By Leslie Linsley

Author of “Nantucket Island Living”

January 2025

There are two things I can’t live without: Flowers and books. It’s the dead of winter and nothing makes a home come alive like fresh flowers. They remind us that spring is around the corner and since it’s the month of love, remember your Valentine with a bouquet. According to a charming little book, “The Language of Flowers”, red tulips are a declaration of Love while a bouquet of red and white roses are a symbol of Unity.

            This month Dirck Van Lieu tells us how to build a cold frame garden which you’ll find outside of Housewares for inspiration. A fun winter project in anticipation of spring. This is the perfect time for small projects to improve your home. For example, add an extra shelf in a closet, put a strip of pegs on the inside of a closet door for hats and scarves, turn a closet into a designated, out of the way office with a wall-to-wall shelf for the desk and a storage unit beneath. Add shelves above. Close the door to hide your workspace when not in use. 

February is a good time to declutter and organize seasonal clothes. Housewares has every size and style storage bin to turn this into a satisfying activity. Some of the larger plastic bins come with retractable wheels for sliding under a bed to hold extra blankets, for example. Nothing beats a pantry, no matter how small, for holding dry goods and laundry supplies. Is your mud room or entryway doing all that it can to serve your storage needs? Look for unused spaces to reorganize things like bed linens and towels. For example, I put up a deep shelf over the toilet in my bathroom to hold large bath towels that took up a lot of space in my linen closet. When we live in a house for several years, we often don’t re-evaluate how we use it. Look for areas that can be reclaimed for other purposes. What about a built-in wine refrigerator or wine rack? 

Rearranging furniture can reveal a new and sometimes better way to use our spaces for different seasons. Winter is a time for more intimate seating. Create small areas within an open floor plan. 

Looking toward spring, enlarging your deck might offer more opportunities for outdoor entertaining? A room with a view can be further improved with an expanse of glass from sliding doors. Visit the Window & Door Gallery for inspiration from new innovative products you might not have thought possible. Sometimes we live with inconveniences we’ve stopped noticing, like a powder room door that hits the sink or toilet seat when open. A sliding pocket door is an easy solution, and the new ones slide inside the wall with a gentle touch. An easy “why didn’t I think of that?” improvement. 

            Use books as a decorating tool. Pile several on a low table to raise the height of a lamp or vase of flowers. Choose books for their subject matter, color, size and design of their jackets. Pile books on a small chair, display curated books for display on a shelf, arrange decorating books on a coffee table with other objects. I have a shelf of books arranged as my autobiography, beginning with my favorites from college and continuing through different stages of my life. It’s become an ever-changing project. Add a little bookcase in your bedroom, place a poetry book on a stool in the bathroom. New bathroom accessories along with lovely smelling soap, lotion, hand towels from Housewares and a bouquet of flowers is the perfect refresh and a basket filled with love for your Valentine. Create a powder room gallery with framed family photos. Consider a new (maybe daring) paint color like Benjamin Moore’s Stained Glass CSP-685 (a deep green/blue) in this room. Or cover the walls and ceiling with a large floral print wallpaper so you feel like you’re in a garden when you open the door. Check out the array of samples in the Design Showroom. 

            Bring springtime to your bedroom with new pillow shams in a hydrangea pattern. The variety of blue and white prints from Lulu dk or the elegant floral prints from Schumacher found in Housewares are sensational. Add a delicate bouquet of fresh flowers on your side tables. Check out Housewares and Home Furnishings  for creative containers to hold flowers from now until the cold frame garden you built with Dirck’s directions begins to bloom.