How to Decorate Your Home for the Winter

Who doesn't love to come home to a warm, inviting and comfortable living room during the cold and icy winter months? This article features some great tips that will help you to create a comfortable and inviting space for you and your family to enjoy this winter.

Tip #1 - Move Your Furniture Around You can inspire feelings of warmth and togetherness if you move your furniture closer together in the room. Creating space to snuggle up, watch television or hang out by the fireplace will make the room appear much more inviting and warm without having to do much else. You can have two or more pieces of furniture face each other or arrange your pieces in a circular shape around a center focal point. Use large throw rugs underneath the furniture to help add more warmth to the room and as a means of defining space, particularly in a large-sized room.

Tip #2 - Think Layers When you go outdoors in the cold weather you put on layers of shirts, sweaters and coats. When you are indoors you can create the same effect adding layers such as window treatments, slipcovers, tablecloths and warm quilts. You can add valances to your living room windows or toss on a runner over your tablecloth that will help reinforce the holiday or season. Layering multiple towels over each other in the bathroom can create the same warm and inviting effect as well.

Tip #3 - Go Green Bring in elements from nature, as we tend to associate items from the outdoors with the sunshine and warmth of spring and summer. Add some "green" decor from the outdoors to your home wherever possible. Wooden furniture, small stones, area rugs made of bamboo - these are just a couple of ideas you can use. Adding living indoor plants to the mix that do well in colder weather will also help to fill up an empty space with something green and natural.

Tip #4 - Add Candles Create a warm glowing light and a little extra heat just by adding in a couple of candles to the room. Just light a couple of candles instead of switching on a light to create an atmosphere of comfort and romance. You can use candles as centerpieces on tables in smaller rooms. You can use candles along the walls of a much larger room to help even out the light that they give off in the room.

Tip #5 - Buy Softer Fabrics Add in some rich, thick and soft materials to the room to add warmth. Velvet, fleece, wool and cotton knits are some of the fabrics that we think about most in the winter, particularly for slipcovers or throw rugs and blankets. You can really warm up the room just by adding a simple area rug. There are a lot of new modern design area rugs that offer a thicker pile than oriental-style rugs, so choose a design that will warm up the room. Cotton area rugs or rugs made of jute will be much more budget-friendly, but will still add in a whole new layer of comfort and warmth.

Tip #6 - Gravitate Toward Warmer Colors The colors that you choose for your living room will create a visual feeling of warmth. Choose colors in the red, orange and yellow range as your dominant color choices. These warm colors are pretty strong, so your best bet is to use other more subdued colors to balance them out in the room. One example would be using blue throws or green area rugs as contrast for the strong colors, or adding in earth colors such as browns and beiges to tone it down.