DIY Cozy Home Decor + Cozy Home Hacks & Tips *Chunky Knit Blanket in 1 HOUR*

Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel. It is Drew here from Lone Fox. I hope you guys are having a great day so far. And today's video is a very, very exciting one. I love coming home to a cozy home, a cozy environment. I've always wanted to make my house feel very inviting and warm. And that is exactly what I'm going to help you guys out with today, if you're maybe one that struggles with creating a cozy environment or just want some additional tips and tricks on how to do so. And today's video actually came to be because it is sponsored by Google and their Nest thermostat, which is so exciting. But honestly, I've been an avid fan of Google for a long time. I personally own the Google Home and I've used it for a couple of years now. So I'm very, very excited to kind of incorporate the Nest thermostat into my little Google Home situation. But I'm also going to be doing a couple of DIY projects for you guys that are super cozy and just add that layer of like warmth to your home. Then I'm also gonna give you guys a couple of DIY tips and tricks and hacks as well, along with it. So yeah, I guess we can kind of call this my cozy home guide, if you will. But if you are not already, make sure to subscribe to my channel. I post brand new home decor and DIY content every single week here. And you can also go ahead and click that little bell icon next to the subscribe button. That way you are notified when I upload brand new videos. And I think we should just go ahead and jump right into our first tip. When I personally walk into my own home, the first thing I notice is the temperature because I am greeted by a very vertical staircase. There is nothing pretty about that at all. So the first thing I notice, and I think that is a very inviting feeling, is the warmth and the temperature of my apartment. And Google has you covered with that with their Nest Thermostat. It truly is an incredible product, you guys. And that's my first kind of tip in this video, is just making sure that you always have that proper temperature set in your apartment. That creates such a cozy vibe. And Google has made that process so much simpler and not to mention chicer with their Nest Thermostat. As many of you guys know, design is a humongous part of my channel. And honestly, your traditional thermostat is such an eyesore on the wall. Whenever I walked down the hallway and saw literally our vintage thermostat, I was like, that is not a cute vintage item. That is an ugly vintage item. So the install was actually extremely simple, but let's go ahead and talk about the design of this piece because it truly is like an innovative, modern design that meshes well with really any interior design style, which I personally love. I feel like my space kind of lends a little bit eclectic. And I totally think that the Nest Thermostat just meshes well, like it blends right in. It comes in four different really trendy colors. Like you could find one for your space for sure. And then it also has an optional trim kit as well, which I opted for because the actual like removal of my old thermostat, there was some paint color missing behind there. So the trim kit totally covered that without me having to go find a paint match to the wall already, which I love. And of course the design's amazing, but it truly is a no brainer in form of function. It has a touchscreen on the front and then you could simply use your finger on the right side, kind of going like this up and down on the right side to toggle the menu sections, tap it to select an option on the menu and you are good to go. But not only can you control it from the touchscreen inside, you can also control it using the Google Home app, which I personally love. I'm usually only controlling it with the phone app because you can grab your phone, opening up the Google Home app and within the app, you can actually adjust the thermostat. You can go in there and adjust the temperature hotter or colder. But the great thing that I personally love is being able to set my preferences for temperature. This feature is known as quick schedule, where you can kind of go in there and let's just say at nighttime, you'd like your apartment to be a bit colder, use a little bit less energy. And then during the daytime, since you're awake and active, you want it to be a little bit more warm. You could actually go in and set your very own personalized preferences and the Google Nest thermostat will take that into account. And at specific times of the day, it will actually adjust the temperature based off your preferences. I personally think the Nest thermostat is a game changer for sure. I never knew a smart thermostat also was as affordable as the Google Nest thermostat is. It is only $129, which I think is a great investment for your home, for being able to have that kind of like wireless function on your phone using the Google Home app, being able to set up all your preferences. And there are so many more features I'll touch on throughout this video as well, but definitely check the link in the description box below if you would like to get your very own Nest thermostat. Again, there's different color options. You can add the trim kit. The design is incredible. The function's perfect. And overall, I just really, really love this product and I'm so excited to be featuring them in today's video. Next up, we are going to dive into a DIY project, which is extremely exciting. I remember when I lived in a larger apartment complex and I walked down the hallway because my apartment was at the very end and I saw everyone's doormats outside their door. I thought it was so cute and inviting. And I'm gonna share with you guys how to make a super simple little 10 minute DIY doormat. But of course, in order to create a project like this, we have to go out and get some supplies. And this kind of comes hand in hand with the Nest thermostats eco mode, which is a great feature that they have. So when you're out getting your supplies at the craft store, it can actually sense that you're gone and away from your home and it can adjust the temperature inside, saving you on energy and power, which of course results in saving money. So you're not heating or cooling your apartment when nobody is inside. Let's go ahead and jump on into the DIY. This doormat DIY is so simple. Anybody can do this. I started off with a basic doormat. I also grabbed a ruler just to make sure everything was nice and aligned. And then I grabbed these letter stickers. Which are just simple, kind of like chipboard letter stickers. And I've had these in my stash for a while, back when I used to scrapbook, as a lot of you guys know. And I figured, why don't I use these kind of as a mask on the top of my doormat? And I'm going to be writing on here, welcome home. And just kind of like a dainty little font in the middle. And then I'm going to be spraying over the top of this with a black spray paint, where the letter stickers are going to mask the brown out. And then the black is going to be the majority of the actual doormat itself. So as you can see here, I'm placing down all of my letter stickers. And then I grabbed my black spray paint, but you can totally adjust this to be a different color and customize it however you'd like. And originally I was like, why don't I just do like a little blob in the middle and almost make it look like a little vintage, rustic kind of distressed doormat, in a sense. But I didn't love how it looked with just kind of like that random spritz of color in the center. So I actually ended up kind of covering my memo in the center there, and then spraying the entire mat black, which ended up making it look so cute in the end. And I put this out front, layered on top of my normal doormat, and it truly looks so cute and inviting. Moving into tip number three, this is all about textures. I really do think that you can create such a cozy environment, even with one solid color, as long as you mix up the textures. I personally use so many different textures when I'm designing a room. I love having wood. I love metal. I love wicker, rattan. I even have leather in the living room. There's brick back here on the fireplace. We have paint on the walls, linen, curtains, whatever it might be. Just mixing up different textures and adding when you know that you need that additional element of coziness. But one of my most requested DIY projects has always been how to create one of these chunky knit blankets. And I created this one yesterday in probably about an hour, you guys. It is so quick and easy to make one of these. This is such a cute Christmas gift idea as well, if you want to make something for somebody, which I truly love. My good friend, Erica from Peony and Honey, actually showed me how to make this blanket. And I want to share with you guys how I created this. I still do need to trim the little tip here. I totally forgot to, but how freaking cute is this chunky knit blanket? And it adds so much cozy texture to a space. So let me share with you guys how I created it. Our knit blanket DIY is actually very simple. I started off with five balls of a very chunky yarn. The chunkier the yarn, the quicker you can actually get through the process. And what I'm starting off by doing is just creating a slip knot at the end of my ball of yarn. And we are going to be creating a chain stitch here, which is going to be the start of our project. And all you have to do to create this is to pull your working yarn, which is attached to the ball, through the loop and create more loops as you go. So it's kind of just a repetitive process of looping through the yarn until you have your desired width of your blanket. And once you're done with that, you're then going to go through and pull loops through the entire length of all of your chains here. So as you can see, you're just going to kind of pop your fingers through, pull a loop through the chain as you go back and forth. And this is literally the entire process of creating this blanket. You're just going to want to make sure that your loops are very, very similar in length. And once you do reach the end of the blanket, you're going to want to actually loop through twice. That way you can ensure that the edges never fall and that they're kind of always symmetrical with the kind of width of your blanket as you go across. But this is a super, super repetitive process from here on out, you guys. All you're going to be doing is pulling loops through the loops that you have already created and just making sure that they're pretty similar in size as you go along. And let's just say you run out of yarn. So as you can see here, I used one ball to create this entire first section. Just simply do a square knot and tie on your new piece of yarn, just making sure that knot is extra tight. Cut off the excess and continue working on. Once you reach the desired length, you're going to want to pull a loop through your first loop and then also through your second loop there. And you're actually going to be taking the second loop and putting it through the first loop, as you guys can see here. And that's going to be your new first loop. So we're going to be keeping that first loop as is, putting a loop through our second loop. You're going to take your second loop and then pull it through the first. And this is going to kind of start creating this like braided edge on the edge of your blanket, which I think is such a cute touch. And then you're going to continue this process across the entire end of your blanket. Tie off the knot at the very end, snip it, and you are good to go. This is your textured chunky knit blanket. It's honestly, guys, getting a little bit chilly in here at the moment. Los Angeles is getting cold for some reason. I do not know why, because it never gets cold here. However, it currently is, which I am loving. So all I have to do is say, hey Google, adjust the temperature to 73 degrees. All right, setting the Nest thermostat to 73 degrees. I don't know if you guys can hear it, but it literally just turned on as well. We are now going to be jumping into color because color plays a humongous factor in really any design. Whether you want a cozy space, whether you want a more modern space, an eclectic space, whatever it is. So in my living room area, I really wanted a super warm, but very bright space at the same time. So I wanted a lot of white, but I wanted a lot of warm elements in here. So what I did was I opted for a warmish toned white on the wall. I used a color called Chantilly Lace, which has just the slightest warm undertone to it, which automatically just kind of enhances any other warm tones in the space. Choosing the wrong white paint color was always something that I struggled with. And I never knew there were different tones of white, but there are hundreds of different tones of white with different undertones in each of them. So making sure that you choose a white paint in your living room, or even if you don't want to go for white, but you choose a more warm tone for the walls, instantly you're going to create that kind of cozy vibe in here. And then of course, I mixed in a ton of warm tone elements, including my wooden media console. I also added tons of brass elements in here because brass is a very warm tone metal. I added this nice leather sectional, which I love. And I also added a rug with kind of a lot of warmth and rich color in it, just to enhance the space, add a little bit more texture, of course. And overall, I really do think that every single space needs that element of warmth. Whether you even mix it with some cool tones, which is totally doable, that's a little bit more challenging, I feel though, to create a kind of a cohesive space. But if you want a very cozy inviting area, I do think kind of focusing on more warm tones in your space is definitely a way to do so. So now that we have touched on texture, we have touched on color, we have touched on temperature, we have touched on almost all things cozy. Something else that I really do think every space needs is a proper amount of seating. When you have people over and not everyone has a seat to sit in, I think that really throws off the vibe for sure. So I want to share with you guys how to create a really cute, very affordable DIY poof. And you can even use it as a little footrest on your couch. But then when people come over, you can use that as an additional seating option, which I think is great because having enough seating for everybody is a great way to make the space feel even cozier and inviting and that everyone is welcome. So let me share with you guys how to create this DIY poof. For our DIY poof project, the fabric I'm actually using is from a rug. This is a flat woven rug. It's a four by six size and I got it for only $9. And I started off by cutting off all of the actual finished off edges here because they were extremely thick as they were folded over a couple of times. And if you could see, I have a four by six rug shape and I want to cut six two by two squares from this rug. And that is exactly what you can actually get from a four by six rug. So I cut out our six squares here. And what I'm going to start off by doing is actually pinning four of them together to create a cube shape. If you could imagine if a cube has six sides, we're going to be pinning four of them together to create like the four external edges. And then we're going to be adding a top and bottom onto it to finish off our poop section. And I really find pins coming in extremely handy for this, just to hold everything together and make it nice and neat for when you go to sew, all of your lines are already going to be aligned up and everything. And as you can see here, this is kind of like the cube shape exterior. And I'm going to do a simple straight stitch all the way around, making sure to backstitch at the starting and ending. So now you should kind of have this tube shape. It's like a geometric tube. And we're going to want to add a bottom piece to our tube to create like a, basically a poof with no top at this point. So we're going to be pinning on one of our square sections and then sewing all the way around. And that's going to be creating the bottom section of our poof. All right, guys, we are almost done. So we have an open hole still on one of the sides. So we're going to want to take one of our last squares, pin it to just three of the sections. That way you can leave one section completely open for the stuffing. And I'm going around, I'm sewing three of the sides, removing the pins. And I actually ended up stuffing mine with a ton of extra throw pillows. And once I shoved them all on the inside, I used a little bit of embroidery floss to just finish off our open edge. And that finishes off our poof. So this tip is actually extremely simple. All it is, is to just add a couple of candles to your space or a wall plug in, whatever you have that has kind of like that warm inviting scent to it. It could really enhance the overall vibes. And it's just something that you might not even think about, but it is something that when someone enters your home and they smell that, they instantly feel that warmth and just that elevated feeling. Aromatherapy has a huge impact on how you receive a space, even in relation to design and temperature. So when you walk in and you're greeted by a nice warm touch and you're greeted by a very pretty kind of warm inviting space, another great element to add to just add extra coziness is a incredible scent. And you guys, that was today's video. I hope that you enjoyed these cozy home hacks and DIY projects. I want to thank Google so, so much for sponsoring today's video. This is such an exciting project and I cannot believe that I have a Nest Thermostat in my space. I have always wanted one of these. I remember going to my friend Cade's apartment a long time ago and he had a Nest Thermostat and I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. But I personally was just like, there's no way I can have that in my apartment. Like, how do you put that in? How do I get that? That has to be expensive. But it's truly the complete opposite. It took me legit 20 minutes to install this and it was only $129, which I think is just crazy. I truly, truly do love the Nest Thermostat. It is very design friendly. It is functional and it is a no brainer. You just guys, you need this in your life. So I will link it below for you if you'd like to find out any more information or get your very own Nest Thermostat. I hope that you guys enjoyed today's video and I hope that you're feeling all those cozy vibes. We definitely need them as well because I know in Los Angeles, about December time to February, it gets a little bit colder. That's kind of like the winter time here. And I know a lot of us are also in winter at the moment. So I thought it would be a great way to kind of touch on so many different feelings of coziness as well. You know, you can smell cozy, you can see cozy, you can touch cozy. And I just want to incorporate all of them into one video to share with you guys how to create the ultimate cozy space. So if you are not already, make sure to subscribe to my channel. I post brand new home decor and DIY content every single week and I'd love to see you in my next video in the comment section. And also let me know you guys, what was your favorite part of today's video? I would love to know as well. And I'll catch you all in my next one. Have an amazing rest of your day. I'll see you next time. Bye guys.