Here's how to prepare your home for Valentine's Day

Valentine’s day is normally spent planning the ideal dinner date or picking the best gifts. Since the feelings of love empathy best exist within four walls of our homes, we need to spice up the spaces around us for this eve of passion and warmth.

Kolkata Based Interior Designer Shabnam Alam shares few creative ideas to refurbish your personal space in a simple, sober yet classy way for Valentine’s Day.

You can’t redecorate your space without cleaning it properly, take out every unnecessary stuff, clean up your furniture and fitted chandeliers.

Once the room is clutter-free, clean and organized, you can start adding all the special accent details.

• You can give a new look to the chandeliers of your house by decorating it with pieces of ribbon and changing the lights to dimmed one for bringing a light romantic mood in the ambience. The colours of ribbon could be a combination of Red and White and lights should be decided accordingly.
• If you don’t want to go through all the trouble of switching to dimmable lights, you can choose to decorate with candles. Illuminate the room, create focal points and turn the whole space into a romantic nook. But watch out where you place the candles and remember: safety first.
• Red is the colour of passion, so take this opportunity to change the vibe in the bedroom by introducing a few red accents. Maybe you can get some new pillow/ cushion covers of textures like faux fur, velvet or velour, preferably red with a combination of White/ Gold silk bed sheet. Along with that you can give an extra ordinary touch to the corners of your rooms by putting bunches of Tiger Lilies, daffodils or carnations in simple, sober flower vase preferably of some earthy tones rather than placing red roses which have become symbolical with the purpose of Valentine.
• The wall décor has a huge impact on the overall look of a room. So, come up with a way to set a romantic mood for your bedroom by framing some photos of you as a couple. It would help to decorate the room as well as cherish the sweet memories.
• Use curtains to complete the look, Choose a colour that shows your passion and love. Red would be nice but you can also play with other shades. A designer mirror could look nice on a wall as well.
• If you have a fireplace in your drawing room, that’s already pretty romantic. You can enhance the romantic vibe by decorating the mantel with something handcrafted or with candles. If fire place is not there you can apply the same ideas to decorate any idle corner of your drawing space.
• Plan return gifts with goody bags made with chocolates wrapped with bright, glossy wrappers and bags could be knotted with a neatly made bow of thick red ribbon.
• Last but not the least, dress the dinner table with white silk or lace fabric table cover. White crockery sets with customized napkin aside give a royal outlook to the table. Along with that, centrepiece candle underlay with rose petals or simply a bouquet of white and red rose in a crystal vase and accompaniment of the dinner with a glass of wine will complete the motif.