Some call it seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. It used to be called cabin fever. But whatever you choose to call it, it’s a common winter malaise in northern climates–and it can be a real downer.
To avoid the feeling, most geese, and some financially independent Chicagoans, fly south. Unfortunately, not all of us have that option. If we want to avoid feeling cranky for four or five months out of every year, we have to use our ingenuity to create living environments that shut out many of winter’s nastier aspects.
Positive thinking helps. Think warm. . . But, if you’re not quite sure how to translate warm into your particular space, interior designers can give you some ideas.
Helen Schubert, executive director of the American Society of Interior Designers, is one such authority.
“I formerly lived Near North in an older building on the lakefront,” she says. “The apartment was drafty in the winter, so I was forced to become an expert on decorating for warmth.”
Schubert suggests starting with the floors. “Area rugs with pads under them will keep bare floors warmer in the winter,” she says.
Comfy furnishings
Furniture and its placement are also important considerations when you winterize your space. Big, cushy sofas, chairs and hassocks add warmth. When arranging groupings for conversation, TV viewing and reading, remember that warm corners and draft-free areas will make you and your guests much cozier and more comfortable.
Schubert recommends heavy tapestries to warm exterior walls. “A tapestry behind the bed will make that area warmer for those who like to read in bed,” she notes. To hold in the heat and cut down on cold drafts, she layered her windows, with blinds, sheers and heavy, lined draperies.
Jayne Dranias of Jayne Dranias Designs in River Forest recently decorated a model apartment for the Habitat Co.’s Buckingham condominiums in downtown Chicago. For a client who wants a warm, intimate environment, she likes to use heavy, overstuffed pieces with sensuous curves, deep colors and fabrics such as antique velvet. She also upholsters walls to provide warmth and texture.
While you may not have the funds or the energy necessary to repaint your rented apartment (or the permission from the landlord to upholster a wall) for a single season, if you are planning to redecorate you should be aware that colors are very effective at mood-setting. Warm shades are the reds, yellows, oranges, browns and beiges. Blues, greens and whites are cool shades. If you can’t afford a total redo, pillows, throws, draperies, tapestries and area rugs in the proper shades can contribute warm accents to your winter color scheme–and they can be taken with you to your next apartment.
Both designers subscribe to the idea of decorating with plants, particularly through the winter months.
Green and fresh
“Plants create an illusion of warm, tropical environments,” Schubert says, adding that the vegetation also helps clean the air and provide oxygen.
Dranias often chooses a large plant rather than sculpture when she wants to add a dramatic accent to one of her designs.
“I emphasize a plant with low-voltage, high-intensity, halogen spots, which highlight its natural beauty and provide dramatic shadows,” she explains. In other areas, Dranias says she may mass a collection of small plants for a colorful effect.
Almost everybody agrees that living plants are an economical quick-fix for the winter doldrums. Frank Mustacchio and Ed Zauznabar are two of the many Chicago apartment dwellers who luxuriate through the winter in a veritable oasis of greenery. There are plants in the bathroom, plants in the bedrooms and plants on the kitchen window ledge. A tropical jungle flourishes in an eastern exposure bay window. Zauznabar, who is known throughout his Lake View neighborhood for his exceptionally green thumb, administers most of the tender loving care to the collection, but he insists that they’re very little trouble.
“Ed feeds them once a month, with some blue stuff from the garden shop,” says Mustacchio, “and he waters them with water which has set long enough so that the chlorine and other chemicals have evaporated. That’s about it.” The men feel that the interior garden makes their Chicago winters a lot more bearable and also healthier.
Verle Lessig, one of the owners of the Fertile Delta in Lincoln Park, has some additional suggestions for those who want to invest in an indoor winter garden. Among the easiest plants to grow in an apartment, according to Lessig, are Chinese evergreens, aspidistras, pothos and sanservia, more commonly known as mother-in-law’s tongue, or the snake plant.
“These are all low-maintenance plants,” he says. “They do well in low-light, low-humidity conditions with infrequent waterings, which makes them the ideal choice for apartments and for busy apartment dwellers.”
Flowering plants are more colorful but most of them also require more care. Most of them need decent light, too; so, if you don’t have much natural light from your windows, you’ll probably need a grow light. For flower lovers, Lessig suggests bromileads and cyclamen, which will flower for several months, if you take proper care of them.
If you want to experience a touch of spring throughout the winter, he notes that Fertile Delta and other plant stores have paperwhites and amaryllis potted up and ready to go. They will bloom in three to five weeks, so that, by staggering purchases, you can have them blooming throughout the winter and well into spring. Tulips and daffodils will be available at a lot of flower shops later on, but the bulbs have to be hardened off outdoors or under refrigeration first, so you’ll have to wait awhile.
In order to grow, plants need light. In order to thrive, people also need light. According to recently published studies, many seasonally depressed people (those suffering from SAD) respond favorably to regular doses of full-spectrum light, which replaces the natural sunlight of the summer months.
Unfortunately, many Chicagoans don’t have a whole lot of unobstructed windows, which allow natural light to brighten their winter-weary apartments. That’s when it might be wise to add some lighting to perk up your spirits. “Lighting can create actual warmth as well as psychological warming,” Schubert points out.
Marie O’Neill, a customer service representative and buyer for Fox Lighting Galleries on the Northwest Side, recommends a mixture of lighting techniques to provide warmth and drama to your space.
“Back lighting or up lighting is good to emphasize a special area, a display plant or a grouping,” she says, “while tracks installed with low-watt, incandescent glow lights will soften the edges of a room or warm an alcove. Full-spectrum fluorescents are usually selected for grow lights to maintain and highlight flowering plants.”
Halogen is a bright, white light, good for reading and in other areas where strong light is an asset, O’Neill explains. Halogens are also often used as spots or floods. She also suggests torchiere lamps, which provide indirect light, are easy to move about and can be relocated to accommodate a variety of activities.
