Linda Varone | Nurturing Spaces Feng Shui

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Have a Warm and Cozy Bed This Winter the Eco-Friendly Way

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Winter is here, but high fuel costs are too. When the thermostat goes down, a good night’s sleep can be elusive if you feel cold.  Electric blankets are an option, but personally, I’ve never felt good about sleeping under an electric field. Here are three simple, do-able ways to winterize for a warm and cozy bed. Now, what’s old is new again in making a warm and cozy bed for these cold winter nights.

Solutions for a Warm and Cozy Bed

Simple, Green solutions from our ancestors and modern Europeans show us how to make a warm and cozy bed for these freezing winter nights.

  1. Hot water bottles -what’s old is new again.
  2. Flannel Sheets – with recommendations for the best brands.
  3. Duo Duvets – one each for you and your partner.

1. Hot Water Bottles

Bright green thermoplastic hot water bottle with "turtle neck" cover makes for a warm and cozy bed.
This green thermoplastic hot water bottle will keep you warm all night long.

You may think of hot water bottles as a joke, something an old spinster aunt in a British mystery would use. Don’t laugh; they can be more effective than a pile of blankets. Any outdoors person knows: When your feet are warm, your whole body is warm.

You can get a standard rubber model or one of the new recyclable thermoplastic ones in a bright color. They are available at most drug stores or online.

A hot water bottle cover is a good idea as it lets the heat disperse slowly and keeps you warm all night. The covers come in many colors and patterns, some with fanciful decorations, and others look like little turtleneck sweaters for your hot water bottle. Find these on Etsy.

Tip: Never place a hot water bottle in a microwave.

2. Flannel Sheets

If you’ve ever slipped between flannel sheets, you know the warm and cozy bed welcome they provide.

My experience with flannel sheets is with LL Bean’s Ultrasoft Flannel Sheets. No bedtime shock from cold sheets, just warmth, and coziness. Named by The New York Times’s “Wirecutter” product evaluation team as their #1 choice. “Wirecutter’s” budget pick is Target’s Threshold Flannel Sheets, judged better than some of the more expensive brands.

LL Bean also has flannel duvet covers which can help with the next solution.

3. Duo Duvets

Colorful comforter on double bed covering duo duvets looks like a warm and cozy bed.
This bright comforter adds color to a bed with duo duvets for a comfortable night for two.

Suppose a nightly blanket tug-of-war with your partner makes good sleep impossible, or you have the dilemma of your shared bedcovering being too hot for one partner and inadequate for the other. The Danish Duo Duvet is the answer.

The Danish Duo Duvet is two twin-size duvets for a Full or Queen bed. (If you have a King-size bed, you may need two Full-size duvets.) Each one is for the temperature preferences of each partner. One duvet can be lightweight and cool, while the other is heavier and warmer. The Duo Duvets make for a warm and cozy bed like Goldilock’s: “just right.”

Photo showing how duo duvets are placed on a bed.
This photo shows how duo duvets are arranged on a bed before nighttime.

Take two duvets and fold them in half the long way and place them lengthwise on the bed with the folded sides next to each other in the center of the bed. Or, you can lay them out flat and overlap each other in the center of the bed.

If your duvet covers are plain, you can cover the bottom half of your bed with a colorful spread or comforter, as shown above.

At bedtime, shake out your own duvet and snuggle underneath.

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Click here to learn more about how to survive winter

If you have tried any of these solutions, let me know how they have worked for you in the comments below.

Feng Shui Romance: A Valentine’s Video for You

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Feng Shui Romance Plus a Valentine’s Video Treat: What Do Children Think About Love?

Bring Feng Shui Romance and a Little Laughter into your life. Kids candidly talking about:

  • favorite Valentine’s treats,
  • who they love and
  • what love is.

Impossible for you not to smile.

For Feng Shui Romance help

here are links to articles on Feng Shui for Romance.
Feng Shui sets the scene for a romantic master bedroom.

Wishing you a Happy Feng Shui Valentine’s Weekend.

(Why should Valentine’s be limited to one day?!)

Feng Shui Tips: Bring Beach Bliss Home for Vacation Feeling All Year

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vacation feeling feng shui master bedroom beach scene
Bring Beach Bliss Home. Recreate the feeling of your favorite place. Energize your travel wishes.

Keep That Vacation Feeling All Year Long

Lying on the beach, for a day or for a week, you find yourself reaching a level of total relaxation that is rare in our hectic lives. Whether you experience this bliss on a beach, on a lake, or in the mountains; you want to bring some of that vacation feeling back home with you.
Tangible things rekindle memories and dreams.
 
 
 
 

In Your Bedroom Re-create The Feeling of the Place That Nurtures Your Soul.

One client has a special love of the seaside.  The bedroom was already the pale blue of an ocean sky. She placed a few pictures and mementos of the ocean and her home there, to the delight of herself and her husband.

  • If a cabin in the woods is your delight, then place a Hudson Bay or LL Bean blanket over your favorite chair.
  • Travels to distant lands?  A window draped with sari fabric from India.
  • A paper mache box from Venice becomes your jewelry box.

How-tos: Keep that Vacation Feeling Going All Year

  • Frame a snapshot of you having a wonderful time. The most important thing is that the photo captures the positive energy of that moment and when you look at it you re-experience some of that joy.
  • Enlarge and frame a photo or print of a particular scene from a place you love, or would love to visit.
  • Create a collage of photos or postcards that you love
  • Consider getting “useful” souvenirs that you will use often instead of tchotchskes (knick knacks):
  • If you savor your tea by the cup get a special tea rather than a tea pot that will be shoved to the back of your cabinet.
  • Or a jam like the one you had at that wonderful bed and breakfast
  • Remember physical things are just triggers for the memories of your travels. Things come and go, your memories are forever.

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    How do you keep that vacation feeling going in your home and in your life? I would love to hear your ideas.

     

    Want To Make That Travel Dream Come True?

    Activate the Travel area of the Ba-Gua. As you stand in the door facing the house or room, the travel area is in the front right hand corner nearest the door.  This is the part of the Ba-Gua that influences both Travel and Helpful People. Travel includes where you have been and where you would like to go. Helpful People includes friends, colleagues and mentors.

    Place a Feng Shui cure or image of where you want to go in the Ba-Gua Travel area.

Contact me to learn more about making your home or office reflect your wishes and dreams.

Words of Wisdom

“To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.”   – Jane Austen, English novelist (1775-1817

Book review

My favorite feet-up books are mysteries by Tony Hillerman and Reginald Hill. Hillerman’s books take place on the Navajo reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. The land becomes one of the characters. “A Thief of Time” is particularly good. Hillermans’ books have added the Southwest to my travel wish list. Hill’s books take place in Yorkshire, England. “Beyond the Woods” weaves together an old and a new mystery, while “Picture Perfect” parodies Jane Austen with an affectionate wink.

What are your favorite vacation reads?

photo by andrew w osterberg

Feng Shui Bedroom: When NOT to Position Your Bed to Face Your Door

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One of the first things you learned about Feng Shui was to position your bed to see the door of your bedroom. Why? So you could see if someone was trying to invade your bedroom and attack you.

Does this reasoning apply to your home in today’s world?

double bed with headboard against window wall
Positioning your bed with the head against a window looks dramatic, but feels ungrounded and exposed.

You also learned what Feng Shui discovered two thousand years ago, and modern social psychology discovered fifty years ago: People do not feel comfortable when their back is exposed. You are hardwired to be hyper-vigilant when you back is to a door or open space, because you cannot see if a saber-tooth tiger, or other danger, is approaching from behind. This is a protective, survival response that reasoning cannot turn off.

What happens when these two ideas clash? 

What do you do when the wall opposite your bedroom door, where you would put your bed, is filled with windows? Do you position your bed against/under winders so you can see any potential intruders in your doorway, even though you feel sub-consciously vigilant and have difficulty sleeping? Or do you position your bed against another wall and lose your direct view of the door?

I discovered two interesting facts about Chinese history and culture that contribute to Feng Shui:

  1.    Until the twentieth century there were no banks in China. If your family had wealth (cash) they hid it in their home – maybe under the mattress.
  2.    When poor farmers where thrown off their land because they couldn’t pay the oppressive taxes, they would band together and steal from the rich to feed their families – like Robin Hood.

Therefore, in old China, having a bandit break into your home to steal your family’s wealth was a real danger. But is this your reality today? You feel secure in your home. Your money is in a bank. There are no marauding bandits roaming your neighborhood.

When I am working with a client and the wall opposite the door is ungrounded and exposed by windows, I recommend they position the head of their bed against a solid wall. This will help to ground them when they sleep and will support more restful sleep (the hyper-vigilance response is not triggered).

If there is more than one spacious, grounded position for their bed then I use their Lo Shu number (lucky directions) as a tie-breaker in deciding where to position their bed.

How do you position your bed? How does it affect your ability to sleep? Do you have a challenging bedroom set-up? Share your experiences and thoughts in the comments below. I love to hear from you.

Light and Heat-Blocking Window Treatments Keep You Cooler: Save Money and Energy

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How to Keep Cool(er) During the Dog Days of Summer.

With almost universal air conditioning, we have become lulled into the habit of flicking a switch for instant cool. But this dependence on air conditioning is costly in both dollars ($$$) and natural resources. Use light and heat-blocking window treatments to keep your home cooler.

picure of sunlight and heat waves enter and are trapped within a glass house.
This is the Greenhouse Effect in your home. The windows trap radiant heat.

The Greenhouse Effect

You know about the Greenhouse Effect and its impact on Global Warming. Every time you get into a car on a sunny day and the interior of the car is hotter than the air outside, you are experiencing your own Greenhouse Effect. But do you know how the Greenhouse Effect works within your own home? Sunlight enters your home through your windows, bringing light energy and heat energy. The glass in your windows traps the heat energy, causing your home to become hotter and hotter. This can be perfect on a cold winter’s day, but during the hot days of summer, either your air conditioning goes into overdrive or your home stays hot. (Note: The all-glass modern houses of the 1950s and ’60s were designed when fuel was cheap.)

This is where smart window treatments come in.  Learn how your grandparents kept cool(er) and what Europeans in old houses still do today. For part of the day, you want to block out sunlight and radiant heat from your home. I have written about window treatments that open your views and connect you with nature.  You can have both, provided you use the right light and heat-blocking window treatments.

 

What are the four reasons for window treatments?

  1. Protection from the sun’s glare and heat.
  2. Protection from winter cold and drafts.
  3. Protection from unattractive views.
  4. Protection from nosy neighbors.
View of palm tree against blue sky, through partially opened plantation shutter
In hot climates, plantation shutters are used to filter out light, allow cooling breezes to enter, and provide people with privacy.

Learn how to use window treatments to keep your home cool.

Before the day heats up, in the early morning, close your windows and draw your drapes, blinds, and shutters, especially in bedrooms, sun-drenched rooms, and unused rooms. (Some of the older houses on Beacon Hill, Boston, have interior shutters for just this purpose.  (In the old days, shutters weren’t for decoration.) In modern Rome, there is a daily ritual of opening, closing, and adjusting windows and solid shutters as the sun moves across the sky. Are your drapes lined to keep out sunlight, heat, and cold? Are your shades room-darkening?  You may want to close out the heat in all the windows of your home, or maybe just the rooms facing the sun. If you have skylights, consider adding adjustable shades to them for the hot days. As the day gets cooler, you can open your window treatments.

Woman in darkened room opening heavy curtains to see the light outside.
Light-blocking curtains are helpful during both hot summer days and cold winter months.
Lighti blocking shades dim sun glare in bedroom
Partially lowered, these light-blocking shades soften the sunlight in this bedroom.

 

The trick is to have light-blocking or at least light-filtering window treatments.

This means curtains made from a heavy fabric, or a thinner fabric with light-blocking linings.  If your curtains don’t have light-blocking linings, you can improvise using an extra curtain rod, clip-on curtain rings, and light-blocking fabric. Measure, cut, and hang the lining fabric from the extra curtain rod tucked behind your decorative curtains. This way, the curtain is between the window and your decorative curtains.

Too often, we keep our window treatments open all the time. This is great for light and views, but we need to remember that our window treatments give us the option to close them.

If  you feel claustrophobic or cut off from nature when your window treatments are closed, then consider solar shades or variations on them.  They are mounted like window shades and are made of one of several densities of heavy plastic mesh that block out different degrees of light (and heat) while allowing a veiled view of the outdoors. You have probably seen them at your local Starbucks.

Living room with white solar shades.
These solar shades eliminate the sun-glare in this room while allowing views outside.

Open and Close: Take advantage of the cooler air outside

If it is a cool evening, open the windows to catch the cooling breezes. If the night is cool and humidity is not an issue, leave your windows open and sleep with the cool air from outdoors, moved by a fan placed in or by the window. If you need to keep your windows closed, then adjust your AC settings for a night without radiant heat from the sun. This won’t eliminate your need for air conditioning on blistering hot, humid days, but it will keep your home a bit cooler, so your HVAC system doesn’t have to use as much electricity. Your approach to using window treatments will vary as the warm months progress, and overcast days may not require any sun blocking. Experiment with this and see what works best for you.

Air conditioning makes life easier during the hot months, but we don’t have to rely on it exclusively to stay cool. Reclaim some of the wisdom of your ancestors. Use light and heat-blocking window treatments. Stay cool, save money, and conserve energy at the same time.

plantation shutter photo by simonsimages

Feng Shui and Self Help Books in the Bedroom, or a “Bookcase Filled with Nuns”

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Your bedroom is your sanctuary; your place to escape stress. Feng Shui recommends that you not have too many books in your bedroom, because lots of books make it harder to get deep, restful sleep.

book shelf filled with self-help books
The kind of books you have in your bedroom subconsciously influence the quality of your sleep.

Over the years I have noticed what kind of books people keep in their bedroom. I have also observed there is a gender difference in books at men and women’s bedsides. Men tend to have histories, biographies and books about their professional fields. Women tend to have self-help books.  What a horrible message to give yourself as you try to relax and have a good night sleep: “You are not a good enough person.”, “You need to improve yourself.”

I pointed out a bookcase of self-help books to a recent client, with the suggestion she go through them and decide what books she really wanted in her bedroom. During our follow-up phone call a week later, she said she moved most of her self-help books out of her bedroom. “It was like having a bunch of nuns hanging out in the bookcase. Telling you what you haven’t done, or haven’t done good enough.”  Now, without those books in her bedroom, she sleeps much better.

You may not have a “bookshelf full of nuns” in your bedroom, but your critical-self needs only the slightest nudge to relentlessly badger you, instead of letting you sleep.

Check out your stack of bed time reading. Weed–out the self-help, diet, exercise and “guilt “books – those books that were given to you, but which you have no real interest in reading. Move the ones that are truly useful to another room and donate the rest to your local library. Curl up with an intelligent mystery, novel or biography; or maybe some poetry.  The really good ones teach you about the larger world. You never out-grow the need for a good bed-time story.

photo by “Evelyn Giggles“