About 40 million US adults suffer from anxiety, which makes it the most common mental illness in the country.
While there are a lot of factors that cause stress and make this anxiety spike, having a messy and poorly-kept home is one of the most common.
Most Americans don’t renovate their home regularly, a task that’s proven to keep people’s lifestyles fresh and their minds clear.
If you haven’t remodeled for a while, it’s likely that you just don’t know how to be realistic about it or where to start looking for ideas.
That’s what we’re here to help you with today! Read on to learn how you can create a home that feels like a retreat for your mind and body.
How to Choose Awesome Decor
Before you can start hopping on top of trends and making your house into a home, you need to know how to make more informed decisions about your remodeling process.
Knowing how to choose between multiple decor styles helps to ensure that you stay goal-oriented throughout the renovation process.
It also helps make sure that you look at every possible option before making rash design choices that you’ll regret.
Do Your Research
The first step to performing an awesome home remodel is to do a little research.
This word may give you painful flashbacks to high school reports, but don’t worry- this research is nothing like that. It’s fun!
Head over to Pinterest and create a home renovations board.
Blast some tunes and browse images of rooms with similar layouts to the ones around your house. Pin those that you like the designs for the best to your board.
After you have 50 pictures or so, head over to the images that you’ve saved. Start looking for patterns in the stuff that you like.
Colors, design schemes, styles, types of furniture, wallpaper/flooring textures, you name it- you want to find trends that help you better understand your taste.
Once that’s done, make a list of your favorite trends in a notebook or Word doc.
You can begin searching online (and in stores) for actual products that you want to incorporate into your home design!
Use the phrases that you wrote down as a starting point for finding and browsing these items.
Get Multiple Opinions
Your opinions (and the opinions of others who live in your home) are obviously the most important when you’re redesigning.
However, getting second opinions from friends and family as to what looks good is critical when deciding on design principles.
It’s possible that your (usually biased) perspective is missing something that could look even more awesome or draw your home together.
Call in a couple of friends whose opinions you trust and show them the ideas that you’ve gathered in the research stage.
Make sure that you pick people who will be honest with you. If these loved ones don’t like all of your choices, ask them what they’d do differently.
Remember that you’re not locking yourself into anything by asking for second opinions!
You can take the suggestions or not. It’s just a good way to ensure that you get all the possible info!
Be Realistic (but Ambitious)
We want to level with you for a sec: we know that a lot of people don’t regularly renovate because it’s an expensive process.
We definitely know that it isn’t laziness or an aversion to change. People just don’t know how to renovate cheaply and therefore avoid it altogether.
Luckily, there are ways that you can be realistic while setting a design budget! If you do have the funds to do more major renovations, grab a calculator and an Excel spreadsheet.
Figure out how much you have to spend on each room and how much you can spend on each aspect of it (wallpaper, furniture, countertops, etc.)
This will reduce stress by a lot since you’ll know that you have calculated what funds you have.
If you don’t have much cash, that’s also fine! You can do minor renovations.
Get a new piece of art or repaint the walls of your room on your own. This is a fresh way to get some new color in your space.
You also can find used furniture or build your own wooden pieces to put around the room.
Rearrange the layout to give yourself more space. Add some natural light that wasn’t there before. The possibilities are limitless!
Take Care of Home Basics First
Now that you have some home design inspiration, there are some logistics that you need to take care of first. Y
ou can’t live a happy and healthy lifestyle without a functioning AC or good indoor plumbing, after all!
Schneidermechanical.com can help you to clean, renovate, and replace your HVAC systems.
This is critical for making your house into a space that’s comfortable during every season.
You also will want to call in a local plumber, pest exterminator, electrician, and any other professional that can take care of maintenance-related issues.
Whether you have a problem or just want to get things checked out and approved before your next remodel, these pros have you covered!
Choose Between Hues
The color that you choose for each room of your home largely depends on the decor style that you choose:
Antique schemes require deep hues like burgundy, royal purple, and navy
Vintage schemes do best with pastels including mint green and subdued lemon yellow
Contemporary schemes incorporate a lot of stainless steel and look awesome with bright white, jet black, and bright pops of color (neon blue, ruby red, and lemon yellow)
Mid-century modern decor goes well with subdued hues like forest green and cornflower blue
Minimalist color schemes, by definition, include a single hue + black + white
Make sure that you choose a color that you personally like!
Even if you think green will go well with a piece of furniture you have, don’t paint the walls green if you hate the hue. If it’s an eyesore to you, you won’t want to spend time in the room.
Keep in mind that using blue is always a good choice when in doubt.
Blue is the most popular color in all countries worldwide, and pretty much everyone loves it. It can be incorporated into basically any decor scheme and look great.
Include the Things You Love
In order to truly make your home your own, you need to include the things that you love most.
For example, if you’re an avid reader and book lover, you’ll want to make a cozy space to read.
Grab some awesome books and put them on handmade shelves.
You can create a comfortable library-like area with chairs and beanbags.
String some fairy or string lights around the tops of the room to make it an even better place to relax!
If you love yoga and stretching, then you may want to turn your living room into a yoga studio.
Lay some mats down on the ground, get your yoga ball, and include a TV where you can play your favorite tutorials or relaxing films.
This is a great way to motivate yourself to do the things that matter to you.
When it comes to your interior decor, you may also want to incorporate motifs that you love.
If you’re a fan of turtles, for example, you can put paintings and throw pillows featuring these animals around the home.
You can also use deep-sea colors to make it appear as though they’re swimming.
Consider the hobbies and interests that mean the most to you and incorporate them into your space.
Create rooms that you know you’ll use often. You won’t regret it, we promise!
Keep Things Clean and Up-to-Date
As we brushed on earlier, dirty homes and clutter can clutter the mind as well.
Since the average American has about 300,000 items in their home, it’s important that you go through things and get rid of old and unwanted items regularly.
Schedule a time once every couple of months to go through trinkets, books, tools, furniture, and other items.
Donate the things that you don’t want anymore. This is critical to keeping your home clean and reducing stress.
You don’t want to develop painful anxiety because your home isn’t clean!
Make sure that you also keep everything in its proper place to reduce clutter.
Vacuum, sweep, mop, and polish furniture regularly as well. An up-to-date home is a comfortable living space, after all!
Start to Create a Home Today!
There are a lot of steps to making your home the perfect place to express yourself and feel awesome,
but it’s completely worth every second.
Now that you know how to create a home that feels like a sanctuary, it’s time to get cracking! Check out the DIY tutorials tab on our home page for some ideas on how you can spice up your life with handmade household items.
From furniture to crafts that you can incorporate into your home decor, we’re got you totally covered!