Refresh Your Home For The Lunar New Year

With the amount of time we have all been spending at home, it makes sense that we are all having the urge to freshen up our spaces. And with tomorrow being the first day of the Lunar New Year, there’s no better time to get your home in order. In fact, cleaning and refreshing the home thoroughly is a cornerstone of Chinese New Year traditions.

Whether you’re celebrating CNY or not, your home should be more than just a place where you and your family live. It should be a place where you can feel nurtured and relaxed. Unfortunately, sometimes a home can feel like the complete opposite, turning into a source of stress and a reminder of what you need to do as soon as you walk in. 

Here are a few strategies that you can apply to make your home feel as fresh as your approach to the New Year.

1. Declutter

The first and most essential step in creating a relaxing environment within your home is decluttering your spaces. Research shows that physical clutter can affect your mental clarity and how much you enjoy being in a particular room. A room's functionality is as essential as its beauty. 

If some areas in your house look and feel cluttered, it is time to get organized. Get rid of all the unnecessary items and consider donating anything that you rarely use. Find aesthetically pleasing yet handy organizational tools such as wicker baskets, trays, and laquer bins to store the items you wish to keep. 

2. Add Color

Color has a powerful impact on the mood and comfort of your living space. Moreover, there are a variety of ways you can incorporate color into your house, from adding accessories to painting the walls. Whether you opt to add throw pillows, a sculpture, a piece of artwork, or paint the walls, a pop of color is sure to stimulate your mood. 

Soft paint colors such as green and blue tend to reduce anxiety and calm your mind, thus evoking a more haven-like feel. 

3. Rearrange Your Furniture

Before you decide to discard your old furniture and purchase new items, try to see how your pieces will look in a new layout, lighting, and location. You might be surprised at how much of a difference altering the layout of a room can make. 

You can try to rearrange your rooms and orient them around windows to maximize natural lighting. You may also opt to move items such as throw pillows and rugs from one room to complete the other based on your taste and preference. Doing this will also help to declutter and balance out the furniture in your home. 

4. Lighting

The importance of adequate lighting in a room cannot be emphasized enough. The proper lighting can help to lift the mood of a room and increase its functionality. Dim lighting, on the other hand, can cause a space to seem dull and unwelcoming while leading to accidents even when performing simple tasks. 

If you wish to have more natural light coming into your house, you can achieve this by installing larger windows. Professionals at Seattle Windows & Doors can advise you on the right type of windows to install in every room at your house and perform seamless installations that are worth every penny. 

5. Conceal Your Work

If you work from home, your home can soon start to feel like a working area rather than a relaxing haven. If your workstation is part of a large multipurpose room, ensure to conceal it to give yourself a mental rest at the end of the day. You can achieve this by covering or putting away your computer. 

The same case applies to any paperwork that you were handling during the day. Doing this will help you to relax after a long day and avoid the temptation of checking back at your work when you should be resting. 

6. Introduce Scent

The scent of a room is as essential as its look when it comes to turning it into a soothing and nurturing space. In addition to carrying associations of places and things that you love, scents can help you unwind and bring back fond memories. 

Consider varying the scents with seasons, going for floral or citrus notes in the warm months and musky and woody scents in fall and winter. 

7. Maintain Clean Spaces

Even if your home doesn't look like something out of a magazine, it is still a special space where you spend a significant portion of your day resting and winding up. If you are working with a budget, you can turn it into a haven by focusing on cleanliness rather than styling it with the latest living trends. 

Another great investment is a monthly cleaner who can tackle a few of the grimier tasks so that you can spend your tidying time on the things that make the biggest visual difference.

A clean and orderly home is always more appealing and relaxing than one filled with the latest pieces but remains messy and cluttered.