Are you wondering how to make your home feel cozier this winter?

With the large possibility of an upcoming winter in lockdown for many, the prospect of a cozier home may be gaining an appeal. Given the amount of time people spend at home to begin with, we each owe it to ourselves to make the places we live as comfortable as possible by trying to make our homes feel cozier.

You may be a first-time homeowner wondering how to give a brick and mortar place more personality and feel like home. Maybe you’ve been renting for some time and would like to make your home a little more inviting. You might think that cozy homes are expensive homes, and are worried it costs too much.

You might have invested time and money in decorating your home, yet something doesn’t feel quite right. That “feeling of coziness” somehow isn’t there. When you search for cozy homes on social media, none of the pictures that you see quite matches yours.

Trying to Find a Cozy Home

I’ve changed homes quite often while living in China. Some of the homes felt cozier than others. They naturally radiated with warmth. I’d feel more inspired to decorate my home, cook, and invite friends to spend time together. Though with other apartments I didn’t feel that vibe.

When living in a major city, in my case Beijing, it can be hard to make the place you live feel like home. Life here is fast-paced. There is rarely time to do any of the things necessary to transform an apartment into a home.

Take cooking for example. In order to catch up with the fast-paced rhythm of life, it is often more practical to order in than to cook at home.

Another thing that has prevented me from investing time into decorating in the past is the fact that rent often goes up yearly, meaning that I have had to move frequently to maintain my cost of living.  It is hard to get inspired under those circumstances.

I thought of my apartments as just places to sleep, until we had to spend almost the entirety of 2020 in lockdown.

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How to Make a Home Feel Cozier Without Blowing the Budget

Having a cozy place where you feel like you are at home is important. You might think that you need to have a background in interior design and home décor, or that the level of coziness you desire can only be achieved with a big budget.

Expensive doesn’t necessilary mean cozy.

Cozy is a feeling. When you’ve entered a cozy home, you’ll feel the coziness surrounding it.

I was able to recognize that vibe of coziness while browsing through Instagram photos. I knew the feeling, though I wasn’t aware that the Danes have coined a term for it.  They call it “Hygge”. The Danes seem to know the secret to cozy.

Hygge: The Lifestyle of Coziness 

Pronounced “Hoo-ga”, Hygge is a lifestyle concept that loosely translates as a sense of comfort, togetherness, and well-being. It is the pursuit of happiness by finding enjoyment in the simple pleasures of everyday life.

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The trend is defined by a minimalist decor style and the idea of enjoying the simple creature comforts of home that make us feel happy and content.

Hygge originated out of the need to make the cold and dark Danish winters more enjoyable. Since the Danes spend most of the dark winter hours at home, the hygge sentiment is heavily present in their homes as it makes them feel cozier.

They create a cozy atmosphere in their homes by introducing warm colors, candles, lights and blankets to make it feel more comfortable.

A cozy home is the happiest place to be spending quality time with friends and family.

You know that you’re feeling the cozy vibes when you snuggle up on a cozy nook during the crispy dark mornings and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate while reading a book from the comfort of your home.

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How to Make Your Home Feel Cozier With Touches of Hygge

Hygge is not an expensive lifestyle and can even be done on a shoestring budget. You might be surprised that some of the things necessary for adding hygge to your home might already be lying around.

Declutter

The first step to making your home feel cozy is to declutter. Things that you’ve been gathering through the years, including all the swag that comes from being a brand member hoping that you’ll use it one day hardly makes any place cozy.

People get emotional when it comes to parting with old things. That’s the best formula for attracting clutter in your home. Think about decluttering as a way of making space for the new things you can buy, that your home needs.

Use woven baskets to store things lying around or on some of your most prominent furniture. By choosing a rustic or vintage style and warm colors, baskets can add a great touch of coziness to your home.

Repaint Your Walls Using Warm Neutral Palette for Creating a Cozy and Inviting Home  

The easiest way to make a home feel warm and inviting for the lowest cost is to repaint the walls.

A neutral color palette and minimalism are key to the Scandinavian aesthetic. A minimalist decor reflects the idea of enjoying the simple things in life from the comfort of our homes. It is simplicity that makes us feel happy and content.

Using warm neutral paint color when paired with subtle warm undertones creates a warm, welcoming and comforting atmosphere in your home that stimulates relaxation.

A versatile neutral palette will make your home feel cozy and inviting not only during the winter but all year around. Repainting the walls can give the effect that your home has been completely redecorated. Though the only thing that has changed is the wall color.

To reflect the true hygge style use warm neutral paint colors, such as  Timeless, or  On Point 

Neutral creamy undertones have the effect of enveloping your home in warmth. They take away the focus from the walls and reflect the room décor.

Warm Up Your Space with Layers of Textures

Part of the hygge charm is that it invokes a tactile sensation. When it comes to textures, there is a lot to touch and feel. Hygge is a blend of styles and elements of décor, which add up to an effect of coziness.

From soft pillows, to throw blankets, rugs, leather, or wood, combining layers of textures brings added warmth to your home. Furthermore, mixing accessories of different fabrics such as leather, ceramic, or marble touches creates an appealing sensation.

Cushions and knit blankets are the ultimate way to cozy up your home; the more, the warmer. Your guests might want to use some too.  When it comes to cushions, pile them on, and spread them unevenly across the sofa. Also, don’t forget to add some more floor pillows around the coffee table.

Ideally, pillows should be made of versatile textures and fabrics. Soft faux sheepskin and wool are the ultimate cozy fabrics for a warm and comfy home.

There is nothing more engaging to the senses than soft, warm pillows and fluffy throw blankets that make you want to snuggle in with your favorite book or just take a nap.

Create Coziness with Warm Lighting

Lighting is crucial when it comes to coziness. Warm, yellow lighting such as candles, fireplaces, lamps will invoke a cozy atmosphere in your home. However, most people use fluorescent lighting which is considered cold and takes away from the effect of coziness.

When it comes to warm and cold lighting, it is the light bulb temperature that dictates how warm or cold the lighting is.

Color temperature is measured in degrees of K(kelvin). From the color temperature scale, we can see that the warm tones that match up to a candlelight measure somewhere around 3000k, while the cool white of a fluorescent light is around 5000k. 

The color temperature of a candle is about 1850k, and that is why candlelight feels so cozy. It is a very warm light indeed!

Another way to make your home feel cozier is to let in as much natural lighting in the rooms you spend most of your time in.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The south-facing parts of the house enjoy the longest hours of sunlight throughout the day. By choosing a south-facing living room you’ll have a naturally warm, yellow-toned light, which makes the room feel warmer as evening draws near.

In fact, south-facing apartments cost much more in countries like China, both for renting and buying because this same concept coincides with their tradition of Feng Shui.

As for evenings avoid the neon and fluorescent lights at all cost.  Not only do they make the area feel cold and uninviting, but higher temperature lights also produce more blue light, which can affect your sleep.

Make use of a fireplace if you have one, as they are great for adding to warmth and coziness to your home.

Choose the focal points in your place where you’d like to spend a relaxing evening. Arrange lots of candles, lamps, or twinkling lights in clusters for an added atmosphere of coziness in your home.

String lights add a wonderful hygge vibe to any room. You can pretty much put them anywhere and not go wrong.

Bring Nature’s Greenery Indoors

House plants not only aid the aesthetic of our homes but are also good for our health. By releasing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide and other toxins, greenery helps us feel more relaxed and calmer. This, in turn, benefits our mood.

Scandinavian people are nature lovers. They tend to bring greenery indoors as a way to reconnect with nature even during winter days. Having plants in your home, whether real or fake, can contribute to a cozy sensation. 

If you have a garden – great, bring in some fresh flowers to brighten the atmosphere. Also, think about starting your mini window sill herb garden for cooking.

Ferns, spider plants, potted succulents, or a larger scale fiddle leaf fig tree are a great choice of plants to help recreate natural scenery and make your home feel cozier. Monstera, peace lilies, succulents, and sansevieria are types that don’t require direct light to thrive.  Just be careful with selecting living plants as some can be toxic to humans or pets.

When it comes to real plants, some might be complicated to maintain. Some require frequent watering, repotting, or might be sensitive to sunlight, others are not pet friendly; Indoor plants can be expensive, and despite your best effort to maintain them, they can die.

If your lifestyle doesn’t allow you to commit to plant maintenance, you can definitely consider faux plants as an alternative. Opting for fake plants means you don’t have to feel limited to indoor plants that are suitable only for a particular season or require the right amount of light.

You can choose just about anything you fancy.

The good thing about the fake plants is that they look so real, that it is hard to tell the difference. Take for example the fiddle leaf tree.

While this is the Instagram favorite plant, many people choose to use the fake one as it is nearly impossible to tell the difference.

On the other hand, choosing a faux large-scale fiddle leaf tree seems very practical, considering the fact that the real one is much more expensive, and can die easily because it requires tropical rainforest conditions to truly thrive.

Final Word: Keep It Minimalist

Regardless of how you choose to decorate your home, what we can learn from the Scandinavians is that the key to making a home feel cozy is in simplicity. Too much stuff can feel overwhelming and might make it hard to relax. Home is for living, not for storing stuff, so declutter and purge away the excess. You will find that creating a cozy, comforting home is about surrounding yourself only with the items that you truly love.

Read Next:

How To Practice the Hygge Lifestyle During Pandemic 

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