With all the beautiful images of homes that get into our newsfeed or which we see in home magazines (digital and otherwise) or which we see in our dreams while asleep or awake, some of us yearn to move into a place we desire even if we know that our romantic notions may not pan out in the foreseeable future. But there’s a realistic way to get into the home of our dreams…while staying in place. The magic dust that is needed is called Creativity, with a capital C. And believe me, if we want it enough, we can achieve it.
If you’re not an interior designer, check out these 7 elements of interior design before you read further.
Assess your current home
Presuming that you like where your home is located, quickly make a list of the pluses and minuses of your home. Don’t overthink. When you’re done, look at your pluses and savor each one. Be thankful for every item that your home blesses you with. After that ritual, look at the minuses and you’ll find that the usual suspects are the repairs or changes that you need to do and perhaps can do but that you’ve put off.
You can subdivide them into categories like easy to do, medium difficulty, or very hard to do. Or use the categories—affordable, moderately-priced-but-you’ll-feel-the-pinch, and save-up-for-it kind of changes. Whatever your categories are, as long as it makes sense to you, that’s all okay.
Plan the work in phases
Clean
Nothing makes a home feel as welcoming as one that is clean. Make your place look good, feel good, and smell good. It’s understandable if you don’t prioritize this if you work full-time and have kids to take care of. But give it time. Your home needs that attention to. Make it a family activity. Make sure all of you clean up after yourselves, like putting things away after use.
Here are 7 blog posts that our resident OC cleaning diva wrote to help our readers and because she finds cleaning therapeutic.
- Bedroom Cleaning Guide
- Kitchen Cleaning Guide
- Dining Room Cleaning Guide
- Living Room Cleaning Guide
- Bathroom Cleaning Guide
- Home Office Cleaning Guide
- Home Gym Cleaning Guide
She even came up with a post on how to set up a picture-perfect pantry.
Easy to do changes
After giving your space a spring cleaning, you can move on to the easy phase. These are mostly cosmetic stuff that hardly involve any financial cost. Here are some examples:
- Choose another interior design style that fits the current you, like cottagecore to coffeecore.
- Curate the items in your space to fit the interior style you’ve chosen. Take out all the unnecessary abubot.
- Rearrange your furniture that considers the way you move around the space. Make the flow in and out of a space easier. Or make the changes because you feel that another layout would highlight aspects in the room that is more aesthetically pleasing to you.
- Swap soft furnishings like pillows, curtains, and sheets to welcome a new season or color trend.
Medium Difficulty
1. (Re)paint
The most impactful thing you can do to level up your place that is not too expensive and that can be done in days, not weeks or months, is to (re)paint the walls and ceilings. You can go for the original colors if that’s what you like. However, if you want to change the interior style, then choose colors that would fit the style you’ve chosen. Or if you just want a fresh palette, now is the time. Boysen offers so many paint color palettes curated by experts.
2. (Re)upholstery
Had enough of your tired-looking sofa and chairs? Have them reupholstered and choose a material that fits your new color palette. It’s best to do some research and ask your friends for tried-and-true suppliers.
3. Explore better lighting
Assess all 3 types of lighting in your home—ambient, task, and accent lighting. The last one would be the easiest to add or change.
Don’t underestimate lighting; some designers use 30% of their budget for this.
Changes that need experts
These are mostly revisions in your space that would need experts to implement. Some examples are:
- Change the material of your floors.
- Break down walls to get that open-concept style. You’d need structural experts to make sure you’re not breaking load-bearing walls or beams. Then after that you can follow these color strategies to create harmony in your open-concept space.
- Or you can even build walls to create private spaces like a home office.
- Retile your bathroom and kitchen surfaces.
- Waterproof your home.
- Banish dingy-looking surfaces. Get that beautiful shine on your cabinets, and make sure they are water-resistant and durable.
- If you have the space, add an exterior domestic space like a terrace, garden, balcony, etc. for that connection with nature that is so important for our well-being. No exterior space? Bring in plants!
Moving Up
Location is so important when choosing a home. If you’ve done that well and the location is advantageous to your and your family’s lifestyle, you can still move up while staying in place. Just explore the many ideas above to make your home something you can be proud of. Make it a (family) project and build in some rewards for each milestone, like having a family pizza-movie night in your new living room. Maybe it could even be cocktails in your new balcony.
Elevate your life by manifesting your beautiful dreams right where you are. It all starts with an idea. Then prioritize so that renovations are a joy to do and not a burden.
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Good luck with the makeover!
