Revive Your Home’s Soul

You know your home’s soul needs to be revived when you walk through it everyday and it leaves you feeling indifferent, unmotivated and stressed. This may come about after certain life changes, or because you have outgrown your current décor after years of living in the same space. Human beings evolve and the décor that worked for you 15 years ago, may not be suited to who you are today. What to do?

Get rid of the clutter

It may be a simplistic solution but clutter binds you to the potential around you. From old clothes, appliances you haven’t used in the past year, broken or mismatched furniture to old magazines and books, hold a garage sale and let it all go. You know what they say about one woman’s trash being another’s treasure. Creativity then begins to thrive in open, clear spaces. Getting rid of clutter is about freeing your home from the limitations you have placed on it and opening up a world of new possibilities.

Audit your spaces and furnishings

Does your décor work for the way you currently live? What new changes have you made to your lifestyle, and does your home enhance these? Have you recently gone back to school? Has a child moved out of home? Has a grandparent moved in with you? Do you need a quiet room to pray or meditate? Are you entertaining more?

Auditing your space will allow you to use and adapt it in a way that fits your current needs. Perhaps an empty room can be turned into a home office. the rarely used dining room can be made a game room. The awkward space at the bottom of the stairs can be turned into a study nook. The audit also applies to child-friendly furniture or carpets that you bought when high school junior was a toddler. Alternatively, if a child is on the way, that glass-topped coffee table probably needs to find a new home.

Create a new order

Move the furniture and art around. Rearrange the sofa, angle your area rugs, move one piece of furniture from the living room to a bedroom. Find new uses for things. For example, switch that painting over the mantelpiece with another one from the bedroom. A fruit basket can be used to hold all your soaps and lotions in the bathroom. Re-upholster your seats and update your curtains.

Find new inspiration

What type of music are you drawn to? Classic, jazz or pop? What impresses you the most about your culture or a different one? Which foods have you developed a fancy for? What are your hobbies? What excited you most during a recent trip? What about your favourite colours or holiday destination? Use the answers to these questions to come up with the new themes for your décor. You can use a seaside theme for your living room or go for a Mediterranean-inspired kitchen and dining room. The themes provide focus for your new furnishings

Surround yourself with things you love

Don’t settle when it comes to your home. If you don’t like a piece of furniture, don’t imagine that it will grow on you over time. Don’t buy art because it matches your curtains but because you love it. Where possible, avoid falling for trends that will date your home when shopping for furniture, carpets or lamps. Grace one of your walls with generational family pictures. Where possible, avoid sad, depressing art such as pictures of crying children and go instead for uplifting themes.

Bring in nature

Finally, bring nature into your home. You know how alive you feel after a walk? Well, you can bring the feeling home. Potted plants, fresh flowers or water features all add a sense of freshness and connect us to the earth. The colours and sounds of nature are soothing and best of all reviving to your home.