What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of cosy? Is it that rustic look, or is it more about that feeling you get when you step in through the front door, and it’s miserable outside, but you instantly perk up and feel warm in the very cockles of your heart? Whatever you deem to be cosy, the one place in your home that should scream cosy is your living room.
Creating a cosy environment in your living room goes a long way to creating a cosy home. It’s often thought that smaller rooms make cosier rooms, but you can make a room feel cosy regardless of the size. Here are some steps that we recommend to help transform your living room in the winter, just in time for Christmas.
4 Steps to Transforming Your Living Room this Winter
1. Making Your Living Room Appear Smaller
If you’ve got a cavernous living room, or you’ve knocked walls down to make the space bigger and create an open plan layout (like us), you can still achieve a cosy feel to the room. Painting your walls with two different colours isn’t just stylish, it is also a neat little trick to make your living room appear smaller than it is.
Another simple addition is to add bigger accessories around your room. If you’re used to having a coffee table, trading this for a large ottoman will reduce maneuverability, which could be frustrating, but helps you achieve that feeling of cosiness.
Adding some wooden furniture around your main living room can also help create a more cosy environment and help achieve a welcoming, rustic feel to the home. A few simple bits of furniture, or even upcycling old furniture can really transform your living room during the winter months.
2. Creating Those Cosy Focal Points
If you have a fireplace, but it’s out of use, then surely it’s time to get this back up to code? Ultimately, it’s one of the best ways to create a feeling of cosiness. A wood burning stove can really help to transform a room, and you can pick up some great deals on stoves for your home. If you have central heating or underfloor heating, a stove can be a real decorative feature to your room, and a real focal point as guests visit during the winter.
Perhaps you have an open fireplace in which case all you need to do is get some heat logs, put them in the fireplace, and hey presto, you’ve got a cosy focal point! Having a fireplace changes the entire feel of a room, especially during the bleak midwinter. Not to mention the fact that it’s a way to save money on your heating bill.
You can also create a focal point by investing in an electric fire or even just adding some vintage looking candles and ornaments around your fireplace, especially if you don’t regularly light it and it’s more for decoration.
Furniture can also be a great focal point in any living space. From book cases and armchairs to grandfather clocks and paintings, there is plenty of choice to accessorising your room this winter.
3. Adding Warming Layers
If you don’t have the budget to invest in changing your living room from top to bottom, you can make some simple changes to transform the look. Part of this involves looking at your space and making slight changes to the arrangement, by adding throws and pillows, or anything that puts across a cosy sensibility, like knitted blankets.
In fact, any knitted materials will work great. When you think of these chunky items, it automatically conjures up those warm and cosy feelings. In fact, layers, like throws over couches, or rugs on a hardwood floor automatically transform the space into a warm, inviting area. This gives you a starting point to develop from, where you can add layers and colours. Maybe a few scented candles, a lampshade or two in the corners of the room, and some photos around the walls can really transform your living area for very little spend.
4. Think of Your Lighting
One way to really transform a room is to think about the lighting you have. Do you opt for wall lights or go really minimal with lighting to create a more intimate environment? Lampshades and candles can also help to create a more cosy living space.
We’ve opted for minimal lighting in our main living area as the large windows allow lots of natural light in during the day. This allows us to create a much more intimate and homely surroundings during the winter evenings, as a lot of harsh light in a room isn’t something we are fans off.
Time to get Transforming
While it’s easier when you have a small living room, transforming that bigger space into something cosier requires a few little tricks, like two-tone painting, but what we have to remember to make the space more inviting is to trust our own instincts. What works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. Your home, and your living room should reflect your personality.
Have you got any tips to share when it comes to transforming your living room? Let us know in the comments section below.
Until next time, good luck getting your room looking great for the holiday season.
Helen, Nial and Lewis.
Welcome to Pikalily, an award-winning food, travel and lifestyle blog. We are Nial and Helen, a happily married couple from Northern Ireland, who share a passion for food and travel among many things. We became parents to our beautiful boy Lewis in 2017. Follow our adventures through the blog.
