Let’s say you’re feeling that January itch, you know, the one where you’re dying for change. You’ve already tackled a new diet plan, thrown out the clothes that don’t fit or that you never wore the year before, but you’re still missing something. Look around you. Is your space is feeling rather stale, slightly boring, and somehow too lived in? Has it lost its magic and personality, the very touch of life that you gave it some odd months ago? Well then, this post is for you.
I grabbed a copy of the new HGTV magazine last night at the grocery store, and remembered a simple concept about decorating. The easiest way to immediately and drastically change the feel of your space (without spending a penny) is to do some rearranging.
I’ve always heard familiarity is blinding and ultimately it becomes boring. For example, just because a lamp and an ottoman look good in the living room, doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t look good in the office. I like to move little objects from room to room, that way when I see them in a new vignette I get excited again and I don’t forget about the reason why I loved them in the first place. It’s like going shopping in your own house!
Play around with things: move the bookshelf from that wall over to that one, try the table next to the window instead of the center of the room, swap the sofa with the arm chairs. We call this space planning in the design world, and it’s a matter of solving a giant puzzle. You might have forgotten that just because the furniture has always been in its current configuration doesn’t mean it has to stay that way, nor that the present set-up is even the ideal one. If moving things and then moving them again and then moving them again sounds more stressful then it does thrilling, you might do well to utilize a simple floor plan sketch of your space. In school, I would draw out the pieces in my room, cut them out, and then move them around on a hand drawn floorplan of my room. That way, nothing was permanent.
You’ll be amazed at not only how different the space feels, but how much clearer you’re able to see it. Plus, you’ll notice those little knick-knacks again that you had forgotten about.
Change is good. Give it a try.
Thirty-Seventh Avenue 