Stylish Ways to Reclaim Your Home Post-Christmas

*Collaborative Post

Are you feeling a bit deflated after Christmas, and now all the New Year’s celebrations have subsided into normal life? If you are, you’re not alone and it’s not unusual.

Quite apart from anything else, the New Year is naturally a time for reflection and future planning. Even if you don’t make new resolutions to try and improve or alter your life, you can still get off to a positive start by revamping and refreshing your home.

If it feels overwhelming, here are some tips to get started:

Clear the Decks

Get all the Christmas stuff properly packed away. For ‘properly’, think out of the household cupboards so they’re not taking up space you could put to better use. Ideally, you’ve sorted out the broken baubles and untangled the lights, so all that’s needed now is a safe place to put everything, especially if you have a large, artificial tree. Now is a brilliant time to think about self storage options especially if this is never been on your radar before. Not just for the tree and all the decorations, but also for everything else around the house you’re shortly going to find you don’t have space for.

Have a Thorough, Deep Clean

Get into all the corners and vacuum up the dust you couldn’t reach over the last few weeks. Mop all the floors, dust the surfaces, scrub the oven and pack away all the special crockery and serving platters you only use at special times. These are also prime candidates for your self storage room.

Giving everywhere a good clean-up will make your home instantly feel more spacious and inviting. So, get as far as this even if you don’t go any further for now.

Redefine Your Layout

Switching your furniture around is a great way to refresh and renew without spending more than a bit of energy. Since you’re going to move stuff anyway while you’re cleaning, why not combine both jobs?

Have a little think before you start to decide on alternative locations for the items in the room, figure out if you need longer cables or extensions to plug electricals in (make sure you’re not creating trip hazards across doorways etc.) then set to making things look different. It can be fun, and works in just about all the rooms that have furnishings that aren’t fixed.

When you find a new layout you like, take anything that no longer fits your room over to your self storage unit. It’s comforting to know you can make changes without making permanent decisions about parting with belongings.

Embrace Minimalism

Maybe you don’t want to change too much, but would like to refresh the general look? Adopting a more minimalist outlook can help reset your mood and attitude if you’ve been feeling penned in just lately.

• Keep surfaces clear, clean and polished.
• Display only one or two special, or statement, pieces.
• Swap gallery walls with a single, accent piece of art.
• Use leafy houseplants for structure, height and a natural freshness.

You could swap busy colours for neutral tones and materials such as wood, stone, cottons and linens. Paint your walls in soft greys, beiges, creams or warmer earth tones. Bring in just one or two stronger colours that compliment your chosen statement decorations or art pieces. Create a sense of warmth with wool, velvet or faux fur throws and cushion covers.

Upgrade Your Lighting

Soft, warm lighting is cosy in any setting, and relatively easy to achieve with table lamps or floor lamps if you don’t have wall lamps built in. Where you do have light fixtures, make use of a dimmer switch so you can change the mood at will.

Task lighting is important if you enjoy crafts or reading during the long, dark evenings. Choose at least one lamp with a flexible stand so you can shine it where you need it.

Mirrors can help brighten an interior on a dull day, reflecting and bouncing sunlight around the room. And when the sun isn’t shining, they can still help by making the room seem larger.

Good lighting can make or break the ambiance in your room, so it’s worth some consideration.

A New Start for the Year Ahead

Changing things around to refresh and reset your home and mental equilibrium needn’t cost a fortune – it’s more about personal thought and effort than expense. And it needn’t be done all at once either. Let it be an ongoing project, so you get lots of smaller resets through the coming months.

By safely decluttering with self storage, deep cleaning, rearranging and doing a bit of gentle redecorating, you’ll transform your space into a stylish, comfortable retreat that inspires you all year long, and gives you a boost when you’re feeling low.

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.