REFRESH YOUR HOME WHILE STAYING HOME

I love a great refresh, especially in the spring… since were all stuck at home, I’m even more motivated to make our home a place I want to be in all day long. I’ve partnered up with Mercury Insurance to share some tips and easy DIY’s to freshen up your home while staying home, and bonus… these are things you probably already own so save money while you’re at it.

Like I said, every spring, something sparks inside me to freshen up our home… I just want to open the doors and let the air in and get all the things done that I didn’t have the motivation to do in the winter… our house is like a bear coming out of hibernation and ready to shine. Sometimes we get stuck in ruts in our homes so freshening up the space can be great for the home and for you outlook on the home. You’ll want to be home and enjoy the space… and feel a sense of pride for freshening up the space!

I’ve been intending to freshen up my studio space for quite sometime. I’ve made multiple mood boards and even cleaned it all out but I just haven’t been motivated to get the space completely freshened up. Now, during quarantine, we’re spending a ton of unexpected time in there. Between homeschooling, zoom meetings, and at home workouts, it seems most of my day is spent in my studio. This is giving me all the motivation I need to finally hit the refresh button. Along with freshening up this space, I’ve been spending some time swapping things out in the house and doing some maintenance on our old home that I wouldn’t have made time for otherwise.

Here’s some simple ideas you can do around your home during quarantine, a few easy DIY’s and easy style tips for you to try out while we’ve got ample time to spend inside our spaces we call home.

-Rearrange furniture – this can be one of the biggest refresh impacts in your home. Try out a new layout or pull an accent piece to a different space. I recenty pulled this bench into the living room, it was at the foot of our bed and I love how it turned out in here. It was meant for the gallery wall!

-Hang/re-hang your pictures- This is one of the easiest things you can do to give a space a whole new vibe. You can swap out old pictures for some new art, you can easily get free printables online, you can also print out old pictures and hang… Gallery walls are one of my favorites to freshen a wall… it’s inexpensive and pretty easy to do, just take frames you already have, rearrange them on the floor and then place them on the wall! Another trick is to cut out cardboard rectangles the size of your frames and then use painter’s tape to position them on the wall so you get a real life feel. If you’ve got frames you aren’t currently using, try to find some places for them to give the room a new feel!

-Patch holes and touch up paint – now that you’ve rehung picture frames, you may need to patch holes and touch up paint. You likely already have supplies for this but haven’t made time to do so. This is an easy way to give a space a clean feel. Put your putty in the hole and spread, wait for it to dry then give it a light sanding. Use a small brush dipped in paint to touch up the area. This applies to baseboards and window sills too. Both of those areas can take quite the beating in our everyday use… show them a little love today!

– swap out textiles – it’s so simple to do but sometimes we get stuck on color schemes and placements that it’s hard to swap things. I swapped out my kitchen rug and living room pillows and brought them into the studio space and it was just what both spaces needed!

-Restyle shelves – Everyone loves a good shelfie – swapping out décor and giving your shelves a proper moment is always so refreshing. I like to pull all my décor to a table, so it can be easily seen. Then build it back in, starting with larger items and filling it in with smaller. For my shelves in my office space, I started with larger/bulky items like baskets, then moved to textbooks and on to more styled books. Then I brought in clay artwork, artifacts, vintage finds, and a few other random items I liked. It took the space from drab to fab and it didn’t cost me a single penny!