I basically woke up in the past year. It wasn’t until very recently that I’m not quite happy with my home. Well, to be exact, I mean the kitchen. While I absolutely love the size, layout and location, sleep deprivation literally made me just ‘make do with the state of it, rather than trying to make it look its best. I know that it sounds extreme, but it’s true. Between lockdown – spending literally days inside my home without ever leaving – and the fact that my youngest son is now so much better at sleeping through the night, my husband and I suddenly came to the realisation that we can do so much better. So we have been.
It seems like we’re not the only ones. It’s a trend across the country that so many people have decided that now is the time to really get the best out of their homes and make it work better for them.
What Have We Done So Far?
Painted
We’ve gone from extreme cream to more aesthetically pleasing bright white walls throughout the home. We’ve done it in my bedroom, the whole of the downstairs and the kids’ room. It’s made such a big difference to the way we feel about the house in general before we did anything else. We’ve painted the kitchen white too but a new colour is pending… maybe cornflower blue?
Got New Furniture
New sofas and a new wicker egg chair are among my favourite new additions to the home. When you have young kids, you just have to accept that their grubby hands will make a mess of your favourite things. Now they’re a little older, I’m much happier to invest in high-quality furniture that looks good and I know will last us for a good while too. The same goes for the kitchen. We’ve added a few new little additions – not quite furniture but new dinnerware and bits and pieces just to make everything look a little fresher.
Accessorise the Front Room
It took ages to realise that I was literally sitting on a blank canvas that I could do absolutely anything I wanted to it. Since my awakening, I’ve been making regular trips to Ikea and Dunelm to find certain pieces that just make the place so much better. I’ve also got artwork, a new TV stand, and have added lots of plants to rejuvenate the space. This might seem irrelevant but our front room leads directly to the kitchen and it makes a huge different to the entire feel of the kitchen and the front room.
What Else Do We Need to Do?
Update the Windows
I can absolutely see myself leaving it up to an expert such as https://www.threecountiesltd.co.uk to guide me towards finding the ideal solution to brighten up my kitchen. The plan is to go with windows that fit the aesthetics of the home and look a lot more along the lines of what I’m aiming for. We definitely need our windows to be double glazed because it’s so much more energy efficient. I don’t know the name of the interior design style that I’m trying to recreate in here, but I know exactly what it looks like. Details such as the windows are all a part of it and getting an expert in means they’ll be able to help me with my vision too. I’d love to have a conservatory coming off the kitchen too but one step at a time!
Declutter
We declutter every couple of months. In the past year we’ve had house clearance people come twice and I know we’re due another visit too . It’s another thing that lots of people have been doing over the lockdown period and I can see myself going to the effort to clear out the kitchen as well as parts of the house like our spare room and garage, so we can actually make better use of the space for all of us. We always pass things along to family and then a local charity shop and we’ve given stuff to our little ones school too, even just as kitchen role play.
I suppose I better get cracking then, the kitchen won’t sort itself!
