I love Christmas and I adore the visual beauty of winter but I do not enjoy being cold! In fact I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to move about the house, my body seems to freeze up and I just can’t convince myself to move! Just as I was resigning my days to hiding under the duvet, Homeserve challenged me to warm up a room in my home with the help of a £50 B&Q voucher. Challenge most profoundly accepted I decided to warm up our lounge as it’s where we spend most of our time.

The problem

Our lounge is a lovely room, however thanks to a certain furry companion it has no carpets (he’d have ruined them with muddy paws long ago). It also has ridiculously tall ceilings thanks to those Edwardian chaps who constructed the place. High ceilings and no carpeting do not make for a warm cosy room!

The solution

Warming up a seemingly cold room normally involves the addition of soft furnishings and carpets, obviously on £50 I couldn’t go too wild so here’s how we did it on a budget!

The sofa & chair

My sofa is lovely and comfy but a tad bare since my old cushions went through the drier and came out looking ‘interesting’.

To add warmth the sofa was treated to two new cushions (stuffed with the old pads from the previous pair) and a lovely snuggly throw. The throw not only looks warm but can be pulled up and draped around you a cold winter night.

The chair got its own matching throw and cushion.

The floor

Obviously I wasn’t going to be able to carpet the floor on my budget and our current one is far more practical with children and a dog. Instead I decided to add a big rug to make the floor warmer underfoot and cosier to look at.

You may be wondering how I managed to afford a lovely big rug. The answer is carpet tiles!

Carpet tiles provide an incredibly economic solution if you need a new rug. The design and colour is completely up to you and it’s just as easy to create colourful checkerboard designs as well as plain. A carpet tile rug is also incredibly practical. Buy one or two extras and you never need to worry about that muddy boot print or spilt glass of wine again, just replace that particular tile!

To make a carpet tile rug just measure the size you want to cover (carpet tiles can even be used to make L shape rugs). Then purchase your tiles along with some carpet tape, align them making sure to butt the edges closely together and fix using carpet tape on the reverse.

Seating

Adding extra soft furnishings and seating is both practical and warming. I picked up one of these squidgy cushion seats (see pic above) in the clearance section of B&Q. Easy to move about and comfortable to sit on, we love it!

We also added a couple of large cushions to serve as floor seating, these are really quick and simple to sew yourself as they are just large square shapes.

Lighting

If your room has a cold or dark corner consider popping a simple lamp in there to add ambience and warmth, candles work well too but don’t forget to keep an eye on them while burning.

Finally

I find one of these fellows really warm a room up, they like to cuddle and sit on cold feet!