The expression “seven-year-itch” is one that denotes that feeling when a committed couple begins to feel restless in the relationship after settling in with one another and getting used to the flow of everyday life, hoping for a change. How true this expression often depends on the relationship in question.
This concept can also be applied to many long-term commitments we make in our lives, perhaps with the exception of having children. After a long time in a job, we may wish for a change, and after committing to a hobby for that amount of time, we might wish to switch things up. The same can happen with our housing. From time to time, it might be that we feel a move is on the cards. But seeing as though you have everything where you need, you have no reason to move, and you’re perfectly happy building a life here, you don’t understand why your home is boring you so.
Then you realize it – your home feels drab and tired because it’s had little energy invested into it as of late. This can make any space feel tired and unwanted. What should you do if your home feels like this? Check our advice below if you hope to avoid that seven-year-renovation-itch or moving need.
Experiment With Color
You may be surprised to learn the powerful effect playing with color can have in interior design, provided you make sure to keep those colors complimentary, and not too overbearingly complex. No one can feel at peace in a completely polka dot room, for instance.
Deep reds, warm ambers, and light furnishings can often provide that kind of winter comfort that may make a living room feel more inviting than any space in the house. Color can also come via feature walls, this cool guide showcases how you can transform the perceived shape and size of a space by which areas you paint and how you contrast them together.
In any effort to make your home feel light and airy, you may have opted for completely bright and monochrome colors, too. This can be nice, of course, but sometimes adding a little variance can help a space feel a little less clinical. That approach may be just what you need to thrive.
Improve Its Natural Lighting
Natural lighting is probably half of the battle when it comes to making sure a room feels light, airy and beautiful to occupy. Rejuvenating a space may just require that you focus on how the natural light enters and flows through it. That said, it’s not as if we can negotiate with the sun to shine a little more readily into our homes, despite our best efforts, and so we need to get creative here.
With worthwhile mirror placement, orienting the furniture properly around the room (so as not to block the sunlight), and using neutral or lighter colors that help reflect the light rather than absorb it, you have a better possible approach.
Often, the best option is to consider the condition of your windows. As Renewal by Andersen Windows allows us to see, properly installed, clean fixtures with beautiful designs and a complete ability to let in natural light as and when we wish to can make a massive difference. Too rarely do homeowners consider changing their windows and its fittings, despite this offering perhaps one of the greatest possible beneficial outcomes.
Consider Your Fixtures & Utilities
It’s sometimes good to think about exactly what purposes your house is serving. Of course, this might sound like a profoundly silly question on the surface. But a house that might be in a slight state of disrepair, or if certain fixtures may not be working as intended, or if you’ve been ‘meaning to get around to’ integrating a new need, it can feel tiresome to go without after some time.
For instance, you may find that you’ve simply tired of not having access to your home fireplace since it was blocked up. This means that now, subconsciously, that fireplace area serves as unfulfilled potential within the household. It might not be that you want to move into another house, but perhaps you just wish to unlock all of the functionalities around you. Even if you renovate this area and place an electric fireplace there, all of a sudden you’ve curated a new area that speaks to the good design of the room, with integrated decisions that work.
This can help any home feel new again.
Make Those Repairs!
In spirit with the prior piece of advice, it’s important to try and keep our homes in a positive state of repair. Like working from a desk that we’ve been meaning to organize for a while, it can be tremendously tiresome to think ‘next time’ every time we look at something we need to do.
No matter if we need to fix that broken staircase banister pillar, or refit the automatic receiver to open our garage door, when we have money for renovation, focusing on a repair might be a cheaper and better way to go about it. Little things add up, and can help our space feel new again.
Replace The Formatting
Of course, it’s always possible to change the formatting of your home if this is something that appeals to you. But what does this mean, in practical terms? Well, it might be that how you orient your furniture, or what you do with certain rooms is something you’re able to change over time.
Switching over two rooms, for instance, might be a good way to give both you and your child a nice change of pace as you integrate an en-suite in the master bedroom. Or, perhaps you don’t really see a need for such a large dining room table anymore, and so you opt to make a nice sitting area in the conservatory so your evening meals are a little more sociable and a little less formal.
You get to decide the fun you’ll have with your house and how it serves your needs right now. There are rarely any perfectly ‘right’ answers. At least thinking about it will help you plan a little more creatively.
Reupholster As Appropriate
Maybe your furniture is just a little drab. Thousands of hours of sitting on the sofa watching Netflix can do that, and if you have cats or dogs, sometimes, their condition is hard to maintain perfectly forever.
Reupholstering with new materials, or switching out the unit might be a good way to start. In some cases, new fabric covers for your seat cushions can be enough. Or, sanding, repainting and varnishing your coffee table can give it a new lease of life. Perhaps you’ll paint the Welsh dresser within your kitchen so that it goes from a dark, distressed brown to an eggshell blue with stencil patterns. A little personality is always fun to inject.
Consider Renovations
Of course, renovations are hardly something you should avoid, even if this post has made it sound as if they’re unnecessary. Renovations can help you feel as if you’ve moved, particularly if they’re quite intensively detailed and planned out.
Renovations can be as simple as refitting your tarmac drive for one laid with epoxy resin, a material proven to offer more customized designs and to last longer under a plethora of weather conditions.
With this advice, we hope you can rejuvenate your property even if it’s beginning to feel a little drab and tired. Or, alternatively, you could use this as an excuse to take a vacation for a while. Distance always makes the heart grow fonder.