After the Move: How to Decorate Your New Place with Ease and Thrift
Once all the packages have been dropped off and the moving company is on its way back to headquarters, the hard part of moving is over – right?
It certainly could seem that way. But what’s going to happen to all those boxes? Now it’s time to take everything out, put each belonging in its own place, and decorate. This last part, decorating, can be especially difficult. It’s not like moving in or moving out of a new home, which is guided by common sense, practical dictates, and maybe even the expertise of professional movers. When it comes to decorating, these choices have to reflect not only your sensibilities and tastes, but they have to support a clean, organized, and relaxing living space.
Decorating can also mean spending a fortune on new themes, pieces of art, and various other accouterments. To get started decorating in the right way, with a mindset that won’t send you running to the home improvement store for expensive and less authentic solutions, consider these guidelines for decorating your new place with ease and thrift.
Statement Pieces
It’s easy to create meaningful and truly attractive statement pieces. A statement piece stands for some aspect of your lifestyle or experience that is authentic and of real significance. Another great aspect of statement pieces is that they can help fix many rooms or areas that just don’t feel homey. A statement piece can usually be featured gracefully in an area of a room that doesn’t have much going on, or on a wall that feels too blank. If, for instance, there’s one corner of a room that looks too empty, place a statement piece there. These objects or posters can lift the mood entirely.
Another helpful feature of statement pieces is that they can often be created from what you already have on hand. Play any instruments? Guitars and drums make for fantastic and authentic decorating pieces, if you play these instruments. Less common instruments, like trumpets, for instance, can help to lift the mood of a room, too. Other statement pieces might include artwork or crafts that are meaningful, and even graphical brochures or projects that have aesthetic value.
To really save money, be creative, and look through possessions to see what might be of cultural or aesthetic value and significance. A look through one’s own kitchen cabinet might reveal teacups, modern plates, beautiful homemade, earthenware bowls, or even classic steins that would look great as decoration. You may collect a certain type of item that works well as a statement piece, or have souvenirs from travels that look good, too. If it played a significant and valued role in your life, it deserves an honored place in your home.
Let Lighting Do the Work
One important tip for decorating a home is understanding the impact of light. It’s so easy to underestimate the power that different types of lighting, and a few well-placed lights can have on the look, feel, and mood of a room. A trip to a home improvement store can provide many ideas for new and innovative lamps and bulbs. It might be helpful to take a look at what these types of stores offer.
The key with lighting is to try out all the different ideas you have. Shake things up, and try different ideas to see how they affect your opinion of the room. Move through different variables like height, placement near walls, and different types of lampshades to more deeply analyze what works and doesn’t in the space. If all else fails, remember the value of candles. These beautiful and cheap vestiges of a bygone era can instill a relaxing mood to any room, while adding light, too.
Having a Livable Space
When it’s important to decorate a space easily and cheaply, one way to think of the decorations is to consider how livable the space is. Is it easy to reach everything that’s needed on a regular basis? Do the locations of objects and things in storage make complete sense? In places like the kitchen, for instance, lots of decoration can be accomplished by simply keeping ingredients like fresh fruits, vegetables, and spices close at hand. A large fruit bowl that’s full of fruit, for example, will be bursting with color, and an important reminder to eat nutritionally. Setting out spices in a spice rack or in small mason jars can also accomplish the dual goal of being utilitarian and aesthetically pleasing.
Think through each room in a similar way. What is needed? What is useful? How can those items be incorporated into the room in a useful and aesthetically pleasing way? There aren’t always obvious answers to these questions, but taking just a moment to think through them can help to create a space that is organized and useful in a way that is beautiful and relaxing.
Ultimately, it will take work to decorate a place. Some people like to have a strong theme that runs throughout a house or apartment, and some people enjoy decorative wall hangings with quotes or images that must be purchased from a store or a vendor. But it is only likely that, once someone has moved into their new place, they are in fact already outfitted with all the things that can make a space feel like home, and function like one, too.
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