Dream a little dream… Cosy curtains

Did you ever have ‘winter curtains’ in your home while growing up? Do you have sets of seasonal curtains in your airing cupboard? Is this still something that goes on today? Allow me to explain; in our home we had two sets of curtains for the living room: thin cotton curtains in green for summer and thick, lined deep purple curtains for winter. When the temperature started to drop, mum would change the curtains and it would signal the start of the festive season. I’m sure this was for completely practical reasons, such as keeping the heat in the room and stopping the old aluminium window frames from sapping all the warmth out of the house, but it also made the whole house feel more cosy and luxurious, and the colour changed the mood of the room completely. It’s probably not a necessity to change the curtains nowadays, with most homes enjoying the benefits of double glazing, but that sense of cosy comfort is just as important now as it was 20 years ago. I was recently feeling a little chilly in the bedroom (our winter heating routine hasn’t quite kicked in yet) and in the back of my mind I remember those winter curtains and I thought about how nice it would be to hang some thick, lined curtains at my windows, if only to improve the cosiness of the room. So I had a look online at the BHS sale and I found a whole range of discounted curtains to choose from.

As you can tell from my previous bedroom blog posts, I like neutral shades so I plumped for these Natural Casa stripe curtains which were reduced to half the original price. The curtains are a luxuriously shimmery silk effect fabric in a very subtle stripe, so subtle in fact that they look great hanging in front of my horizontal striped blackout blind – not a clashing pattern in sight! The curtains are lined, which adds to the feeling of warmth – I’m sure they do have an impact on heat, at the very least they are keeping the cold windows at bay – and the bedroom feels eve more cosy when they are drawn at night. While I was shopping on the BHS website I couldn’t help be check out what other bargains were available and I spotted this plump little kettle. Our previous kettle was part of a kitchen set with a microwave and toaster, but the lid didn’t have a good seal so it would drip every time I made a cup of tea. For once I wasn’t being clumsy – it actually was the kettle at fault, not me! So this new kettle was an essential purchase and I was so pleased that I snapped it up in the sale. I’m now having more cups of tea per day than ever and not a spillage in sight. Plus, the spout has a filter on the inside, which traps limescale so I never end up with bits floating in my tea like I did before! So this week I’ve invested in two new home items that have already made a big difference to how cosy and comfortable I feel in my home this winter. Have you made any recent purchases that have improved your home for winter?  And did you have two sets of curtains for different seasons in the past? Leave me a comment below and let me know!