New Year’s Home Refresh: Keep Your Home Cosy & Inviting

As we keep our focus indoors while we wait out winter, there are simple steps we can take to keep the home cosy and inviting.

So, the tree has been taken down, decorations stowed for another year leaving living areas looking decidedly bare, and showing up the flaws in our décor which will become even more noticeable as the days get longer.

If you suffer withdrawal symptoms after removing your decorations, think about indulging in a slow transition until spring, especially if you included foraged items in your Christmas decorating.

Think about leaving branches, vases of greenery, twigs strewn with strings of fairy lights and any wreathes you fashioned together in place. Keep the scented candles going, and even if you’re done with the aromas of cinnamon and nutmeg after overindulgence in mince pies and Christmas cake, pine and spruce scents have the freshness of winter woodlands.

If you’re ready for a change, some fresh citrus scents will help to “air” the home when it’s too cold to fling open windows only to lose the precious build-up of heat. If you’re not a home fragrance fan, LED candles (€34) are surprisingly realistic with none of the safety issues associated with the real thing, and they add the comforting flicker of light in homes without an open fire.

Cushions and Throws to Refresh Winter Interiors

Christmas themed cushions and throws really don’t survive into January, but textiles become ever more important during the colder months to keep the cosy vibe going, so if you’re contending with old cushions now flattened beyond their useful life, consider a few new purchases to disguise a worn sofa, or introduce a new colourway to a living room to last through spring and summer.

Opt for the Mulberry linen mix cushion with its robust filler which bounces back after the rigours of family life squashing it for an evening (€34). Its winter colour keeps the warm feeling going, but if you’re ready for something brighter heralding spring, the Soho multi-colour cushion offers a mix of mid-century tones to help give a new identity to a darker sofa (€29).

Bold stripes have taken off on everything from tablecloths to sofas. Admittedly, they can overwhelm a smaller space if featuring on large furniture pieces or wallpaper, but in small doses they can have high impact where a change is welcome. Give neutral bed linens new life with the Pine green stripe bedspread (€159) folded across the bed end. Add in the Everett green stripe bolster cushion (€85) to prop up against billowy pillows for a new look bedroom achieved effortlessly without spending an entire weekend with the paint brushes out.

Ivy Champagne Fabric Chaise Corner Sofa

Lighting Tips for a Cosy Winter Home

It takes these dark days for us to realise the shortcomings in our lighting. Dim bulbs are easy to remedy with a quick changeover, but during the season of hibernation we tend to gravitate towards the soft warmth of lamp light and leave the glare of overhead lights switched off.

It’s easy to be seduced by a cool lamp with a black shade for where you simply want a gentle glow in a corner making a pool of light on a side table, but it won’t provide task light where you can relax with a book or give enough light to see someone you’re chatting to on the other side of the room.

We tend to forget about these issues when the evenings get brighter and there’s less need for lighting once we’re spending more time getting out and about.

Now is the time to do something about it before October comes around, the lamps go on and you realise you’ve done nothing about it when you could have taken advantage of the winter sale happening right now and going through to February.

Carmel 3 Seater Fabric Sofa in Linen

Table and Floor Lamps for Style and Function

The Lana wooden table lamp (€129) echoes ‘70s bulbous shapes. Warm metallic accents give it a luxury feel off-set by a plain white shade to diffuse plenty of warm light. If you’re looking for something more substantial, the Elin wooden floor lamp (€189) will light up a dark corner, its slim profile making it a bonus space-saver.

Add to the glow by swapping out colder filament bulbs for rose bulbs. They transform the light to a warmer quality with no pinkish tone.