Winter at home: an interior that interacts with the outside

Houses also have stations

The interior design and decoration, far from being merely visual or plastic tools, try to work on the matter to project, in the best of cases, a change and a reflection of the vital rhythm. A vital rhythm that is marked by the daily life of the inhabitants of the house or by external factors such as the seasons: inherent to the human life cycles and the way in which we face our day to day life.

The stations model the emotions and the relationship with the environment.

In this sense, in our study, when exploring the possibilities of interior design and decoration, there is an issue that we are trying to answer:

How to move the stations inside the home? What are the ingredients of this formula so that it results in a sum? How to project an interior that has a continuity with the seasonal changes from the outside? And so we could continue for a while …

In the same way that we adapt our clothing and our activities according to the time of year, our homes also modify their skin and activity in some way depending on the weather outside. The heating, the blankets, the sofa, a broth, … or the air conditioning, the curtains, the terrace, a salad, …

Today we decided to share with you some of our reflections in reference to the dialogue between interior and exterior of our homes in the winter time. We await your contributions.

Winter: An interior that follows the same story line from the outside

If the weather also has seasons, why not the houses too?

From this question we start to find those elements and possibilities that can help to transfer the emotions and receptivity connected to the winter.

A time where the days are shorter, the nights longer and the temperatures lower. We are fortunate that throughout the fall, we adapt to the cold and arrive at winter with the house ready to face the low temperatures. Winter is a time to enjoy seclusion and get the most out of the interior. An interior that can be warmer, and not just for heating.

Textile elements that add winter and subtract coldness

It is impossible to change the finishes of our home according to the time of year, but we do have the opportunity to dress the beds, the sofa or the curtains in another way. With these changes we can greatly modify the colors of our home in the same way nature does with the colors of leaves, light and sky.

Winter can be an explosion of elegance and far from being a cold season, it is possible to mold it with colors and effects for the five senses.

Some of the elements that we have found and are interesting are the following:

Rugs, the shelter of the house

In the same way that in winter we take out the coats … for our home we have the alformbras. Instead of having them all year, we can reserve them for those times when the comfort they offer is really appreciated. A detail, apparently derisory as carpets, makes a big difference in winter.

Put them and remove them do not take more than a few minutes and the result makes up for it. If we have parquet the impact will be more visual, but if we have tiles, the thermal effect will be remarkable.

Remove and put: remove cushions and blankets from the wardrobe

An element as easy and useful as a basket with blankets in the living room and … voila! winter space. Having different cushion covers for winter and summer involves a transformation of the sofa and we only have to store a few covers during the middle of the year.

Artificial lighting

The lighting organization, if designed well for nights all year round, can be used on winter days to obtain a warmer interior. Nowadays, we have a multitude of dimable luminous options that regulate the intensity of light when the sun does not illuminate enough. In winter, the hours when artificial light is essential increase and as daily activities require it.
A good arrangement of warm artificial lighting will add to the feeling of warmth of the space, although it does not necessarily increase the temperature.

Textures that change everything completely

Textures such as velvet, leather and leather can bring warmth. Its interaction with lighting, colors, shadows and resulting folds, make the environment gain complexity, becoming a perfect scenario to enjoy the winter of doors inside.

Natural textures such as wool, carpeting, mohair, XXL knitted blankets complement the warmth of artificial lights

Distribute to enhance activities

In winter we usually spend more time at home. We prefer to invite friends, play board games, take more time to read or watch movies or series. Thanks to a good distribution we can recreate and enjoy spaces that we take advantage of more at this time of the year : a reading corner, finally use the auxiliary tables to play from the sofa or lie on the pouf when the sun comes in from the balcony.
Also, the sliding doors offer us the possibility of closing spaces and take better advantage of the diffusion of heating and recreate smaller spaces that allow us to isolate ourselves better from the general activity of the house. A good distribution, designed in a modular way and for the whole year, represents a good base for certain elements to support the vital activities more typical of winter.

Active fireplace

There is nothing more wintery than a fireplace. And, a priori, investment in a fireplace may seem unnecessary. But when winter comes, even if it’s a few months a year, if there’s a fireplace at home, the scenery changes, and a lot.
But of course, you say, as much as I would like to have a chimney how I can have one if I live on the second floor of a block of 7. Although certain conditions and restrictions must be taken into account, gas fireplaces offer us the possibility to enjoy the heat and the hypnotic effect of fire in our urban homes.

Winter also reaches the dining room

In this season, hours of light are scarce and the colors of nature invite you to spend more time at home, so this time is an excellent time to enjoy the closest ones.

To gather all around a table to celebrate a meal or a dinner, is one of the best ways to celebrate the arrival of this season. A habit that is reinforced with the arrival of Christmas.

In this sense, there is no single formula for dressing the winter dining room, since the proposals will be contextualized at the moment and by the basic style of the whole, the character of the space and the inhabitants.

As a proposal, winter inspiration invites nocturnality in the range of colors: intense blue, gray, black, dark green, gold and silver. The colors that the sky projects during the night, the inherent state of winter.

Another interesting support to achieve this effect in the dining room can be by means of the lamps that hang over the diners, normally operated at night in any season, during the winter they may need to be turned on to eat during the solar hours.

One proposal may be to change the bulbs for a warmer color temperature without having the option to regulate them.

Also, the details in the dining room at the time of dressing the table are also a surface where to introduce elements that transport us to the winter. Candles, seasonal fruits as a center, underplates or tablecloths of successful colors can help to dress our winter home.

So, before the question about how to move winter into our home, we propose some ways to do it, as a basis for the imagination of successive ways of moving winter into our homes.

The distribution of spaces and adaptation to activities can evolve with the seasons, so the interiors, far from being static, are also dynamic according to the strategy of interior design and decoration
Textures that bring warmth in winter are an interesting factor to boost
The lighting strategy is essential all year round and its modulation can help us to recreate scenes appropriate to each time of year
The details make the difference, especially if they follow the natural cycle of the environment: seasonal flowers, leaves or fruits, details to create a symbiosis with the outside