The end of summer and the start of the school year marks a big change in season for our homes. Maybe you spent the summer at home playing and entertaining the kiddos. Maybe it got a little crazy. Your regular cleaning schedule went out the window. You started to accept clutter as a part of life.
Maybe you’ve fallen out of love with your home.
The switch from kids home for the summer to back to school is a huge lifestyle change for our homes. Whenever your lifestyle changes dramatically it’s easy to feel a bit disconnected from your home.
I want you to fall back in love with you home!
There are four simple things you can do today to reconnect with your home and see it with loving eyes, again.
1. Remember Your First Loves
We are creatures of routine. I enter and exit my home every time through the mudroom, walking past my usually messy mudroom into the kitchen, which usually has a few paper piles on the island.
Change how you see your home, by changing your routine. Walk through your front door, like a guest. See your home the way they do, through the main entrance.
When you do this, make sure you’re empty-handed. It seems like my hands are always full of groceries, sports gear, or something when I go in and out of the house. Walk into your home with empty hands. Instead of worrying about where to set something down or fumbling with your keys, just take your home in.
Remember what it was like the first time you saw it (which might have been the last time you walked through your own front door). What features took your breath a way? What made you feel at home? How can you bring those features out more now?
When we first bought our home, we drooled over the gorgeous windows in the living room that went straight down to the floor. A year or two later, I realized we were covering them up with decorative curtain panels we never closed. I removed the panels, installed some inconspicuous pull down shades, and let the windows stand on their own. Now, they catch our breath every morning as the sun streams in.
2. Try a New Perspective
Another way to see your home from a different view point, is with mirrors. Diane from In My Own Style wrote a great article on gaining new perspective by seeing your home upside down and in reverse. When we see something the same way all the time, we mentally skip over or miss things. By taking a fresh look through the reflection of a mirror, you might notice details you normally miss.
Taking pictures of your home is another great way to see everything differently. I am still amazed after 3 years blogging, how differently I see my home through a lens. I think there are two things at play; 1) crouching down to take photos straight on, not from my eye level, and 2) holding a still image where you can examine every pixel in 2D. Whenever I photograph my home, I see something I could tweak to look better in the photo and in real life.
Advanced trick: Photograph your home through a mirror. I love this shot looking into the mirror in my studio and seeing the other side of the room.
3. Fall Cleaning is the New Spring Cleaning
You know how it feels when you haven’t been to the carwash forever and the kids make drawings in the dirt on the back window? You start to get envious of all those shiny “new” cars and start thinking maybe you need a new one. Surely a new car would stay clean forever. Instead, you take your car to the carwash. It comes out shiny and smells like new. The need to buy a new car fades away.
The same goes for your home. It’s easy to fall out of love with it or blame it for the piles of clutter when you haven’t had time to clean in a while. Instead, give your home a good spring cleaning anytime of year. Cleaning is one of the quickest and cheapest ways to freshen up any room. When I’m too busy to do all my chores, I have my one go-to chore that makes me feel better about my whole house. What is your go-to chore?
4. Air It Out and Let the Light In
If you’ve had the air conditioner on all summer, it’s time to change out the air in your home. Open all the doors and windows for several hours. This is great to do while you are cleaning.
The smell of crisp, fresh air is so refreshing. Although nothing looks different in your home, fresh air makes everything instantly feel different.
Along the same lines, open all the window treatments in every single room and let the light shine in. If you have window sheers push them aside. If you have blinds, pull them all the way up. If you have plantation shutters, open them all the way. Let the full natural light come into your home.
What’s your favorite trick for falling back in love with your home?
I change out curtains (all my downstairs, open concept rooms are color coordinated) and flower arrangements!!
Getting ready to change the color of two living room walls to……ready?…….light turquoise.
Plantation shutters are a great window covering that will change the look and feel of your home. We had them installed in our home and we absolutely love them. We also get lots of compliments when we have friends over.