A long time ago, someone told me that if you make your home a sanctuary of self care, you’ll never have to look anywhere else for happiness. I've tested this idea for years, thinking about those words as I decorate my home and in the daily habits of how I live in my home. As a bonafide homebody, I thought I'd share some ideas for how you can love the space you're in right now.
In November, Wes and I sold our row house in the city and moved into an 1890s Victorian coach house with a month-to-month lease (the living / dining / kitchen areas are pictured in this post). We were supposed to be in a more permanent housing situation by now, but given the state of the world, we've made a few changes to make this little place we've got the best space for us. Here are some easy, free tips for breathing new life into your own home:
#1 Rearrange the furniture to let in light, air and better suit your life flow.
Think about how you live in each room, how foot traffic flows through it, and where light and air flows in, and how you might unblock some of that flow and make better use of the space in how you arrange the furniture.
When we first moved into this rental back in November, I didn't put a lot of thought into where we set everything down (and it was so small that options were limited anyway). After a couple of weeks in quarantine, everything felt a little cramped so I decided to remove all of the small pieces of furniture from each room, do a good dust-and-vacuum job, and try a few options to get more light and open more room for walking, sitting and hanging out.
For me, the living room is where I work and also where I have my friends (who are also our landlords and live 4 feet away in the main house on the property) to hang out. Moving the couch from under the window to the wall unblocked some of the natural light, opened up more seating and a bigger walkway, and let's me work from the couch with a view out the window instead of a wall.
#2 Change up your artwork
It's easy to get bored in a space when you've had it the same way forever. You stop noticing and appreciating things because they become part of the background. Rotate your artwork and pictures to new rooms, new walls, and in new gallery combinations. If you're scared of nail holes, consider swapping out prints, photos and images in your frames instead. You can also refresh bookshelves, consoles and other displays in your home with new art objects to wake them up.
#3 Remove clutter
Choose a room and go through every clutter catch-all in that room, boxing up stuff you don’t use or look at often but want to keep, and filling donation bags with everything else. I've been doing one room per week during quarantine, and it feels so good to carry boxes of stuff out of our living space and into the basement, as well as fill up donation bags of stuff we probably won't ever use. Don’t forget to purge your kitchen, too.
#4 Walk around with a trash bag
Go from room to room and pick up anything that can be tossed, and toss it. A catalog you'll never read resting on the mail pile? Add to the bag. The half-full bathroom trash? Yep, put it in the trash. Clear out the bathroom bins, hit up the fridge for old leftovers, look for stray snack bags or discarded soda cans (you can separate to recycle those), and dump it all in. Then take it out of your home to the dumpster. This daily habit makes our house feel so much more peaceful.
#5 Rotate rugs, pillows and other accent décor
Just like art, we stop noticing some of the small items we love in our homes if we leave them in the same place for too long. Rotating rugs is an easy way to force yourself to vacuum and give a room a new look with almost no cost. Changing up your mix of pillows, or even recovering some if you've got fabric and a machine, and taking a throw from a different room can give furniture a totally new look.
#6 Update the lighting
Truth be told, I am a weirdo with lighting and cannot stand harsh overhead light or fluorescent light of any kind. Even if you're not at that level, it's so easy to change the look of a room by moving lights around or changing out bulbs. If you like to relax in the living room at night, why not put lower wattage (or even remove a bulb or two) bulbs in the overhead lighting? Or steal lamps from other rooms to add other sources of light, and add candles to the tables to supplement. I like a room to have three sources of light, one low (like a candle on a coffee table), one mid-height (like a lamp) and one tall (like a sconce on a wall).
#7 Add more plants
I have a certified black thumb, but have found several varieties of plants that help keep the air clean and thrive despite having me as a mother. My low-maintenance snake plant and rubber plant have flourished for years, I have a have a collection of aloe plants and succulents that are doing well, a tropical tree that lives in the bathroom, and a devil's ivy plant that I have propagated into enough baby devils ivy to have one in each room. It gives me something to do, and there's nothing more calming than a plant-filled space. If you have some, try collecting them in one room or order a starter kit for plants you can grow at home.
#8 Put your favorite things on display
When you look around your house and see things you love, it makes you happy. I make it a point to put my favorite books on display, my favorite bowls and plates, even my best coats, cashmere scarves and hats on the coat rack at the entrance to our house. I save my most beautiful candle jars and refill them so they're always on display (also saves moola). Looking around my house, there are so many things I love that it's hard not to feel grateful.
Also, I recognize this is not real life for people with kids or less pliable husbands (Wes is perpetually annoyed at me for moving his stuff, per my clutter rules) but I think having beautiful storage for kids toys and designated, out-of-reach places to display your favorite things might work.
#9 Follow the 1-minute rule for cleaning
If it takes less than a minute, just do it. That rule keeps our house incredibly clean, because most messes build up in small, one-minute messes: that little spill of coffee on the counter, food that didn't get put away, dishes left in the sink, toothpaste on the countertop, ripped up packages, etc. Whenever I notice a little mess, I ask myself, "Can I deal with this in less than a minute?" It's almost always a yes, and I just do it.
For the big stuff, like laundry, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, etc., Wes and I have specialized in those areas and do them weekly. We used to have a cleaning service, and we have found our place is cleaner now that we have to stay on top of it instead of just the couple days after we paid for it to be cleaned for us.
#10 Make your place smell great
In addition to cleaning, invest in candles, room sprays and linen refreshers. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for these in a small space. Our house always smells great because I use a linen refresher on all the upholstery every week, and room sprays and candles daily. (I love Muse Bath Apothecary.)
#11 Create rituals for your spaces
This might seem a little woowoo, but I have little rituals that I do in each room that not only make me feel more grateful and peaceful, but also help me appreciate our home. Think about your morning routine, and what patterns you have that you might ritualize around a specific space. For example, maybe there is a special chair or space you might sit in to have your coffee every morning. Put a notebook and pen there, and use it to reflect or pray as you start your day with coffee. Or when you go to bed, maybe there is a specific pillow spray and candle you use to wind down. These little rituals make me appreciate that space in the house throughout the whole day.
OK that's it for now, if you have other ideas or tips that fellow readers of this blog might find helpful, please leave a comment below.