Preparing Your Dorm or Apartment for Winter: Tips for a Cozy Living Space

As winter approaches, creating a warm and cozy environment is crucial for survival in the dark months. Essential for both comfort and functionality, creating a space you want to spend time in and get a good night’s rest in is essential to preparing for the long, cold months ahead. Enhancing your life and even saving you money, these tips and tricks on preparing your dorm or apartment for winter will ensure you enjoy the season despite the cold. 

Insulating Your Apartment

Many dorms and apartments lack proper insulation in the winter months, which can cause significant drafts and lower the temperature in your home. To keep your space warm, we recommend the following: 

• Seal Drafts – check along your window edges or the cracks in your door to the outside to find spaces where there might be a draft or not a total seal. Use weather stripping to seal it up for the winter, a quick and cheap fix to a drafty apartment. 
• Add Thermal Curtains – Insulated curtains help keep warmth from your space from leaking out through windows or drafts. 
• Utilize Area Rugs –  covering your hardwood floors with area rugs can keep your feet warm and protected from the cool floors below. 

Be careful of the extreme dryness of winter that can cause your lungs and breathing to function at a lower level than normal. Adding humidity to your apartment can prevent dry throats and help control the amount of dust mites, mold, and mildew that you might breathe in. Fan-powered humidifiers are regarded as the best for this as they can substantially move through the air in your home as well as the air vents for best circulation. 

Apartment Decoration and Ambiance

With your windows and doors tightly sealed for the winter, it is the perfect time to ditch your candles and incense and opt for a more apartment-friendly way to make your space cozy – oil diffusers and other chemical-free scent boosters. Try a slow-releasing air freshener if you’re looking for something that smells good, and lean into the fall and winter scents so even when you’re not making freshly baked cookies, your apartment will still smell like it. 

Decorating your apartment can also help keep it cozy in the wintertime. While it’s not going to be the same tree you might have grown up with, investing in a small tree can take your apartment from bland to festive with less than $50. Since people are always scrambling for a tree around the holidays, tons of stores like Michaels, Home Depot, and Lowes have sales on fake and real trees.

 If you choose to get a fake tree, this will be able to last you years until you move into a house of your own. Especially if you get one pre-lit – you won’t have to buy extra lights. 

Adding ornaments to your tree is cheaper than expected, and at most places that sell them, you can get a 20-piece set for under $20. If you catch a good sale at a store, you might be able to stock up on tinsel, holiday decor, and more. 

Don’t underestimate the power of lights and tinsel together, even if regarded as a more basic way to decorate. No apartment could be complete without mentioning the power of small items like this that can transform your space. Head to a local store with Holiday decor and grab a few strands of lights. For under $10, you can get 50 lights that stretch farther than you might think. 

Adding lights to your doorway, balcony, and cool sections of your home inside will provide a cool elevation to your Christmas decor and your space with minimal effort and money. Just make sure there’s an outlet nearby! 

Stock Up on Essentials 

Creating a safe environment for yourself is just as important as the decor, ambiance, and insulation. Here are a few winter essentials that will be beneficial to have on hand when it’s too cold to leave the house. 

• Warm Bedding & extra blankets – making sure you will be warm throughout the season is the biggest essential on the list. Especially if you are living in a rented space where you might not have the luxury of controlling the temperature indoors, swapping out your regular sheets with flannel or fleece and keeping some extra blankets on hand can save you when it’s simply too cold in your apartment. 
• Space heaters – A quick fix to add more heat to your space. If needed, these are great tools that can warm you up fast and ensure you stay that way. 
• Cold weather gear – If you have to run errands, get groceries, or shovel snow, you want to make sure you are properly suited to go outside. Investing in a down jacket as well as gloves, hats, scarves, and more, is important to staying warm outside of the home.