Create a Winter-Free Space In Your Home

As the temperatures finally begin to drop, it’s ever more apparent that winter is just around the corner. While it may be easy to keep your spirits bright during the holiday season, once January hits, the weather and our moods can be the dumps for a lot of us.
Grey days, sludgy streets, and decreasing daylight hours are enough to put the happiest of people into a slight funk. But there are ways to avoid the winter blahs and keep a smile on your face until spring! With a spare day or two, some inexpensive upgrades, and a desire to have a happy, winter-free place in your home, you can create an oasis from the winter doldrums.
Here’s how we created a winter-free space in our home:
Pick A Place With Good Light
Sunlight is paramount to positively affecting your mood. Find a place with a window that gets a good amount of sunlight when the sun’s out. Consider changing out your old window treatments for a light-diffusing curtain or shade — that way, when the sun’s out it still lights (and warms) up the space, but when it’s dark you still have some privacy.
Pick A Space You Use Often
What’s the good in creating a happy, blah-less place in your home if you tuck it somewhere out of the way? Great places for your winter-free space are smaller rooms (we chose our main bathroom), or a more unused corner of a larger room. Just make sure it’s easily accessible, preferably somewhere you spend at least a little bit time in every day, and comfortable.
Paint It Bright!
The obvious color choice to create a winter-free space is to go yellow — but it doesn’t have to be! Oranges, reds, and even some greens can give the same effect; just make sure they have warm undertones. Choosing a more saturated tone will also give the space more depth and warmth without getting too in-your-face. If you’re in a larger space, consider an accent wall where the sunlight hits — that way the color glows in all the right ways.
Switch Out Your Lightbulbs
Since it’s winter, which means there won’t be sunlight streaming into your space for endless hours each day, switch out your lightbulbs with daylight-hued CFLs. The brightness of them will trick your brain into thinking it’s still light out, and the blue undertone will help to balance your new warmer wall color. In our case, it’s what makes all the difference on these early post-daylight-saving mornings, setting our moods much higher than if we had to stumble into a poorly lit bathroom at what feels like midnight.
Don’t Get Too Theme-y
It’s easy to confuse “winter-free” with “tropical” but that’s most certainly not the case. Make sure the color scheme and decor you choose is still cohesive with the rest of your home, especially if your winter-free zone is within another room. The same goes for scents — citrus is an easy, sunny mood-booster, but if it’s not your thing, or will clash with the other scents in your home, just find something that makes you happy. Ours so happens to be rosemary mint that brings a smile to our faces and calm to our otherwise winter-fried brains.
How do you make it through those post-holiday winter months? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve to make your home free of the winter blahs? Please share them in the comments below!