times.
10. Where you can, reflect the heat! Radiator panels are easy to install and cheap to buy. The heat from the radiators can then warm the rooms and not just makes the walls hot. They will always reflect the heat back to the house and that’s exactly what you need while you try to keep as warm as possible on a longer night! Take the time to try these tips and you can maintain your warmth, too.

Spending time in our garden tends to be an activity reserved for the warmer months of the year. However, with more of us spending time at home at the moment and social distancing measures in place, there is plenty of potential to create an outdoor space that can be used all year long.

Here are some ideas on how to utilise your outdoor space during winter. 

Make a cozy outdoor living space. 

The garden can be an extension of your home, creating an outdoor living room makes sense for those who choose to socialise with friends outside in the midst of the pandemic. 

Outdoor safe furniture, chairs, tables, waterproof sofas, even outdoor rugs can make all the difference when it comes to creating an inviting space. Hot tubs aren’t just for the summer, either- just make sure to have enough towels and dressing gowns to fight against the chill as you get out. 

Consider building a pergola which can provide shelter against bad weather. Don’t forget to add fairy lights as a delicate finishing touch that will bring a delightful variation to dull winter nights. 

Warm up the cockles with outdoor heating 

The winter months are cold, so going outside may not be the most appealing way to spend time. Invest in some decent outdoor heating. Standing electric heaters are a popular choice, but how about a natural feeling firepit to keep you warm in the long evenings? Bake potatoes and make s’mores for a bit of added fun. 

Give your garden a trim 

The winter is the perfect time to trim back on the bushes and trees that need a little bit of attention to keep them thriving. You can trim your own bushes and shrubs, but you may need to call in the services of a local tree company to keep them in check. Winter is a notorious time for trees to become damaged by the weather, so an expert eye will be able to show you what’s what.

In addition, the best part of having wood trimmings is being able to use them for your DIY projects. Think flower beds and garden chairs made from the logs of your trees– truly unique furniture for your garden. 

Attract local wildlife 

Winter is a difficult time for wildlife as many of their food sources are frozen up from the cold. During the winter months, wild animals and insects make home on piles of leaves and logs, tree bark and compost heaps. While some animals hibernate or migrate in the winter, others don’t, so it’s important to try and protect them as much as possible when food can be in short supply. So now would be the time to use garden cuttings as a safe habitat for them. Make a ‘bug hotel’ with twigs and sticks, allowing moss to grow there as a safe haven for bugs. Leave plenty of nuts and seeds for birds and squirrels, too.

What is your favorite way of spending time outdoors in the winter? How do you prepare your garden for the winter months? 

Looking after your home is a must because we all spend so much time in our own homes, it’s good to maintain them. Cold spots are something that can often appear around the home when the house is perhaps compromised in some way that it’s leaking out the hot air and letting the cold air in. So with that said, let’s look at some helpful tips to keep cold spots at bay in your home.

Heat Up Your Floors

Floors are often quite cold if you’ve got plenty of wooden or tiled flooring in your home. This can tend to trap cold air in the material itself and therefore makes it feel cooler. Underfloor heating can be very useful although it can be costly if you’ve got vast amounts of floor space to cover, especially when you start using it regularly. However, it’s certainly a worthy investment worth doing and can be helpful for any future homeowners who buy your home. It can add value to your property, and it can provide a welcome boost of warmth during those times of the year where the cold might be seeping through your winter socks. Whether you’re heating your bathroom floors or focusing on the wooden floor in your bedroom, consider this as an option if available and affordable for you.

Keep Doors Closed

Leaving your doors open can leave a lot of air to travel throughout the home, and that’s not always warm air. If you’ve got doors open, then you’ll likely find parts of the home start getting colder as a result. If you’re spending most of the day or evening in one or two rooms, then it’s worth keeping them closed where you can in order to conserve the heat within the space, including any body warmth you and your household are producing.

Use Draft Excluders Where Needed

Draft excluders are worth having when it you’re trying to block out any cold air that’s seeping in from your doors. Hopefully, you don’t get much in the way of cold spots around your front and back doors as hopefully they’re pretty well sealed. However, it’s worth putting draft excluders at the bottom of any cold spots within the internal doors to help keep the heat in and the cold air out. They’re very easy to use and you can also have ones that attach to the door too if necessary.

Keep Windows Sealed Up

Windows are probably the most vulnerable areas of your home when it comes to cold spots because there are glass panes that feature throughout the home. These aren’t as thermal as a brick wall or door, and so you might expect some cold spots in this area. It’s worth making sure your windows are well sealed and that you’re windows are either double or tripled glazed. It can sure make a big difference to how the space feels when it comes to the temperature.

Cold spots are common in homes, but the more you do to remove them, the better.

When it comes to houses, we all have things we like. For some people, it’s a big garden and plenty of space for keeping animals. For others, it’s one of those wine cellars bored into the kitchen floor. 

But it turns out that certain features are more popular than others. In this post, we take a look at the additions that homeowners are craving the most in 2020.

Patio

According to data from real estate companies, more than 87 percent of buyers want their new home to feature a patio. The reasons for this differ, but it mostly comes down to the desire for outdoor living space. Homeowners want to be able to entertain their guests in the garden in the spring and summer. And they don’t want to have to host their parties on muddy grass – only solid brickwork will do. 

Ceiling Fans

Ceiling fans are usually just an afterthought. But if you take a look at today’s market, they play an important role in deciding comfort levels in an interior.

Ceiling fans aren’t actually that cheap, with prices ranging into thousands of pounds for some varieties. However, they are very beneficial during the warmer months of the year, especially when used in conjunction with an air conditioning system. 

Traditionally, most homes didn’t feature HVAC. But given the sweltering summers we’ve had recently, the market is changing. People are beginning to realise that their families need systems that both heat them in the winter and cool them in the summer. At the moment, most climate control is lopsided. 

Garage Storage Space

When people commission builders to construct new homes for them, many are asking for additional garage space to store all their stuff. Families especially need lots of room to keep bicycles, toys and other items that otherwise clutter up the house. 

Garage space, though, is at a premium. Architects designed most properties with garages that had just enough room to fit a vehicle – no more. And that means that the actual area available is much smaller than it otherwise might be. 

Exterior Lighting

The appeal of exterior lighting is obvious: it deters criminals, and it makes your property appear more attractive. Today, it’s pretty cheap too. Thanks to LED technology, the cost of running systems is considerably lower than it was in the past. Plus, new mounting mechanisms are taking the work out of the process, leading to vastly lower labour costs. 

You can place exterior lighting wherever you like. Some homeowners use it to illuminate their windows and doors, making them appear more attractive at dusk and dawn. Others are using them to light outdoor spaces. Just try to place lights away from bedroom windows as this can affect how you sleep. 

Walk-In Pantry

The walk-in pantry has been on people’s wish list for some time. It makes storing and finding ingredients infinitely easier than keeping everything in cupboards and drawers. Plus, you can store more food at eye-level, making it easier to grab when you are cooking a meal.  

With another lockdown looming, the prospect of spending more time at home may be filling you with dread. If this is the case, then you have a little bit of time to make your home more comfortable. It’s somewhere you need to be happy spending time somewhere that will make you and your family feel good and positive and somewhere cozy and inviting. So how can you go about this?

Eliminate Clutter

Getting rid of your clutter is a big step to making your home more comfortable because if you have too much stuff, then it can become very stressful. So take the time to go through each room and go through your things and ask yourself if each thing has a purpose or does it make you happy. If the answer is no, then get rid of it. Don’t just throw it out though, if it is something that can make someone else happy, then donate it. 

Start At The Very Beginning…

…it’s a very good place to start. Once the clutter is gone and you can see what you have left, then do a walkthrough of your home and start from outside the front door. It’s not long until Christmas, so perhaps you can think about putting a wreath on your door, or if you’re not ready for that yet but want to do something, then maybe paint your front door a bold and bright colour. 

Give A Lick Of Paint

You don’t need to fully decorate your house, but you can certainly freshen up your house with a fresh coat of paint. If you want to go for new colours and a nice change then go for it, it can make a huge difference to your home. 

Get The Temperature Right

Having your house too cold can make you feel grumpy, having it too hot can make you irritable, and while it’s good to open the windows to get some fresh air in, it’s cozy and warm to get the fire on, and if you can’t get the balance perfect then a split and ducted air conditioning installation might be your answer so that you can get it just right. 

Add Pictures And Personality

If your walls are looking bare, then surround yourself with photos or pictures of things that you love. It could be people you love, posters that you can frame, or artwork. 

Add Fresh Flowers

You can forget how lovely fresh flowers are in your home if you don’t have them often, but they really can make you feel good, they look good, and they smell good too. Also, if your clutter is gone, then fresh flowers are a lovely centerpiece in your lounge or kitchen.

Make the House Smell Good

Cooking can make your home smell lovely as can flowers, but you could also get some nice scented candles to add to the ambiance of your home. They look nice and cozy, but they also smell great.

Get some comfy pillows.

Cushions and pillows are not only good for your couch, but they’re great for beds and chairs too. They make your home look and feel comfy as well as stylish and warm.

You’ve got the money and started improving your home. Suddenly,  disaster strikes without warning. Has the roof fallen in? Is the contractor a cowboy? No. It’s worse than that because you’ve run out of money halfway through. There are weeks of building left and tens of thousands of pounds to spend before you can enjoy what you’ve created.

It’s the worst-case scenario for property owners as it leaves you in limbo. It’s not as if you can move in, but you can’t leave it to waste money, either. For those who feel like they’re at their wit’s end, here’s what you should do.

Boost Your Budget

The simplest-yet-hardest solution is to boost your budget. Even if you don’t have the funds to complete the project, you can focus on the essentials. Your first port of call should be your lender if you’ve taken out a loan. If they don’t bridge the gap, credit card and payday loans companies could help you raise the cash, as long as you understand your exposure. Or, if you’re lucky, the bank of mum and dad could save the day yet again. Every person’s initial reaction is to say they can’t raise the money, yet you will find suitable revenue streams when you explore the options.

Prioritise Work

Unfortunately, your earning power and savings are limited. As a result, you can’t find a significant amount of money to add to your budget, which means you need to try a different avenue. The best compromise is to rank the work based on its importance. You can then channel the resources to the features that require completing asap, while the rest of the house takes a back seat. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than having a room or property with no running water or electricity!

Find A Coping Mechanism

A coping mechanism isn’t what you want, but it’s what you have, so there’s no point in being angry. Instead, you should think clearly and create fixes to problems that already exist. An excellent example is to set up a pantry area if the kitchen resembles a warzone. At least you can store food and prepare it elsewhere in the house if you move the microwave to another part of the property. Also, if the gas is connected, you should be able to use the hob. You won’t have the oven, yet it’s possible to get by without it.

Rent It Out

Real estate investors want everything to be perfect before they list the property with an estate agent. After all, it’ll demand a higher rental value if it’s flawless. However, as long as the major work is done, there’s nothing wrong with finding tenants. Just list it as an unfurnished flat or home, and inform them that they have to bring their own. The rental price might drop, but it’s better than leaving the building to its devices while the mortgage eats into your emergency fund.

What should you do when you run out of money mid-renovation? Don’t panic because there is always an answer.

Hygge, a Danish word meaning ‘a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that embodies a feeling of contentment or wellbeing’ – something we should all embrace in the current climate! Not only have temperatures started to plummet, but we are dealing with heightened levels of anxiety and stress while having to spend more time than ever inside our homes. It is more important than ever to look after our wellbeing and try our best to feel relaxed, so hygge proof your home this Winter with these top tips from our experts, and reap the rewards!

1. Enjoy the simple pleasures

Simple pleasures are subjective to everyone of course, so take a minute to think about the small things that make you happy. This might be reading a few chapters of your favourite book, painting your nails, or indulging in one of your favourite foods – chocolate is a good place to start! Nutritionist Cassandra Barnes explains: “Go for quality dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa solid, such as Ombar raw chocolate) as it contains the potential to relax you, intoxicate you and give you sheer pleasure. This is thanks to it providing us with tryptophan, a great relaxation chemical, helping quell any anxiety”. Try the newest edition to the Ombar family, Centres Hazelnut Truffle; a delicious creamy filling encased in 60% vegan chocolate. (£2.99 for 70g bar, Whole Foods). 

2. Be present and thankful 

Isabella Venour, Mindset Coach & NLP Practitioner (www.mind-style.com) says: “We spend the majority of our time thinking about moments we can no longer control (the past) or about experiences that haven’t happened yet and may never happen at all (the future)! While it’s important to learn from our past and keep an eye on our future, it’s only when we live in the present moment that we’re really experiencing life.

“To practice being present, I recommend these three simple steps:

• Take three deep breaths with equal counts in and out
• Notice how you’re feeling, what you can see, hear and smell
• Ask yourself what one thing are you grateful for today?”

3. Don’t stress

Granted, this is a lot easier said than done, especially in the current climate, but taking a few simple steps to help find your inner zen could be just what you need. Incorporating a high-quality CBD oil into your everyday life could help you to feel less stressed, Nutritionist Fiona Lawson comments: “The Cannabis sativa plant, from which CBD is extracted, has been used medicinally for thousands of years. In fact, records suggest that it was a valued pain reliever in ancient China. Today, modern science is uncovering how CBD can help to support the body. Although more research is needed, preliminary studies suggest that CBD can help to improve sleep, as well as reduce social anxiety. It may even help people to give up smoking”. Using a high-quality CBD oil such as CannabiGold Terpenes+ (£24.99 for 250mg, cannabigold.co.uk), will help to maximise these desirable outcomes. Nutritionist Alix Woods comments on the benefits of the added terpenes in the CannabiGold formula: “By adding terpenes to the CBD oil, the result is a more targeted and therapeutically beneficial cannabis formula which can help you meet a need state like calm, relief, and bliss.”. Give it a try and see if it works for you!

4. Bring the outside inside

There may not be a lot of green outdoors through the Winter months, but that shouldn’t stop you from getting indoor plants to bring the feel of the outdoors into your house. The same also goes for wood accents such as wooden floors, furniture and even decorations; they all help us to feel closer to nature and evoke a sense of calm! 

5. Go crazy with candles!

It’s no secret that we all love a scented candle or two, but to maximise that hygge feeling in your home this Winter, the more candles the better! The glow of candles creates the perfect atmosphere, lifting spirits by casting a warm light on an otherwise dull Winter evenings. There is nothing more enticing than a room lit by candlelight!