Winter is Here and it is ready to bestow all its love upon us and we are eager to welcome it with both arms spread as wide as possible.
Personally speaking, I love winters. Comfy bedding, woolen blankets, fluffy pillows, thick rugs, sizzling fire as a special treat and lastly, different variety of yummy, hot and spicy food we can eat without worrying about heat. Winter gives us all.
Work becomes second priority. Everyone is in a hurry to finish the day and rush back home to spend some time in front of the fire, with a book in one hand and a steamy coffee mug in another or to lie down under their fresh flower scented thick sheets to relax or to spend some quality time with family. Can anything get better than this?
Even after all these attractions, winter can be difficult for some people. Especially for old people and kids. By planning little things in advance, we can make this beautiful weather merrier for everyone. Things, which can keep us and our family comfortable and healthy during many upcoming chilly days & nights, not to forget, also open many new windows for us to turn our place into a perfect cozy retreat by redecorating and rearranging it with season’s favorable colors, furniture, and furnishing.
Get Warmer Colours To Work
We love light colors in the summer. A light shade of blue and green, grey, white and off-white bring us a feeling of cool breeze but we don’t want that in winter. Winter needs a warmer color. Hence, gives us a chance to use the colors of raw nature and fire. Like: wood brown, blood red, dark orange, deep blue and green and sometimes even Z black. By changing the colors of our furniture and furnishing we can get a whole new look of the same set up at the same time making it warmer looking.
Thick Curtains
These curtains help in two ways. First, they give cozy look to the entire place. Second, the fabric of these curtains keeps the cold out and the warmth inside. Your place stays warm for a long time without using much energy.
Deep Carpets And Rugs
If you are a rug and carpet fan, you have an additional reason to love winter. Buy many thick rugs and carpets of your favorite colors and cover all the cold floors. Your feet should get drown in these carpets. The warmth would comfort your feet and presence of new decor would give a lively makeover to your home.
Extra-Comfy Sheets
Time to throw away all the used and worn linen. New and fresh is what you need in this season. Again two benefits, new linens are always more comfy and warm and second, by the time summer would come this linen would be ready for the heat as they will be perfectly worn out by the time.
Clothes Are Ready
We use different clothes for winter. Preparing winter clothes in advance can save us a lot of trouble. Bugs are easily drawn towards woolens, even after taking great care in storing, sometimes bugs and bad smell get to them. No-one wants to run out of options just before a party, because the favorite sweater has holes all over or it is smelling like a dead rat. The best way to take care of winter clothes is, store them properly with precautions after cleaning them thoroughly. To prepare these clothes to wear, we can put them in bright sun for two continuous days at the beginning of the weather. Sun would make them completely smell free and ready to use. Its a grandmother trick. Its tried and tested.
Some Extra Cushions And Blankets
We all love simple cotton cushions in summer but have you tried velvet cushions in winter? If not, you are in for a treat. Mainly because, the brightness in colors, shine and smoothness velvet can offer nothing else can.
Few extra blankets on your rocking chair, or couch or any piece of your favorite furniture would turn all your sitting arrangements would make everything more alluring. You would be able the use every corner of your house. Try to find all different material blankets. They would freshen up your mood in no time and the feeling of newness would never leave you. They are easy to maintain and quite reasonable.
Winter Food is Festive
How can we forget food when we are talking about winter? All that yummy, spicy food, especially traditional recipes come to our mind as we imagine ourselves sitting and eating by fire. We avoid eating deep fried heavy food in summer but in winter everything deep fried and spicy tastes heavenly. As many festivals come during winter, we get to cook all our traditional recipes and enjoy them with family and friends. Nothing is fun without great food.
There have always been a few particular recipes to cook in every different weather. Try these mouth-watering grand-mother recipes. These recipes have been followed from hundreds of years by our ancestors for many reasons. Mainly, food cooked with seasonal ingredients is always very healthy and all these ancient recipes are always cooked with fresh ingredients. The method can be very specific which brings out the right essence of every ingredient and help us fighting many seasonal flues and diseases. They might look tricky to cook sometime and not the usual food we eat very often but it’s worth all the pain. Like, a glass of chilled fresh mango juice in summer and hot boiled sweet potato in winter can complete your day.
Herbs Are The Best Medicines
Herbs like Basil(Tulsi), Carom Seeds (Ajwain) and Bay Leaves (Tejpatta) can be very helpful in boosting your immunity in winter. The best thing about these herbs is, these can be used in your daily cooking throughout the winter and your whole family including kids can consume them without any side effect. ( In case of any allergy check with a doctor first).
The Sun Rises
Sun becomes an expensive commodity in winter. So collect as much as possible whenever it’s available. Let the sunlight enter your house by opening the windows in the morning and at noon. Sunlight keeps away the bad smell and walls and floors stay protected from dampness.
Time To Use Your Axe
If you are lucky enough to have a fireplace, its better you collect all the wood stock in advance. Here, if you want perfectly dried woods for your hearth, you should get the woods a couple of months before the winter starts and keep them in sun for around two weeks to get the big cracking fire every time.
[su_note note_color=”#efefef”]Also read:Â 5 Weekend vacation spots to visit in India during this winter[/su_note]
Fuse and Wire Check
This is the most important pro-active step everyone must remember before the weather starts. A lot of heating consumes a lot of power and increases the load on your electric wiring and fuse box. Using an out-dated or damaged wiring and fuse can cause serious harm. In a case of overload, the house can lose power. Not to forget, a spark can happen and your place can catch fire. Your expensive electronics can also get toast. Your family members can also get hurt in many ways. Change everything damaged wire and fuse. It is for the best.
Checking The Heating System
Check your heating system properly, whatever you use before you start using it again. In case you use a heating system with air filter technology, its mandatory to clean it every few months because of dust. Filters get choked up with dust and affect the functioning of the machine very badly. We don’t want to lose our main heating system in one of those chilly days.
Taking Care of Extra Rooms
If you have an extra room which is not in extensive use or a room which is very airy, you can shut it down. Otherwise, it would use up a lot of heat in staying warn, resulting in much more consumption of energy and slow heating.
Health Care-Internal & External
Taking extra care of your skin in cold weather is mandatory. Our skin can get affected badly because of the dryness of cold season. Eating a proper diet and moisturizing your skin three to four times a day would keep your skin healthy. If someone has too much dryness, it would be better to consult a skin specialist and get the right kind of care.
Shift To Upholstered Furniture & Sofa
Those days are long gone when people used to buy one bed or one sofa set in their entire lifetime. These days people like to move around a lot. This gives them many opportunities to try new things in every category like locations, houses, food, and culture. Traveling with all the old furniture is a hassle. To avoid this hassle we can always to rent furniture and appliances rather than buying. Everything is easily available online with free door step delivery.
This brings freedom. You can change the furniture of your whole house with your changing mood, your changing situation and even with changing weather without much effort and capital. In winter, an upholstered sofa set would be a great choice. Not only it would give your place an inviting and luxurious look but also would always keep you warm and cozy.
Well, I don’t know about others, but I can’t wait for the chill to descend.
