CREATING A WINTER WONDERLAND

Creating a winter

wonderland

How to make your home cosy With winter fast approaching, it’s not just your wardrobe which needs a seasonal shake up. Your home too needs a bit of WLC (winter loving care), but that doesn’t have to mean blowing the budget. While it’s easy to reach for the thermostat, there are ways of warming up your home without blowing up your energy bill. Build & Renovate Magazine talks to interior designer Karen Candy from KCandy&Co. about her top tips for keeping warm this winter as the temperature starts to drop.

Winter woolies

With winter just around the corner, investing in some decorative soft furnishings is always a good idea to prepare for the cooler months ahead. Karen recommends opting for wool or wool blends and feathers rather than polyester to really reap the thermal benefits.

“The nice thing about coming into autumn is there is a great selection of big, chunky throws and blankets available that are both warm and decorative. They sit nicely across the back of a sofa, and it’s just what you need for a Sunday afternoon nap or staying up late for a Netflix binge. “With cushions I always make sure that I choose the one’s with a feather inner, feathers are just so warm, squishy and cuddly and when choosing rugs, those made with natural wool or wool blends are so much warmer underfoot.”

Change out your light bulbs for a warmer colour

While changing out your lightbulbs before the winter, maybe something you haven’t given much thought to, Karen says opting for a warm white lightbulb at 3000K, will make a difference to the perceived warmth factor of a room.

The psychology of colour temperature

“Colour psychology plays a bigger role when it comes to the perceived warmth of a space than most people realise,” Karen says. Take for example two identical rooms at exactly the same ambient temperature, the only difference being one is lit with a warm light bulb (3000K), and the other lit with a cool white daylight bulb (5000K).

The person in the daylight lit room would insist their room was cooler because subconsciously their brain has registered the cooler light and interpreted it as a cool room.

Warmly lit rooms create an illusion of a higher more comfortable temperature. “It’s a handy trick to know as a designer when creating a desired atmosphere for a space.”

Windows and drapes

If budget is front of mind and double glazing isn’t an option for every room in the home, there are other more cost-effective ways of retaining heat in your home which don’t break the bank.

For single glazed windows, Karen recommends a curtain with a thermal backing or a three-pass lining that offers some thermal protection.

KCandyandCo.

Prior to running her own interior design studio, Karen spent 10 years working in the residential energy efficiency industry. “Bring your interior vision to reality. Tap into my experience, creativity, resources and knowhow to create the home you truly deserve!”

“Often when the person does the renovation, they don’t renovate the whole house and there’s still quite a lot of single glazing still in the home. They don’t go through and retrofit double glazing everywhere because budgets are front of mind. “I recommend installing double curtain tracks, with the main curtain lined with a 3-pass backing then hung the back track closest to the window. Then the shear on a separate track to the front, this allows more versatility for how the home owner uses their curtains in through the season.” “During summer, furnishings can be protected from the harsh UV light by pulling the shears during the day. On winter evenings when it’s cooler, pulling both the lining and the shear together with the sheer hung on the front track offers a layering effect of fabrics which is a far more decorative way to enjoy your window treatments.”

Curtains should drop to the floor

“Even if you have a half window (a window that doesn’t go to the floor), your curtain must and should always have a drop to the floor. This prevents a recirculating convention current forming in the room and sucking heat straight through a window surface.” Heat loss and convection currents are a direct result of warm interior air touching and condensating on a cool (glass) surface – the perfect ingredients for unwanted recirculating convection currents, and a quick way to lose hard earned heat.

“By taking your curtain all the way to the floor, not only does it look more stylish, but it prevents the convection currents from forming.”

Insulation

The last important tip to make sure you’re prepared for winter is ensuring your home is well insulated to provide year-round comfort. “With insulation what you’re trying to achieve in your home is what’s called a ‘thermal envelope’ with no thermal voids. “A floor that’s not insulated would be classed as a thermal void – so to effectively insulate a house you need to have the ceiling, the walls, the floor and the windows insulated. A single glazed closed window would be an example of a thermal void and a floor that’s not insulated would also be classed as a thermal void.”

Karen says to effectively insulate a house, the home owner should try to have the ceiling, walls, floor and the windows insulated for optimum comfort.

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