This Year, Make Resolutions for Your Home
We generally tend to make resolutions of a personal nature but this year, consider making resolutions that you can put into practice to create a welcoming home that is energy efficient and comfortable.
22/12/2023
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As we move towards a new year and even greater challenges as concerns our lifestyle when it comes to monthly expenditure and making ends meet each month as well as ensuring everything is taken care of when load shedding and disruptions in water supply occur, perhaps now is also a good time to think about making New Year resolutions that concern the home that we live in and how it can be improved to make it a welcoming, energy efficient and sustainable place to live.
We spend so much of our time at home surrounded by family and friends that it makes a lot of sense to task yourself with a few resolutions to carry through the year for the betterment of your life and your family. Here are our Top 5 Resolutions to consider this year for your home:
1. Ditch the Clutter for a Clean Life
No matter how hard we try, we all have a tendency to accumulate clutter in our homes and sorting through and clearing out the clutter that tends to pile up over the year is definitely top of the list. It isn't hard for clutter to accumulate in rooms and before you know it, clutter starts to make them look untidy. It would be nice if we all had the time to do a monthly clutter cleanse but for those that don't, an annual cleansing will ensure that your rooms in your home - and your life - feel spacious and organised.
If you have left clutter to pile up for a long time, a good purge will be a great place to start. You don't have to feel overwhelmed by this project - just take it one room at a time and toss out or donate items you don't need or haven't used for a long time.
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For this task, you need to be resolute and ruthless. Pick the best room to start in and work your way around the house from room to room. Set aside a day or couple of days to truly clean out each room and keep in your mind that no only is this a great way to refresh a home for the new year ahead but also to get yourself more organised.
2. Invite the Outdoors into your Rooms
Spending time in the garden - if you have one - is a wonderful way to destress and plants are excellent at improving indoor air quality and cooling down the temperature of a room. A few flowers or plants in a home instantly imparts personality and a splash colour into any room. Even if you don't have a green thumb, a trip to your local garden centre will reveal plenty of plants that require minimal care and attention that will revitalise and refresh a stale room.
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All the rooms in a home can benefit from a dose of greenery, or a bold pop of colour, and both of which can be achieved without spending a lot of money. Even a small pot plant will instantly make a room pop with colour and personality, and there are plenty of house plants that require very little attention to keep them alive and flourishing.
An even easier method of bringing a touch of nature to a home is to fill up a vase with fresh flowers or foliage cut from the garden. We all know how expensive bought flowers can be, but planting a few flowering shrubs in a garden will supply you with an everlasting source of blossoms or foliage that you can bring into the home.
If you live life constantly on the go and there's no time to care for plants, you can bring a touch of nature indoors with wall art, a small terrarium, or even one of two cushions printed with botanical art designs.
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3. Boost Natural Light in a Home
Windows allow natural light to flow through the house but here in South Africa it can be hot if you let in too much natural light during the day. While you want your home to feel light and airy but also cool, it is easy to do this with the right window treatments. Make a resolution to keep window treatments updated and fresh, room by room, for a house that is instantly on trend and feels like a home.
Window treatments are not only great for controlling the amount of light into a house as you can also use window treatments to add a splash of colour and pattern in a plain room, or to bring in a touch of style and unique personality. With many styles to choose from these days, you don't have to settle for boring or bland patterns when tere are plenty of modern fabric designs that incorporate subtle prints and trendy or neutral colours.
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Roman blinds are excellent for all types of windows and you can easily make your own, or have experts at a fabric or curtain store make them up for you.
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4. Increase Your Living Space
Small or large, your outdoor area can provide the perfect opportunity to increase your total living space and if you have been making promises to spend more time outdoors or are looking at adding more living space to your home, make this year the year to get stuck in and make it happen.
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If you keep putting off plans for improvements that you want done to the property, before you know it another year will have passed you by and still nothing has been done. Large projects tend to feel a bit daunting and get pushed aside purely for a fear of how to go about starting a project and if this is the case, our advice is to look at each project and break it down into separate - smaller - projects. In this way it becomes a series of smaller do-able projects rather than a scary huge one.
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This year, make a promise to yourself to tackle any improvement, maintenance or repair projects head-on and not let them get pushed aside.
5. Become more energy efficient
Every year is another year to make a difference and improve your lifestyle by cutting down your carbon footprint. Reducing your energy consumption, active recycling, and implementing water savings in a home are a way for you to truly make a difference. If everyone on the planet paid more attention to this it would have a huge impact as a whole. Think about things like insulating your home to cut down on heating and cooling bills, fitting a rainwater harvesting system to care for your garden and fill up the swimming pool, and reducing electricity consumption by introducing solar-powered items, energy-saving appliances, LED lighting and so on.
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If you are planning any improvements in the near future, look at how you can update old - power hungry - appliances with energy-saving models, and install LED lighting and water-saving measures throughout. Swapping out old fittings with modern, energy efficient alternatives will not only save you money on your monthly bills, it will also help you to adopt a greener lifestyle and that you are doing 'your bit' towards conserving our environment.
Putting into effect all or just one of the resolutions looked at above are not something you have to do immediately, but if you keep them in mind and start with small steps you will be making a start towards improving your home and your lifestyle.