Summer is a strange thing. It seems to be ‘on its way’ for months and months on end, with its arrival typically hinted at with teasingly sporadic warmer days right up until the point that the nights start to draw in. Perhaps it’s just me, but summer is like a birthday present from a distant family member that’s been promised and talked about but never actually ever seems to arrive. This reticence on behalf of summer to land in full means that the warmer weather is treated as being ‘not over yet’ by those who feel robbed of yet another ‘real’ summer. Through this denial, winter is not prepared for, sort of on the principle that we can’t prepare for winter until summer has been. I get it. But sometimes you just have to cut your losses.
Whichever stage of denial you may be in, the fact is that winter is getting ready for us, so we may as well begin to prepare for it. For example, beat the rush with boiler installation by getting your older model checked now. You may also want to look into double glazing, and, … well, let’s get into it…
Curtains make a huge difference
Curtains are one of those things on which new homeowners and people with spare rooms may try to save money. As long as there are curtains of some description, in a plain and inoffensive shade pastel shade, who cares, right? The problem is that windows are a heat drain, sucking the warmth out of the room and bleeding your home of any residual heat that may have built up throughout the daylight hours. What you need is thick blackout curtains. These are relatively expensive in comparison to flimsy single layer curtains, but during the summer months there’s not much demand for heavy duty curtains – this means that if you shop around, you can pick up some serious bargains. Even for homes with multiple spare rooms, picking up thick curtains during summer can be a money saving tip that won’t break the bank.
Time for a furniture reshuffle
Furniture gets moved around a lot. Why? Because the people who design houses don’t appreciate that we would like our furniture to face the TV, with doorways and fireplaces and windows in a helpful position in terms of placing a sofa in the room without being in the way. To be fair, this tends to be a problem more so with square rooms, because longer rectangular rooms dictate that the furniture and TV must line up opposite each other against the two longer walls. The problem is that furniture often covers radiators. This means that your house may not actually be as cold as it has to be in the winter.
If your furniture cannot be moved, pull it off the walls slightly to allow the radiator to heat the room, instead of just heating the back of your sofa. The same is true of people who use radiators in the home to dry washing such as towels – free up your radiators for instant heating wins!
I can feel it starting to get colder at night already! Great tips for keeping warm!