How to Make a Home Cozy: 5 Ideas For Comfort & Warmth

1. Use color

Colors like black, brown, dark green, deep moody blue, and smoky jewel tones are perfect colors to infuse an inviting and comfy look into your home. Pick a couple of colors that complement your overall home color scheme for a well-thought-out decorating approach.

This can be achieved by switching out some accent pieces to more dark tones.

Using dark, muted-colored accent pillows, accessories, vessels, bowls, and decorative boxes injects a warm, cozy vibe.

If you're up to making even a greater impact, you can also change your draperies to thicker fabrics like velvet or tweed-looking textures in coordinating colors.

Switching out your curtains to thicker fabric not only provides some insulation to your windows during the colder months, but it also creates a space that feels more cocoon-like. And since we're talking about thicker texture, let's discuss the next tip.

2. Use texture

As you look to amp up the cozy factor in your home, consider including pillows in textured fabrics, like velvet, tweed, and boucle.

You can easily make the change by purchasing pillow covers quite inexpensively from places like IKEA and Amazon and simply inserting your existing pillow forms into them.

Also, use thicker textured throw pillows, like warm wooly knits, faux fur, and sherpa.

Adding textural fabrics that are soft to the touch enhances the feeling of comfort and makes it easier to cuddle up while watching TV or snuggling with a good book.

3. Use natural accents

Another way to add a cozy feel to your space is by including natural and wood elements.

Avoid glass or silver metal decorative pieces that give off a cool look.

Instead, use aged brass or wood candlesticks, bowls, platters, and woven baskets in warm color tones to bring in that textural sense of nature that makes a space look and feel warmer and cozier.

4. Use greenery

During the winter months when things outside may look cold and gloomy, bring some life into your space by adding live or artificial greenery into your decor.

You can use evergreen stems and pine cones even after the holidays since these are winter elements and offer that rustic, cozy vibe in a modern environment.

Greenery livens up the space and offers a brighter outlook to those long, cold winter months.

5. Control lighting

When you want to create that warm, cozy feeling in your space, you also need to look at your lighting.

If you have overhead light fixtures, make sure that all the light bulbs are between 2700 and 3000 Kelvin, which is considered a warm white.

Anything above 3000 Kelvin will cast a cool white light that is quite opposite to cozy.

A perfect way to make your room look warmer is by controlling the light output from your overhead lighting by installing dimmers.

If, however, you are in a rental or you don't want to invest in this fairly inexpensive electrical alteration, reserve overhead lighting only for tasks like cleaning.

But, when you want to relax, multiple table and floor lamps placed around your room will create that warm, cozy glow.

You can also include dimmable light bulbs and use plug-in remote controls on these lamps, So, you can turn them on, off, or adjust the light intensity at the click of one button.

And don't forget to include candles for added ambiance.

Flameless remote control candles are ideal if you have pets or little ones or in any area where using real candles can be a challenge.

I like using real candles where I'd normally sit, so the flame is not left unattended.

Bonus tip: Stimulate the sense of smell

While we're discussing candles, I'd like to touch on the topic of scent, because making your space feel cozy also involves the sense of smell.

The scent of vanilla musk, cinnamon, caramel, winter fir, pine, and spices shouldn't be reserved just for the year-end holiday season.

Using scented candles and essential oil diffusers, or even putting a simmer pot on your stove with sliced oranges, cloves, and cinnamon, will fill your space with the lovely aroma that accentuates the sense of warmth and coziness.