How to Decorate for Winter Before It Snows

All images by Alixe Lay

At four in the afternoon, the living room window starts reflecting the sofa. You can still make out the trees if you go right up to the glass, but from across the room, all you see is the furniture and the overhead light. The corner that was lovely at noon suddenly looks like somewhere you’d walk straight past.

That’s where winter decorating can begin. Pick one corner you spend time in and take a picture of it around noon. Then take another from the same spot just as the windows go dark. A chair that looks inviting in the first picture might barely register in the second. The little table beside it might be where you put your mug every evening, even though you have to get up to turn on the big light to find it.

Start with the lamp

Borrow a lamp from another room and put it next to the chair. Turn it on while there’s still a little blue in the windows. A lamp low enough to read by gives that corner a purpose after dark, and the light it casts across the table makes even the things you leave there every day look a little different.

It might take some rearranging. The lamp may work better on the other side of the chair, where the shade lights the page instead of the back of your head. The table might need to come a few inches closer. Give it an evening before you move anything back. You’ll know it’s in the right place when you sit down without thinking about it.

See what changes in the light

A stone candleholder is a good thing to look at twice. In daylight, you notice the grain in the stone. Light the candle at dusk and you see the shadow it throws across the table. A deep red glass bowl can do something similar. In the afternoon, you see the colour all the way through. By evening, the bowl darkens and the rim catches the light from across the room.

This is where a few winter decor ideas go a surprisingly long way. Bring a piece of coloured glass out of the cupboard. Put the wool blanket where you can reach it from the chair. Move the candle from the mantel to the table where you actually sit after dinner. You might find that the things you already own have more to give once you change where the light falls.

Leave a place to land

The corner can look a little untidy by the end of the night. The blanket will slip down the side of the chair. A book will end up open on the arm. In the morning there might be a mug to carry back to the kitchen. That’s usually how you can tell the room is working.

The Winter Edit began with that hour in mind, when there’s still a little light outside and it’s already time to switch on a lamp. It’s a collection for the rooms we spend more time in as the days get shorter, and for the ordinary evenings that make up most of winter. Explore The Winter Edit

Juliette