We’ve had the official first day of spring and it won’t be long before the clocks change (lighter evenings here we come!) Spring is a time of renewal and fresh starts, so it’s a great time to have a good old declutter and reclaim space to make your home feel light and airy again.
I think we’re all guilty of getting up a bit fed up with our own surroundings every now and then, even if we love our homes and know how lucky we are to have them. If you’re staring at the same four walls, wishing you could push them back a few feet in all directions, you’re not alone, especially given the circumstances of the last year.
Same Space, Fresh Appeal
If you’re planning new furnishings, look for items on legs. Letting light in underneath furniture creates the illusion of space and lightens shadows so rooms automatically feel brighter.
Storage furniture also works a treat for organising all those bits and bobs that lie around in living rooms. I’m definitely not a fan of clutter and love keeping things like games controllers, TV remotes, tablets, spare batteries, notebooks out of sight. Our coffee table in the living room has two super useful drawers, although I have to confess one is a snack drawer! And since we’ve had alcove cupboards built in we can keep all the cables, controllers and stuff the fire nearly stored away.
Shelves are also super handy and adding a shelf or two in just about any room in the house helps to utilise a bit of extra storage or display space. Vertical space is often overlooked, such as over or around doorways for a faux recessed door look, or even in the airing cupboard for a bit of extra towel storage. It all counts when you’re trying to create a more spacious feel in your surroundings.
Think Seasonally
I never really thought about seasonal décor (with the exception of Christmas obviously) until I started following lots of interior accounts on Instagram. How many possessions do you have at home that you only use at certain times of the year? From winter sports to garden furnishings, or bulky tools and DIY equipment, we’ve all got cupboards/rooms/sheds jammed with stuff that hardly gets used.
I’ve seen a few people use self storage for seasonal items and also for renovation projects. Facilities are available in most towns and cities and tend to be in super handy locations too.
You can pack up everything you don’t need for the season and put it safely out of the way, leaving loads of room for the things you are currently using.
One of the things I desperately need to do especially with the changing seasons and since going back to work is have a good old wardrobe sort out. From winter coats and woolly jumpers, my spring and summer clothing is hard to find. I don’t have enough to warrant a self-storage but if you have a lovely large lot of clothes and not much wardrobe space, self-storage units can come in useful. You’re allowed to install free standing shelves or cabinets and hanging rails, so you could create a remote dressing room to safely store out of season clothes. And we all love that joy of rediscovering clothes you’ve forgotten about after a few months.
Reclaim Spare Rooms or Shared Spaces
I feel like we have a few multi-purpose rooms at home and it’s so much better when you’re trying to make extra living space to be versatile. Having a room lie unused and ready for guests can be a bit of a waste if you don’t have regular visitors and it’s not like any of us have had many of those this past year.
Instead, you could take that room and turn it into a home office or a hobby room, or just a quiet place to go and read, do yoga, or generally retreat from the world for a while. I exercise in our bedroom and now work in our spare room.
If you like the idea but still want somewhere you can put people up, choose either dual purpose furniture such as a sofa bed, or save spare beds in self storage ready to convert back when you need to. It’s lovely to have guests over, but a shame to cramp your own living space to make it possible. We’ve got a sofa bed in the spare bedroom I work from as well as my desk, so it’s an ideal space-saving combination.
If you don’t have a spare room to create flexible live-work space, then it is possible to enhance the use of shared spaces.
Working in living rooms can be challenging if for example, other household members are around. However, I’ve seen so many creative ideas (check Pinterest) where furniture has been used to “zone off” areas even within the same room. Bookcases, sofas, tables, all can be used cleverly to act as a physical delimiter to separate one area from another.
Sometimes it doesn’t take much to organise things differently, so it feels like you have more space at home. Rearranging furnishings, using self storage for items you’re not using right now, maybe even a lick of fresh paint, can all help to bring around that fresh spring feeling.
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