We often look at January as a time to kick start the year with healthier living. With this New Year marking the start of a new decade, you are probably feeling a desire for more change and resolutions than usual. Maybe you’ve decided to do dry January or maybe you’ve finally signed up for a Gym Membership, but have you thought about making your home a healthier, happier place to be?
Well, now that the decorations have been put away and the last of the fragrant pine leaves swept from your floor, why not look at detoxing your home?
We’ve got lots of exciting styling ideas to share with you over the next few months – from styling sofas to personalising your walls – but you’ll never get anywhere with your home without a good detox. So, this blog is all about how to get your home fresh, clean and decluttered for the new decade.
First 1: Define Your Concept
What’s your concept for your home for 2020? Does your room make you feel the way you want it to for the next decade? Creating a home concept is as easy as choosing 3-5 words that you’d like to associate with your home. Think about how you would like your home to make you and others feel as well as how you would like it to look.
We often hear the words “Calm, Contemporary, Classic, Functional, Homey” as home concept words.
Defining your concept will help you immensely with the next step.
Step 2: Declutter
It’s time to look at your home through the lens of your concept words. It’s also time to make some big decisions.
We’re going to borrow some advice from the great Marie Kondo for step two, so go ahead and watch one of her shows on Netflix to get you inspired.
To do a full declutter ready for the new decade, you should try to take everything you own and put it in one big pile in the centre of each room. Then, go through each item individually and ask yourself if it fits any of your concept words. If it doesn’t, and it doesn’t ‘spark joy’, then it is time to say goodbye.
Declutter methodically, room by room. You can start with the smallest to help you feel accomplished early on!
Step 3: The Deep Clean
With everything out of cupboards and crevices, this is a great time to do a deep clean.
Here in Hong Kong, we’ll be celebrating Chinese New Year at the end of January and it is tradition to “Clean the house. We say farewell to the old year by sweeping the dust away and discarding things we don’t need anymore.” So a good clean and a big decluttering session after Christmas is a great way to start preparing for all the good luck to come your way in Chinese New Year.
When you’ve cleaned every corner of the room, inside all your drawers and cupboards and under the furniture, you can start putting your ‘keep’ items back where they would normally go, giving them a polish on the way.
Step 4: The Bigger Picture
So, you’ve decluttered and cleaned and it’s now time to think critically about how everything fits together.
We suggest taking a photo of each room from a few different angles and then looking at it on a large screen. Something about seeing your home through the camera lens can help you to see it more objectively than when you are standing in it.
Cast your eye over how the furniture is positioned, the colour palette and your decor and decide if it fits your concept. Maybe you can see that there isn’t enough empty space or that actually, the soft furnishings aren’t the right hue for the furniture.
Take another photo after each adjustment and compare the two until you feel like everything fits. Looking at pictures of different rooms side by side may also help you to move things around. A forgotten picture in one room can look brand new when moved to another!
Step 5: Go Natural
Now that you’ve decluttered, you may have noticed that you have room for a little more decor to fully bring your concept to life.
To help with detoxing your home, why not focus on decor made from natural materials? Maybe you can add a succulent colour to your kitchen shelves or a big beautiful floor plant to the space created from removing unnecessary furniture. It’s amazing how calming living things and natural materials can be in your home.
But, don’t forget to leave your shelves 70% full and 30% empty to avoid cluttering all over again!
With these 5 easy steps, you can detox your home and help create a brighter, calmer, happier home.
And, don’t forget to check out our 2020 interior trends blog if you need some inspiration for your concept words!
