5 Inexpensive Ways to Make a Room Cozy

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Does your room feel cold? A little lifeless? Are the colors too cool, and making you a little bit depressed?

You’re in luck, this post is for you! I had this same exact problem, since my whole house was basically grey and white. I learned how to make a room cozy by doing a ton of research and incorporating a few new ideas into our family room. I thought I’d share everything with you to make your room cozy too!

By the end of this post, you will have the exact skills and ideas you need to make a room cozy, warm, and inviting, even on a small budget.

First we’ll figure out what it means to be cozy, and we’ll share our sources of inspiration. Then you will learn 5 different low-cost ways to make your room feel cozy, comfortable, and warm:

• Rearrange your furniture
• Ways to add color on the cheap
• Use texture to add coziness
• Pick accessories that will maximize coziness
• Create mood lighting for your room

So get cozy, and read on to learn how to get even cozier!

What makes you feel cozy?

Is it your favorite throw blanket and a pair of slippers? Setting your mood lighting by lighting a few candles?

Coziness can be hard to define but in terms of interior decorating, it’s a setting that is warm, inviting, and comfortable.

The Scandinavians also have a good word that is related to coziness, it’s called hygge.

Hygge doesn’t have a direct translation into English, but, according to Hygge House, it’s more of a feeling or state of mind. It’s a feeling of contentment, coziness, comfort, kinship, or charm. It’s considered the art of creating an intimate environment.

A few sources of inspiration for my research on all things cozy include:

• Coco Cozy
• Hygge House

5 Simple Ways to Make your Room Cozy:

1. Rearrange your furniture

This one is 100% FREE! If you change up your furniture arrangement, it can make things seem more cozy and intimate.

• Make seating arrangements closer and chairs/couch facing each other to spark conversation.
• Make clustered seating around a coffee table or fireplace.
• Make the focal point NOT the TV. Otherwise when you have guests, everyone will just look at the TV (versus talk to each other).
• Move furniture away from walls, and try put a sofa table or console table behind the couch.
• Create a reading nook in a corner.

2. Use color

You can use color to make a room cozy in a number of ways:

Paint the walls

Nothing changes how a room feels better than paint (and it’s way cheaper than buying furniture if you DIY). You can use neutrals like grey or white – but choose a shade with undertones on the warm side.

Warm wood or leather

Warm wood tones or cognac leather can add much needed color to a cool color palette. In our living room above, we bought an awesome faux leather pillow from Wal-Mart.

Natural wood can be added by accents like wood trays, wooden plant pots, natural wood frames, or wood furniture like side tables or end tables. In the photo above, our coffee table is the Whitt coffee table purchased from All Modern. We added IKEA furniture legs to it, to make it taller!

Art

Artwork can add color to a room, my favorite place to buy downloadable art is Etsy. This way you can directly support individual artists, and small businesses – plus the variety of printable art is unbelievable!

You can print the digital files from Etsy at WalMart Photo (poster printing is super inexpensive).

You can also get inexpensive frames at Wal-Mart too, here are a few of my favorites:

Mainstays 24×36 Poster Frame, Matte Black = $17.99

Mainstays Brass Metallic Poster Frame = $24.99

4. Colorful Accents

In the photo above, I bought pillow covers from H&M Home (the patterned ones were only $5.99 each!) and IKEA in “warm” colors like beige, and a reddish brown pattern. In addition, H&M Home had the cutest wood trays that also helped make our family room more cozy.

3. Add Texture (lots of it)

Julie Banner’s blog post on making a room cozy explains adding texture can be done in any number of ways:

Pillows – textured, knitted, velvet, leather – you get the idea. A few examples from Amazon below (affiliate links if you click on the photo):

Blankets – chunky, patterns, knitted – drape over your couch or put in a basket.

Rugs – warm color, raised texture, hand knotted, jute.

Window coverings – bamboo shades, velvet, woven, or linen curtains.

4. Accessorize, Baby

Wood Trays

You can find awesome natural wood trays from Ross or Homegoods. The tray in our living room above, is a mango wood serving tray from H&M Home, only $24.99 (watch for site-wide sales).

Plants

A bit of greenery will help bring the outside in and make people feel more connected to the outdoors, which helps you relax.

Baskets

Natural fiber baskets are everywhere these days and you can use them to store blankets, pillows, or toys. A few of my faves from Amazon (affiliate links):

Wooden Objects

Natural wood vases, trays, small sculptures. Both of below are from Amazon (affiliate links):

Books

Actually putting books on bookshelves will make your room feel more intimate and cozy.

5. Mood Lighting

Light a fire

If you don’t have a fireplace, fear not, candles (even battery operated ones) will add a lot of atmosphere to any room. You can use candles paired with a glass or perforated candle holder to give a soft, intimate glow to a room.

Since we have a toddler, we’re all in on the battery operated candles – like these on Amazon, around $20.

Other Lighting Options

According to Curbly, there are a few other ways to create a feeling of mystery, wonder, and comfort, even with electric lighting:

Lamps

Use floor and table lamps versus overhead lighting to create a more intimate and relaxing environment.

Another option to make a room cozy is using sconces, or wall-mounted lights! If you don’t want to hardwire sconces, you have 2 options:

Option 1: You can use a battery-operated puck light inside a sconce, to put up a wall sconce literally anywhere (no electrician required)! Check out this YouTube video from Nesting with Grace to find out how:

Option 2: There are even sconces that plug into a regular outlet. IKEA has some cute options, and below are a couple of examples found on Amazon (affiliate links) are below:

• Wray Modern Industrial Up Down Swing Arm Wall Lights Set of 2 – $120.
• 360 Lighting Selena Wall Lights LED Plug in Set of 2 – $100

Pendant lights

Add pendant lighting – IKEA has a TON of affordable options that plug into regular electrical outlets. You can put different types of pendant shades onto a plug in “base”. You can even easily switch out the shades if you want to give your room a new look.

Dimmers

Home Depot, Lowes, and Amazon have dimmer switches you can install for very low cost to make your overhead lighting more cozy. Remember to get bulbs that can be dimmed too!

Light bulbs

In addition to use dimmer bulbs, there are 3 easy ways you can make a room cozy just by changing out a light bulb!

• Select warm colored light bulbs – use warm white or soft white. 1000 lumens is a good starting point to create cozy lighting.
• Try Edison bulbs – these are the old-timey looking light bulbs. They even have LED versions of Edison bulbs now on Amazon.
• Use a color changing light bulb, like the Phillips Hue smart bulb – it has literally millions of color options you can control from your phone!

My Results

Our family room was very bare and we used it every day, since that is where our TV is. I wanted to make it more inviting but it’s really small & a little cramped already. So, I just added new throw pillows (H&M Home), a soft blanket, and a wood tray (H&M Home) with a few plants.

It’s not much but it made a big difference! My toddler loves all the new pillows – he makes a big pile and likes to jump into them!

Conclusion

Hope you have found a few ways to make your room more cozy and comfortable. We went deep into 5 inexpensive ways to up your cozy level.

First, we covered a 100% free option through rearranging furniture. Then we reviewed ways to add color through a variety of methods. Next came a lesson on texture, and then accessories. Lastly, we discovered how to set the mood through lighting.

I hope these tips helped you make your home cozy, comfy, and a more relaxing place to spend time. Let me know which one you want to try first in the comments below!

For the next step, try my free guide on How to Design a Room, which will give you a step-by-step blueprint on how to get a modern, cohesive look to your room. See you next time!