Home Transformation Ideas 2018

Creating A Personal Outdoor Space

A personal outdoor space was shown to be important to 80% of people in surveys. A great outdoor space can make people feel relaxed, happy, and creative, amongst other things.

This means you should never neglect your garden! Take a look at yours and figure out what you can do to make your garden a joyous space to spend time with yourself and guests.

Here are some suggestions:

• For a more relaxing garden, include a water feature.
• For a more social garden, include high quality, weather resistant furniture.
• Decking can give you a great space to entertain and add more interest to your outdoor area.
• For more privacy, consider fencing or even leafy plants/trees to shield your space from sight.
• Always include lighting in your garden. It’s safer when arriving home at night and great for entertaining and aesthetics.
• Make sure you consider whether you have kids/pets. Some things may not be suitable for them in a garden, such as a pond or certain types of plants.
• Accessorize your garden just as you would a room in your home! Have fun with the design.
• If you have the budget to bring in an expert, it’ll help you to get the best finish on your garden. They will be able to add in various layers for texture and interest to make your garden look more professional.

Remember, one of the main things to consider when creating a personal outdoor space, is how much time you actually have to tend to your garden.

If you need a low maintenance garden, make sure you research the types of plants and flowers that are best for that.

You don’t want to create a full blown exotic garden if you don’t have time for that! Your garden needs to suit both your tastes and your lifestyle.

Bring The Outdoors Inside

Everybody loves having a beautiful garden and that it can invoke feelings of happiness, and that’s why bringing the outdoors indoors is such a good idea.

Plants have so many benefits when brought indoors, including adding bright green hues, purifying the air, and making homeowners feel more relaxed.

It’s up to you how far you want to take this tip, but there are many decor styles, such as bohemian, that incorporate plenty of leafy green plants for a textured and interesting look.

• Experiment with different flowers and plants to create texture and add colour.
• Hang plants from the ceiling, place them in vases, and get creative with how you show them off.
• If you don’t have time to take care of plants, you can always buy realistic looking fake plants, although they won’t offer the same benefits as real plants.
• You can also bring the outdoors inside by using natural materials in your decor, like wood (for your plantation shutters) and stone. These materials look amazing and can give a real rustic, luxurious feel to your home decor.

It’s up to you how you choose to bring the outdoors inside. If you have a conservatory, this is the perfect place to begin experimenting before moving on to the rest of your home.

Don’t just incorporate plants in one room – get creative with the whole house.

Surround Yourself With Meaningful Things

Although most people don’t like clutter, reporting that it makes them sad, others report that it makes them feel happier. What gives?

The difference is the type of clutter you have surrounding you in your home. Meaningless clutter should be avoided, yes, but try surrounding yourself with items that have sentimental value.

It won’t matter if the room is a little messy; items that really mean something to you will make you feel so much happier when relaxing in any room in your home.

This could be pictures if your loved ones, musical instruments, souvenirs from great trips that you’ve taken, and the list goes on.

Of course this is all down to the individual, so it’s up to you to assess what makes you happy and go from there.

• Frame your favourite pictures and consider creating a feature wall showing them off. Use frames of different shapes and sizes to keep things interesting.
• Show off your hobbies in your decor.
• Show off sentimental items, such as things you picked up from your holidays – even if it’s just a pretty shell from a beach you visited.
• This is all down to you and your preferences, so get creative and don’t worry about what anybody else thinks. This is supposed to make you happy, nobody else.
• Remember, a little clutter doesn’t matter too much, providing it’s things that really mean something!

Whether clutter bothers you or not is down to personal preference. However, the more meaningful your belongings are, the less stressed out you’ll likely get by a little bit of mess!

Getting The Lay Out Just Right

One of the biggest causes of stress according to the same survey is the lay out of a home. If your layout is more stressful than it is beautiful, you need to change things up.

How do you know if it’s time to change up your lay out? You’ll bump into things, trip on rugs, and have a hard time navigating your space in general.

Luckily, you don’t have to spend hours rearranging your home to find the best lay out with some of the apps out there.

• Try to look at your room as if it’s a blank canvas and figure out what you’d do with it if all of the furniture in it wasn’t there. You may be able to come up with an entirely new concept.
• Think about things that will make the home easier to navigate, such as moving rugs and rearranging furniture so you’re not constantly bumping into it.
• Take a look at some of the apps out there that do the legwork for you. Simply put in accurate measurements and you’ll be presented with options. No need to throw your back out moving furniture around for hours.

The most ideal lay out within a home is one where the residents can move through breezily without hurting themselves or getting annoyed, while remaining attractive.

It could take a couple of tries before you’ve found the lay out that makes you the happiest, but it’ll be worth it once you’ve found it!

Injecting Your Home With Personality

35% of people consider the living room an extension of their character; the space that best reflects their personality.

Is yours reflecting your personality? If it isn’t, you likely won’t feel satisfied in there, whether you’re entertaining friends or simply curling up with a good book.

Figure out what you’re all about and aim to incorporate it into your decor, especially in the living area. Can you include some great patterns and colours?

Can you show off some of your favourite things by creating a feature wall?

Ideas include:

• Incorporate your favourite colours. If you’re not sure what colours look best together, you can use a colour wheel. Both complementary and contrasting colours can look fantastic in the home.
• When working with colour, you don’t have to have a totally new colour or theme for every room in the house. In fact, it’s a good idea to carry a colour or a theme through, so that the home appears more professionally put together and uniformed. Not exactly the same, that would be boring – but something that makes the space look more cohesive.
• Consider different themes you love and how you could incorporate them. Some popular styles include modern, vintage, bohemian, and scandi style.
• Don’t neglect pattern. Pattern looks great on cushions, curtains, walls, and just about anywhere else you can think of. If you love patterns, really play with them and work on mixing them. Usually, mixing 3-5 is a good idea, but ensure you do so in varying amounts.

When you’re bringing more personality into your home, it’s important to make sure you not only love the decor, but that it’s practical for your lifestyle.

For example, Scandi style is hugely popular, but is very white/neutral colour based. It can look amazing, but if you have pets and children that like to get things a little dirty from time to time, it might not best suit your lifestyle!

Get Creative and Have Fun!

Hopefully you’ve found some helpful suggestions amongst the tips here to give your home a personal makeover that you love and want to show off to guests.