Mood Boost: 5 Easy Living Room Tweaks For Winter
Dreary. Grey. Dark. These are just some of the words that often accompany winter. Except for the Christmas holidays, for many, winter can be a dreaded time of year. The long nights often combined with cloud cover, cold and icy weather, along with a pandemic isolation, can all lend themselves to an overall depressing mood.
And if you are away from friends and family, it can be even worse. Nevertheless, there are things you can do to give yourself the lift you need. Having more light and less stuff in your home can create an “activating,” improved mood. This can be a start, leading to other simple home changes that all can work together for a warmer, livelier winter. (1) If you work from home or are simply isolating from the rest of the world, chances are you’ll be spending much of your life this winter in your living room. Here are 5 simple design hacks, without using major reconstruction, that can bring more light and improve your mood for you and your guests.
1. Move your “stuff” away from the windows.
Whether it is dressers, houseplants, large couches, or other big items, having these near a window tend to suck up the light shining and reflecting throughout the room. A simple step of moving these items to opposite corners of a room will help let ambient light fully fill the room and give your living room a feel of brightness and warmth.
2. Rethink your window coverings
Heavy drapes. Thick curtains. Wooden blinds. All of these block out the light; leading to a dark, depressing mood. If you need privacy, but want the light, consider thin privacy curtains, or light-filtering vinyl blinds. Then you can control the open view but allow natural light from the sun to peer into your home. Plus, this simple step of removing old curtains, or thick blinds, is a simple way to give your living room a modern design boost without spending any money. Researchers at the University of Toronto, in Canada, have found that a room’s lighting has a large effect on your mood and decision making. (2) Think about retail stores. It is well lit in certain areas, and toned down in others, to help “liven” the mood of its customers.
3. Replace old light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs
Yes, this is often a clichéd suggestion. But you would be surprised how many people still use old inefficient incandescent light bulbs. And while florescent was a good transition light bulb technology over the past 10 years, LED light bulbs are now the standard. LED bulbs use a fraction of the electricity used by incandescent bulbs, which allow you to have some lights on all the time for security, and you would still use less electricity than incandescent that are shut on and off. The key here is to strategically place table or accent lighting into dark corners of your living room and have just enough soft light throughout the night. This will give your living room a lightened, warm mood 24 hours a day, and can be an inexpensive way to create a positive, welcoming living room feel.
If there is anything that creates a stressful and depressing feel when walking into a home, it is the overabundance of clutter. Here is some typical clutter that homeowners don’t realize become turnoffs for guests, and can cause a depressing mood:
Shipping boxes from online deliveries
Mail
Stacks of paperwork
Too many sculptures, heirlooms and personal treasures
Wall clocks
Office in the living room
Too much furniture
Most houseplants, if not kept up
Open storage
Clothing and jackets
A good rule-of-thumb is to make sure that furniture does not cover more than 50% of your living room floor area. Even better, keeping 75% of your living room floor are uncovered and useable, will make for a feeling of free space, and welcome movement.
All of the other clutter mentioned, whether office stuff, or personal knickknacks like grandma’s broken coocoo clock that has been in the family for three generations, find ways to “frame” them, or place some of them in other rooms of the house. Have most of your shelf space, and wall space, uncovered and uncluttered.
This winter make a fun day out of decluttering your living room, and distributing your important items either into other rooms, or boxed up into storage. And keep just enough to build memories or tell stories with.
And, if you have your home office in the living room, try moving it into a less visible area, or at lease keep your desk and area clean and uncluttered.
5. Replace your window
This is likely the costliest of all these steps, but likely will have the largest long-term impact on improving the winter mood in your living room. Homeowners who choose vinyl window replacement do so for many reasons. Increasing energy efficiency. Lowering power bills. Letting more light in. Reducing sound. But ultimately for your main front window of your living room, having a large, new, and modern window will create a stunning look, and a welcoming feel. And it will likely reduce drafts, which tend to repel hanging out in the living room. If there is just one window in your home you can replace, consider your living room window. It is likely the largest and will have the greatest impact on your home’s feel and value.
Performing simple reorganization, removing certain items and finding ways to let more light in through your window, will all work together to make your living room a place to enjoy this winter.
Mike Cutler is a commentator on modern home design and DIY home improvement projects for energy efficiency. He is especially passionate about ways to turn a house into a home.
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