How to have a cosy home this winter
Winter beckons, nature hibernates and we must do so too. But to do it in comfort, we need to prepare. Here are my 14 top tips... plus the TikTok heating hacks to avoid at all costs!
If you wonder why I delve so much into the worlds of wellbeing or stray across to issues of climate change, polluting plastic et al, it’s because to my mind they are all intimately interwoven with home health and living well.
My tagline is Better Home: Better Health where better means empowered, as my interest in interior design stems primarily from its ability to affect the way you feel. My passionate belief is that the very act of mastering the space that surrounds you is akin to mastering yourself — and by master I mean support, strengthen and sustain. So the way the world impacts you is very much part of that equation. If you are assaulted by stressors, chemical, physical or mental, this will affect you. I therefore work to help conceive home as a safe and toxin-free space within which you have the best possible opportunity to thrive.
As winter approaches then, I think home is more literally a buffer between you and the harshness of outside. As we hunker down, it’s more important than ever to ensure your home is on your side in the health stakes. Plus, even though energy prices look like they’re falling, let’s continue all the energy-saving lessons we learnt last winter. These are good habits for the longterm.
Here are my top 14 ways to keep your home cosy this winter…
Keep opening the windows! It is a confusing fact that the better you insulate the more you must ventilate. The very act of breathing, cooking, washing and bathing causes indoor humidity levels to rise. If levels get too high, hello mould. Also many older homes were designed to be ‘moisture open’, which means they stay damp free through the action of heat passing through the walls. Which is a dilemma if we’re trying to ‘keep the heat in’! So, as soon as you wake up, fling open drapes and windows to encourage healthy air change. As darkness approaches, close up and stay warm.
Line your curtains. Once we’ve aired a room and are closing it up for the evening, we really do want to lock our heat in. But unless you have double or triple glazing, then a huge amount of heat escapes through windows. The best way to protect against this? Full length curtains for starters, but then line them with Cotton Domette. This is a thick fleecy (but choose only 100% cotton) curtain lining fabric purchasable by the metre. It usually comes in widths of 137cm, which is typically wide enough for one drop. I simply tack it to the backsides of my curtains underneath the gathers (see my video on Instagram, in the Reels section, for a quick DIY tutorial). I guarantee it’ll make a huge difference.
Choose wool. It’s naturally anti-bacterial, insulating and temperature regulating, so it’ll keep you cool or warm as conditions require. Perfect then for duvets and pillows, as well as insulation. The product I’ve used is called Thermafleece — sustainable, breathable insulation made from British sheep’s wool. Incidentally, research has also shown that wool carpets clean your air, absorbing common VOCs such as formaldehyde, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide for upto 30 years! Just don’t then use a plastic-based underlay.
Cap any disused chimney pots. This is a lesson I’ve just learnt thanks to an ongoing leak issue. Not only will a proper chimney pot cap stop rainwater getting trapped inside, it’ll also prevent draughts. The trouble with water is that if it gets inside, it