Every now and then, it’s easy to get the itch to re-do a room or floor of your house. Whether it has been awhile since a redesign or you simply want to breathe new life into your home, a meaningful change doesn’t require some major rebuild or multi-week project. Sometimes, the simplest changes make the biggest impact! These five tips to transform a space are aimed to refresh and reacquaint you with the best parts of your home.
1. Less is More When it Comes to Decor
A typical mistake for many homeowners is stocking up on decor they love, and then overcrowding their most frequently used rooms of the house. It’s easy with “fast home fashion” retailers like Target and similar stores to see something that you like, bring it home, and then add it to your in-cohesive collection of odds and ends.
Even when homeowners are purposeful with their decor and space usage, it’s easy to add one side table or shelf too many and throw off an entire room. Decor isn’t about what’s in the room, it’s how it works with the space you don’t fill to create an inviting environment.
Make a plan for each space and be thoughtful with the additions. It's easy to get swept into the fleeting excitement of quick fix decorations. Approach each room with a goal in mind.
2. Rework the Walls
Even if you don’t hang much on your walls, it’s possible that your home is lacking that dynamic element to its structure needed for a great space. When you have a painted wall, it’s easy to imagine a new color as your saving grace.
Unfortunately, that still leaves a wall without texture or depth, and in most cases, that’s where the personal touch is missing from a space.
For that reason, wood accent walls can do more for you than paint. Between simple installation with peel and stick wood panels, and a wide variety of options from classic white shiplap to distressed paint, it’s easily the most noticeable change you can make in your home with the longest lasting impact.
Best of all, the style you’re looking for is easy to achieve when you have a wall makeover as your anchor. Whether its barnwood for something more rustic or a classic shiplap design, it’s hard to imagine a more meaningful option in your arsenal.
3. Lighting Tricks to Expand a Space
One of the easiest things to overlook in a home decor plan is the lighting. While many homes come with set, installed lighting fixtures, it’s not as hard as you’d think to redo some of the major spaces of your home.
A few tricks you can pull off with lighting are simple replacements that transform their environment. For starters, ceiling lighting is often expected to avoid any invasiveness in terms of space, but a farmhouse lighting fixture can actually make an entire room feel different. Vintage lighting fixtures
and designs are increasingly available, and when coupled with a well organized room layout, it can feel like you’re in a new space altogether.
If you’re looking for a major change to a room’s lighting without replacing fixtures, consider getting bluetooth light bulbs you can control with your phone. Options like Philips Hue lights
are not only controllable by an app, but you can also program them and change their color to a dim yellow or a soft orange for a cozy night in.
4. Start from the Bottom Up
When looking at a room, we tend to judge its decor based on our eye level. For that reason, our eyes are drawn to things like paintings or mirrors, while subliminally acknowledging that a room’s balance begins at the floor. We’ve talked a bit about managing clutter, but the right area rug can be just what a room needs. Particularly when it comes to hardwood floors, a properly placed area rug
can make the room look larger than it really is, as well as provide the comforting space you crave.
Augment a monochrome space with a colorful rug, or continue a pattern from your light fixtures or walls in a subtle way
. It can make a statement or simply support your more prominent additions.
5. Avoid Busy, Create Cozy
It’s tough to create a new space from a room you’re not loving. Look at the space with new eyes and identify the pain points you've accepted with complacency. Do you really need shoes for all seasons in the entry way? Is that table being used as a table or a shelf? It’s going to be hard to unwind for the day or start a cozy weekend off right with a room that seems stressed upon entry. Build your nest with intent!
With a new lighting configuration, wood accent walls for texture and contrast, plus a few more small changes, the space you have been dreaming of can be yours, without any major costs or effort!
Ready for a Change?
Let's get that first project started. Why not start by identifying a wall to transform with peel and stick wood planks?
Once you have your anchor, everything else falls into place much easier. Wood accent walls transform any space into a showcase.