Show your home some love this Valentines Day

With Valentines Day approaching, it’s easy to turn your home into a romantic retreat by making a few small changes in the way you decorate, furnish or light your rooms. Here, a B&Q advisor shows you how to turn your home into a love nest and to create the perfect setting for a romantic evening.

The colour of love
Red, as they say is the colour of love, and whilst a red room may be a little overpowering and dramatic for your taste, using touches of red and pink can bring passion and romantic feel to a room.

Bold colours such as reds and oranges add a sense of luxury and warmth to a room and will help create the right atmosphere for romance. Creating an accent wall by painting one wall in a bold colour can be dramatic when combined with neutral colours, and with B&Q colours paint costing just £8.97 for 2.5 litres, it is an affordable way to jazz up tired rooms and add some fresh life to your home.

Beautiful Boudoirs
Turn your bedroom into a love-nest by filling it with texture to create a sense of luxury and warmth. Use throws and cushions to dress the bed and heavy curtains to block out the outside world. A rug will feel great under bare feet and add the feel of richness to the room. B&Q stocks a selection of rug ranges with the modern Soho range priced between £29.98 -109.98 and the more traditional Town & Country range from £24.98 - £139.98.

Adorning the bed with a canopy adds instants glamour and can be done simply by draping fabric over a frame around the top of the bed, or attaching curtain rods to the ceiling at each end of the bed and draping fabric over these. Use a rich fabric such as velvet for a dramatic effect or a light voile for a dreamy, romantic look.

Wrapping white fairy lights around the bed head, a picture or a mirror will create an intimate glow whilst placing candles in vases is a safe and attractive way to set the scene. Using bulbs with a low wattage or a soft pink hue will also add to the ambience.

Dramatic Dining
A romantic candle-lit meal is the perfect way to woo your valentine. Everyone looks good by candlelight so dress up your dining table with candles and flowers and dig out your best tableware. If you are lucky enough to have a working fireplace in your dining room, light it! Not only will this make the room cosier, but it will also provide a great focal point, adding to the romantic atmosphere.

Nothing kills romance like clutter so make sure you have adequate storage. Removing clutter from surfaces and around the edge of a room will also make small rooms seem larger.

Lit for love
For greater control over light levels, install a dimmer switch on your central light. B&Q has a great selection, such as the pewter effect dimmer push, £11.98 or the urban chic single touch dimmer in polished chrome for £29.98.

Fitting a dimmer switch is fairly simple, just make sure to write down how the old switch was wired before you disconnect it, and wire the new switch in the same way. Keep the original screws too as you may have to reuse them as new switches will come with metric sized screws and older fittings may have imperial threads.

1. Isolate the circuit and confirm that the power is off with a voltage tester. Then unscrew the switch faceplate and pull it forward so that you can see the connections behind. Draw a clear diagram showing the colour and number of wires connected to each terminal, the release the terminal screws and pull the cores from the terminal. If the art core is properly insulated in green/yellow sleeving and connected to the mounting box, leave this attached.

2. Connect the cores to the correct terminals of the new switch, tighten the screws and check that they are clamping the cable cores firmly by giving the wires a slight tug. If there isn’t one already, fit a length of red PVC sleeving over the black core to indicate it can be live.

3. Run a length of green/yellow PVC sleeving over the bare earth core of the switch drop cable and reconnect it to the earthing terminal mounting box.

4. Recheck that each connection is secure, then push the cable back into the mounting box and fit the faceplate.

To do this you will need: voltage tester, screwdrivers, side cutters, one-way plate switch, green/yellow earth sleeving, red PVC electrical sleeving, screws

All this is available from B&Q.

If you need additional advice before you begin work, you can ask one of B&Q’s staff at your local store. Alternatively visit the B&Q website: diy.com where you can get further information on gardening, DIY projects and product information.