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Look around at your home. Chances are, like so many of us, you’re starting to feel a little suffocated in your own space. This time of year we spend more time at home than probably any other time so it’s understandable if you’re starting to find it kind of unbearable. All the possessions that you usually love seen a whole lot more suffocating and over the top when you’re in your house and surrounded by them way more than you’d like to be. One way to make yourself feel better in your home is to create a little more space – here are some tips on how to do that quickly and easily.
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Declutter Your Home
First and foremost, you need to have a big clear out to make sure that your home is free of clutter. The saying ‘tidy home, tidy mind’ can be very true – and looking around yourself at cluttered surfaces is not only exhausting because it reminds you of how much cleaning and tidying that you have to do, but it also makes you feel less ordered and more claustrophobic. Check out Marie Kondo’s principles of decluttering. An expert declutterer and tidy-er from Japan, Kondo’s written a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. In this book, she advises people to tackle their clutter in categories rather than rooms – for example, clear out all your clothes and then all your toiletries and then all your books. This will stop the mess from creeping from room to room. She also advises that you should respect your belongings – if your clothes are all crammed in together, get rid of some of them to create more space. Finally, she says that you should get rid of possessions that don’t spark joy in you, which is great advice. If your home is full of items that don’t have a practical use and that you don’t love then what’s the point? Get rid of them and look for ideas on interior design websites like https://www.theidealist.com to add something new and a little different and more fresh instead.
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Change Your Color Scheme
Monochromatic color schemes can help your space to feel much more wide, open and spacious as it means that your eye can move easily around the room without being interrupted by other items. Darker colored walls will immediately make your rooms feel smaller and more cramped, so make sure that you paint them paler colours like white, pale blue and pale gray, and paint your edgings and ceiling the same colour to add the illusion of your walls extending further. Changing up your window hangings can also add the impression of more space – go with light, airy colours instead of heavy hangings made of materials like velvet and brocade that will make the room look instantly darker and heavy. Instead, try out silk, net and other more gauzy fabrics instead in colours like white and pale yellow – just make sure that you put up a blackout blind in your room so that the light doesn’t come through the thin material and wake you up first thing in the morning!
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Rearrange Your Furniture
In order to give the illusion of more space you should make sure that your floors are as clear as possible – get rid of furniture that doesn’t serve a purpose or that isn’t loved and beautiful. If you want to invest in more furniture, make sure that it isn’t too dark and heavy and go for items that have a little space to them – for instance a couch that’s elevated off the floor or a table that has slender legs or bookshelves that are attached directly to the wall instead of a huge, heavy bookcase. Go for pale mats instead of heavy rugs and make sure that the flooring through all your rooms is the same – wood that extends through the whole home will make it immediately look a lot bigger and more spacious than if it’s broken up by different sorts of tiles, carpets and linoleums. Remember to forget all about sentimentality – you don’t need to keep that ugly old vase just because a long-deceased relative once gave it to you. Go for photographs on the walls – in light frames or simply behind glass or on canvas – to remember your family instead of cluttering up surfaces with objects that don’t fit with the general vibe of your home. Make sure that your home flows well and that it’s easy to walk through – push furniture against the walls to create plenty of floor space.
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