How to Turn a Space into a Cozy Home

Autumn is here in New York City, and the holiday season is fast-approaching. The leaves are falling, and the weather is changing. It’s time for (responsible) get-togethers, Friendsgiving potlucks, or getting comfy at home with a good book and some hot cocoa. For all of these things, you’ll want to make sure your home is cozy.

A lot of the time, we hear smaller spaces described as ‘cozy’. There is rationale behind that description. A cozy space feels lived-in without being too dilapidated or messy. It’s clean without feeling too...sanitized. A cozy space is welcoming to visitors, but also feels like home to its residents. Most importantly, cozy spaces give off good vibes.

Making your space into a cozy home seems more achievable in a small space, but ‘small’ and ‘cozy’ are not synonyms! With enough love and elbow grease, you can make any sized space into a cozy home. It’ll be easy to do if you use these tips.

→Declutter your space!
Cozy homes thrive with positive energy, and suffer without it. Clutter can give people negative energy. To keep your home feeling cozy and safe, create a plan to get rid of what you don’t need, and follow through with it.

→Organize your stuff.
In the process of getting rid of clutter, you don’t want to create more clutter. Create a set space, whether that means using a cupboard or buying a shelving system, to keep your things in order.

→Don’t be afraid to add décor.
Cozy homes aren’t necessarily cozy because they happened to be that way. A quality of a cozy home is its liveliness. Adding décor, like paintings or houseplants, to your home helps to keep its cozy spirit alive. Also, your décor can be visually appealing while serving another purpose, like a toy box or a lighting fixture.

→Create an ambiance.
It’s not only the furniture that will make your space into a cozy home. Lighting can be the difference between a place feeling cold & dreary and warm & friendly.  This is because of the temperature of a light; the warmer, or more yellow, your light is, the lower the Kelvin (or the unit of temperature — the K). A warmer white light is about 3000 K, so look for something close to that when you shop for lights.

You can also use multiple light fixtures in your space, like lamps or candles, to disperse the light rather than depend on a single light fixture to light up a whole room. If you depend on one light, you will have to buy a stronger light bulb, likely one with a high amount of K, to make sure your space is illuminated. Lights with a high amount of K (around 5000 K) give a space a colder energy, which you do not want.

→Keep everyone in on the plan.
Keeping your home nice and cozy will be difficult if there are people behind you leaving a trail of mess and clutter. Make sure everyone who lives in your space is on the same page as you. You may have to add trash receptacles or something to each room so picking up after themselves is a little bit easier.

→Clean, clean, clean!
Of course, none of these tips will work well if your space isn’t clean to begin with. A cozy home is inviting and homey, and mess is neither of those things; in fact, it is the opposite. Like clutter, mess is a killer of positive vibes. People won’t want to be in your space if it has negative energy — that includes you. Cleaning your house thoroughly, and tidying it often are essential for creating a cozy home.

We at Andy’s Quality Cleaning can get you started with creating a cozy home. Contact us today, and we will keep your homes the safe, comfortable, cozy spaces they were meant to be.