Interior design trends shift with the seasons every year and winter is always the most difficult to prepare for. You need to adjust for freezing temperatures and create a cozy environment that will prevent cabin fever from setting in. Here are eight interior design ideas to warm up your house and keep your family happy this season.

1. Bring the Outdoors Inside

It might be cold and unwelcoming outside during this time of year, but certain outdoor elements make for excellent winter interior design features. If you’ve always wanted an indoor fireplace, now is the time to install one. Well-maintained fireplaces are highly coveted during the winter months and can add to your home’s value.

For those who already have a fireplace, you should start every winter with a good cleaning. Shine a flashlight up the chimney and look around for debris such as leaves and tree branches. Make sure the damper opens and closes properly. More expensive repairs might be necessary if any bricks are loose or missing. Don’t forget to add accessories around the fireplace, such as a wood hoop, decorative fire screen, and a colorful fire-proof fiberglass rug.

Another outdoor design element gaining popularity is stone. Ceramics, terracotta, marble, limestone, and sandstone are all viable options. However, they have the same cold, gray texture as the winter season, so you must use them wisely to prevent overkill. Try decorating with stone vases, artwork, and other small items to balance out the warm and cozy rooms.

One of the earliest home design features humans utilized was round architecture. Ancient people built many rounded structures to mirror their environments, such as arches, columns, and rotundas. Since you’ll be spending less time outside during the winter, you need to compensate by adding more natural curved shapes like:

• Curved tables and chairs

• Circular mirrors

• Spherical light fixtures

• Porthole windows

The jagged edges of postmodern interior design might be more eye-catching, but they ironically become dull to look at after a while. They don’t have the same natural beauty as round shapes often found in nature. Your home may feel much more relaxing with many outdoor design elements.

2. Improve the Doors and Windows

You should always look for ways to improve your heating system’s efficiency during the winter. One easy method is to weatherstrip the doors and windows — you can buy standard foam weather stripping or make DIY strips. Plugging up the cracks in your home’s entryways is crucial for keeping out those cold temperatures.

It’s also essential to allow your doors and windows to let in more natural light. Sunlight helps keep the house warm and reduces your reliance on artificial light and heat. Here are some things you can do to expose your house to more sunlight:

• Add some skylights.

• Switch to a lighter window treatment.

• Clean the windows regularly throughout the winter.

• Remove the screens so more sunlight can penetrate the glass.

• Replace a blank wall space with glass blocks, a sliding glass door or a floor-to-ceiling window.

Many winter homes — such as Swiss chalets — have massive windows and that’s no coincidence. These windows are incredibly effective at keeping the house warm and maximizing brightness. Winter is the darkest season, so you need to go the extra mile to keep things bright and cozy.

3. Add More Warm Colors

Your home’s color palette plays a considerable role in its warmth. Although colors like red, orange, and yellow are more closely associated with autumn, they remain stylish through the winter. Warm colors match exceptionally well with the blacks, whites, and grays that dominate the winter months. Here are some complementary color combinations that you should try:

• Red and black

• Red and white

• Red and green

• Yellow and gray

• Yellow and blue

• Orange and black

Add colors with high temperatures in small ways around the house, such as plants, textiles, and artwork. These accessories are large enough to demand attention but small enough to avoid overpowering the room.

4. Hang Heavy Curtains

Another way to reduce drafts is by hanging heavier curtains. They create a dense physical barrier that prevents the cold winter air from seeping through window cracks. Additionally, installing new curtains allows you to implement a new decor style. Solids, stripes, velvets, and other fabrics all look great — it’s hard to mess up curtains.

The best curtains during the winter are floor-to-ceiling drapes because they provide great thermal insulation to protect vulnerable floors, especially hardwood. Vertical design features also make small spaces look bigger and more elegant, filling up the empty wall space and drawing more attention to the clean windows.

5. Lie Down Cozy Rugs

Hardwood and linoleum floors often get uncomfortably cold during the winter. Cozy rugs can solve that problem and provide a warm walking surface. Lie down some area rugs in hallways, entryways, and other high-traffic areas around the house.

You have to choose entryway rugs that can withstand heavy footwear and outside elements. Your bulky winter boots will track in snow, ice, and mud which could create stains. The best rug fabrics for wintery elements are absorbent ribbed polyester, polypropylene, and other strong synthetic fibers.

On the other hand, the rugs in your living room and other relaxation areas should be soft, comfortable materials. Wool, cotton, and animal skins will provide cozy underfooting and add more winter-themed design features. Your ancestors used these materials to protect themselves from the cold, so they could fit right in with your other winter decorations.

6. Light Some Candles

There’s something about an open flame that lightens people’s moods. You can’t use your indoor fireplace all day and night, but you can light some candles around the house. Clean-burning soy wax candles won’t impact your home’s air quality and are safe to burn daily. Candles also give you a chance to incorporate popular wintery scents:

• Pine

• Clove

• Citrus

• Spearmint

• Peppermint

• Fresh sage

• Brown sugar

Adding a subtle scent and warm glow to the kitchen, bedrooms, and bathrooms will help each room feel more unique. It will also mask the unsavory odors that tend to appear in wintertime due to increased moisture and more time spent in the home.

7. Rearrange the Furniture

Your home’s heating system has to work overtime during the winter, but you can make its job easier by rearranging furniture away from the ducts and radiators. This slight adjustment allows heat to fill the room more efficiently, keeping the occupants happy and saving money on your utility bill.

It could help if you also rearranged the furniture to put more emphasis on the fireplace. The living room’s couches and chairs should encircle the fireplace to encourage guests to gather around it. Consider adding smaller stools or chairs so people can get closer to the flames.

8. Layer the Beds and Sofas

Everyone has a natural inclination to wrap themselves in nests of blankets and pillows during the winter. Try promoting this habit by layering the beds and sofas with quilts, throw blankets, and many plushy pillows. This design idea gives you another chance to implement seasonal colors, patterns, and fabrics.

A Warm House is a Happy House

Cold weather can suck the life out of your living space if you don’t make any design changes. These eight design ideas will keep your house warm — literally and figuratively — during the winter months. From the entryways to special features like curtains and candles, every place in the house plays a role. A warm house is a happy house!

Author Bio: Jack Shaw is a freelance writer working in the men’s lifestyle niche. He loves interior design, hiking and reading.