No more excuses. When it comes to decorating, the time to act is now.
Decorating isn’t about hiring a designer or buying fancy or expensive things. It’s about ripping the brown paper wrappers off your pictures and hanging them anywhere. So unpack your pictures already! Because let’s face it: You moved in five years ago. What are you waiting for?
Here are five easy ways to make your home your own.
1. Paint
Do you have five huge blotches of various shades of grey on your living room wall? Did you start the project last summer, and now 2013 has rolled around to find you still debating between “silver cloud” and “iron mountain”? Stop agonizing and call the painter to book a day. Now that you have a deadline, corral a friend and get a second opinion. (You can always use the Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer to upload a photo of your room and try on different colors). Or heck, close your eyes and point at one. After all, it’s just paint, and paint is easy to change.
2. Light fixtures
Is there a brand new light fixture still in its box, sitting on the floor underneath the 1980s shiny brass fixture you’ve been meaning to replace since the day you moved in back in 2006? Every time you look at the fixture, you cringe, so get on with it, and call an electrician today. While you’re at it, have the electrician put dimmers on a bunch of your fixtures. It doesn’t take long and it’s a great way to improve your home’s ambience.
3. Hardware
Is your kitchen marred by ugly cabinet knobs that you swore you couldn’t live with when you bought your house? Let me guess: They’re still there, and they’re still ugly. You’ve lived with them for too long, so get yourself to a hardware store and find updates. Oh, and while you’re at the store, you might want to consider replacing your shower heads with fresh ones (here’s a Home Depot video showing you how).
4. Curtains
You can’t keep that sheet duct-taped to your bedroom window forever, can you? Buy some super long curtains that pool on the floor, and hang them high. While you’re at it, buy a ton of floor-length sheers and hang them over all your house, in arched doorways as well as over windows. Nothing says “we’ve settled in” the way window treatments do.
5. Unpacked boxes
Oh, ye of the unpacked mystery boxes. By the time you move again, those still-sealed cardboard boxes are going to be a time capsule documenting an ancient past, and I am willing to put money on the fact that you will have no recollection of ever owning any of this stuff. Unpack the boxes and keep, toss or pass on the contents to someone who can use them.
