The idea of ‘warming up’ our home means more than simply turning on the furnace.  Warming up your home is all about creating an ambience of warmth and comfort throughout the entire home.

In the living room, start with your room’s natural focal point, the fireplace.  Fill a basket with cuts logs and place on the hearth. Near the hearth stack three oversized pillows made from your favorite winter textile and on the mantel use lots of candles and replace vases of clear glass and crystal with gilded vases.  Gilded gold, pewter or silver vases appear warmer than glass and crystal.

On the coffee table, stack leather bound books or magazines and place a tray filled with liqueur glasses and a bottle of your favorite winter ‘warmer’.  A pair of candles is the finishing touch for any tabletop.

On the sofa or your favorite armchair, drape a chenille or fleece throw.  Replace summer throw cushions with their winter cousins; throw cushions made from faux or real furs, velvet, velux, chenille, cashmere, mohair or a combination of any of these warmth inspiring textiles.  Remember to create cozy, intimate furniture arrangements by ‘pulling’ furniture away from the walls.  Use angles in your furniture placement to create intimacy and visual interest in a room.

On the floor lay an area carpet on top of hardwood, ceramic or even directly over of your wall-to-wall carpeting.  Wool, Persian, faux fur, leather block printed and hand hooked or weaved carpets/area rugs are all excellent winter choices.

On the kitchen counter, create a ‘coffee bar’.  Colourful bottles of flavoring, glass canisters filled with fresh coffee beans, cinnamon sticks, chocolate shavings, raw sugar, a basket of herbal teas and a tray of your favorite mugs provides instant warmth in the heart of your home.

Replace summer potpourris, aromatic candles and room fragrances with warmer scents.  Cinnamon, apple, orange, sage, cedar and vanilla are good heat inspiring scents.  Do not forget about the bathroom and closet space, every room deserves to smell great.

In the bedroom, change cotton bed linens to flannel and add a goose down duvet and an extra cuddly blanket.  This year’s ‘hottest’ bedding is grey heather (think menswear) and chalk stripe linens. When dressing the bed fold a heavy quilt or throw at the end of the bed and replace summer throw cushions with extra forbidden pillows (the ones we do not sleep on).  Fur, velvets and chenille’s look wonderfully inviting on the bed.

To warm up your home this fall and winter with colour think red or purple.  Deep, rich, handsome reds and purples are ‘hot’ shades for the cold winter season.  Paint a couple of feature walls or simply add a splash of heat with some coloured accessories with two of this years-hottest, heat inspiring accent colours.  Handsome Latin reds inspire energy while deep, rich, regal purples inspire creativity when used as an accent colour in a room.

This fall, let the colourful spirit of passionate textures, scents and colours keep your home glowing with the warmth and comfort that makes a home simply sensational!

DIVA AT HOME

One of the many treasures that I brought home with me from Tahiti last week was coconut oil. Coconut oil makes a wonderful, deep-penetrating hair treatment and skin treatment. Simply warm some in a small bowl, and massage the oil into your scalp or skin before bedtime. It helps seal split ends and keeps hair strong and shiny and your skin silky smooth!

FENG SHUI

Fall is the season that many of us focus on our careers; Feng Shui, can help you achieve success with your career goals and aspirations. When dressing for success, wear a lot of crystals and stones to strengthen your intuition. Wear a dragon to bless you with an abundance of positive career energy, or a turtle if you are in a nurturing or homebody type of profession. How to wear a turtle or dragon; think brooches, scarves with a picture of the animal painted on them or pendant. Ribbons in the hair are also a sure fire career booster.