Whatever the weather is looking like outside, whether it’s bright and sunny, or there’s a chill in the air; your interior space at home is somewhere you can take control. Keeping your home feeling fresh, clean, and cool will ensure you’re living in a calm and serene environment where you can find peace at any time of the day. There are an array of things you can do to refresh your house, and the following are some tips and ideas to help ensure that you’re able to refresh the interior in your home, no matter what your budget.
Work From The Floor Up
If you incorporate a dense, deep-pile dark carpet to each room in your house, you’re likely to lose the cool, modern feel of a contemporary home. The floor itself could still be a dark shade, but consider hardwood flooring or tiles instead of carpet. Of course, there will be places like the bedroom that you’ll want a softer feeling underfoot; so simply choose a carpet with a lighter, neutral color. There are plenty of knotted and woven choices that will maintain a fresh feeling to your space. If you love the carpeted look and feel throughout your home, but your flooring has seen better days; it can be an expensive option to replace it in each room. Therefore, look into steam mops and ways to refresh what you already have so that you’ll have a clean canvas to work with. Cleaning up that large rug on your wooden floor will also ensure that your textural mix can be enjoyed to the fullest.
Floor Styles
It’s not all about plain, block colors. You don’t have to shy away from patterned floor tiles. Often, certain styles and pattern designs are associated with coastal areas and hot European climates. Therefore bringing a little Spanish influence into your casa will induce relaxed feelings, and thoughts about sun, sea, and sangria. Or perhaps you enjoy a vintage influence and want to add character to your period home. Your floor tiles could also be a cooler feeling material, like stone and slate; these are also usually in grey tones, which will further that fresh and cool interior space. Whatever you choose, changing, updating, and refreshing a floor in a room will have a major impact. So it’s worth considering for a new interior feel.
Brighten Up Your Surrounding Walls
Rich, deep, and dark hues can be a beautiful addition to the walls of your home; however, they can create feelings of warmth as they tend to draw a room inwards. In order to maintain a refreshing feel to the space, consider painting the walls a light, neutral tone. Crisp white paint is a classic choice and will stand the test of time when it comes to interior trends; it will allow you to switch up any accent colors within the room with ease while keeping the ambiance lifted and light. There’s also nothing quite like the clean feeling you get in a freshly painted room; it’s something the whole family can get involved with, and you can refresh a space over a weekend.
Perhaps you’re not keen on a plain white wall space; neutral hues, like taupe and pastel-yellow, are both contemporary choices that will last the years to come. The colors and patterns you choose to paint or wallpaper your living areas should feel serene. This is so that you’ll feel breezy when surrounded by them. Always invest in good quality paint or paper when covering your walls, to ensure any dirt can be wiped away easily, and the room will stay fresher for longer. A light color on your walls will also allow you to be flexible with your choices in the rest of the space. Your interior accessories and furniture are more likely to look great against a bright and light hue, which will allow you to change the room over time, without too much effort. Surely, it’s time to roll those sleeves up and get the paint brushes out?
Create More Space
When your home feels small, cluttered, and claustrophobic, you need to start thinking about removing any unnecessary items (or junk) from each room. By taking away accessories and items that hold no function, or sentimental value; you’ll be able to start clearing the environment, which will open it up. It’s worth doing a little research and looking into some strategies to declutter a small space or a larger room so that the interior flows well, and you’re not hanging on to items that you don’t need.
If you’re feeling like taking on a challenge and feel like a more extreme approach, and you feel you are living in one small room of the house, which happens to be next door to a room you rarely use, think about knocking down a wall (or two). By knocking through to the next room and creating a larger open plan living area; you’ll have increased the space and light to the room, which will be a breath of fresh air to your home. It will also allow you to redesign the space using your furniture and accessories, without too much structural or building work. Make sure you look into reputable companies to come and assist you. Make the most of a much more open and fresh way of living.
Clear Up the Walls
If taking a sledgehammer to your walls feels like a bit too much, then think about taking some of the artwork and photos down. Move them elsewhere to make room for a sizable mirror. By creating an area with a large reflection, the room can feel like it expands beyond the wall, and will often double the feeling of space. The individual photos and art that you took off the wall earlier can still be displayed; but, think about consolidating them into one multi-aperture frame or a collage. The clean lines of fewer pictures on the wall will also help to bring cool tranquility to your environment. There are always simple and effective ways to freshen up your interior; you just need to find what’s right for you, your family, and your home environment.
She has a B.S.Ed. in Secondary Education/English and a Spanish Minor. In addition, she holds a Certificates in Natural Health and Herbology from accredited programs. She pursued these natural wellness certifications due to her love for herb gardening.
Despite freelancing to make a living, her love is "all things home."
Deborah grew up in a family that grew a large vegetable garden and a fruit orchard, helping her parents pull weeds and can home-grown foods as part of her childhood. In fact, she had no idea that she could purchase veggies and fruits in pre-packed steel cans until she went to college and made a food run.
Today, she lives in Bertie County, North Carolina, an agricultural rural area with more chickens than people. She lives with her husband and two rescue pets a sweet toy fox terrier and a cat who showed up one day and moved into the house. Together, they enjoy DIY projects, furniture refinishing, gardening, and canning.
