Bud, Bloom, Blossom: Bring Spring into Your Home
Winter is a time of gray skies and warm sweaters. During the winter, your home is literally further from the sun as the earth spins on a tilted axis. It's no surprise that light seems dimmer throughout the whole season. We break through the season with holiday cheer but by February, winter can get a little grim--until those first green buds appear on the trees and start poking out of the soil.
As soon as the days start to get warmer, and the world wakes up around you it is time to bring that spring energy inside your home. How can you refresh and redecorate to get ready for springtime? Let's dive into some our favorite ways to achieve a bright springtime home.
Sweep & Clear Your Surfaces
They don't call it Spring Cleaning for nothing. One of the things that makes springtime feel fresh is a newly clean house and clear surfaces. Now is the time to declutter and start packing away your winter things. Bundle up the couch blankets and tuck away your winter slippers. Re-stack the coasters used for daily cocoa and roll the fuzzy hats into a box in the linen closet.
If there are still remnants of the holidays or new year's lingering, now is the official time to pack them up. Try to clear as many of your surfaces as possible, then get ready to redecorate with a bright new look.
Embrace the Springtime Color Palette
Lighten Up Your Drapes and Fabrics
In the winter, we hang heavy fabrics in darker tones. It makes the house feel warmer. We throw blankets on the couch and throw pillows to snuggle into. Winter drapes and holiday bedding all tend toward darker hues, even in festive colors. Let the light in and lighten up your interior decor by changing out the fabrics. Take down your winter drapes in favor of lighter seasonal colors, and let the sunshine in through your translucent inner curtains or use sheer drapery.
Pack away the winter throws and fluffy housecoats. Replace your winter throw pillows with lighter summer pillows and couch decor in bright colors, geometric or floral patterns, and pastels to look ahead stylistically toward summer.
Create Splashes of Color
Splashes of color are the key to transforming a room that once seemed gloomy into a fresh springtime space. Your bright throw pillows are only the beginning. Try decorating with brightly colored ceramic bowls or rainbows of glassware on an open shelf. Decorate with white accented by a brilliant color scheme or focus on the pale greens and garden pastels - depending on your personal style.
If you're feeling adventurous, paint an accent wall or re-upholster an old chair to create an all-new color palette this year in your home design.
Wire Sculpture and Mixed Metals
Bright metals also bring life and vibrance into your home. Mixed metals are a hot style this year, combining a touch of steampunk and bohemian to the post-modern decoration style. Wire sculptures on tables and hanging from your ceiling as light fixtures will both catch the eye as the perfect inspiring accent to your fresh home design.
Bring the Outside In
Fresh Flowers and Craft Bouquets
Of course, one of the best ways to celebrate Springtime in your home is to decorate with flowers. Fresh-cut flowers are always a welcome centerpiece, whether you pick them fresh from your garden or order refrigerated blooms from the local florist. Some people like to pick up a $5 bouquet at the grocery store every week. But you can also use craft flowers.
Craft flowers are beautiful, often handmade, bouquets of metal, paper, yard, and other possible materials. Instead of simple silk flowers, choose bouquets that are also works of art. Wire daisies, crocheted Chrysanthemums, and recycled copper roses are a beautiful way to brighten your tables and shelves in between, or instead of, bouquets of fresh flowers.
Hang Your Hats
What's one way to say you're ready for adventure? Hang your hat in plain view. In fact, you can turn your adventuring hats into a wall display of sports caps and wide woven brims. If you have a hat collection or the family regularly wears hats out of the house, hang a peg lattice in your entryway and turn it into an artistic display of outdoor activity.
Not only will you delight your friends when they come for springtime visits, you'll also be able to grab some shade on the way out the door whenever you're about to head out.
Decorate with Window Boxes, Vines, and Potted Plants
Instead of bouquets, decorate your house with living plants. Potted plants make great springtime decor, especially for side tables and off-center displays. Potted plants love windowsills, sunny corners, and sundrenched kitchen counters. Decorate with enthusiastic snake grass, interesting cacti, or potted blossoms. You can decorate with living garlands by placing vines and air plants near the ceiling. You can brighten up every window with a long box of fresh growing flowers.
If you want to bring the Spring into your home, potted plants and twining vines are a wonderful way to do it.
Get Ready for Warm Weather
Activity-Ready Organization
Prepare your springtime home for renewed activity. As the weather warms up, we tend to become more energetic and the days become packed with plans. So, get your home ready for a family on-the-go. Organize in lightweight baskets and rattan crates that can be easily organized, stowed, and rearranged. Have backpacks and totes ready to pack for any occasion. Keep hooks and cubbies ready for coats and hats in the front room.
This is a great time to think ahead about how you want your home to be designed when Spring and Summer plans fall into place. Make your home ready for foot traffic, quick equipment changes, and easy cleaning with just a little forward planning.
Brighten Your Indoor & Outdoor Lighting
As the season changes, you won't just get more sun. The nights will get warmer, which means longer evenings staying up with family indoors and out on the patio. Brighten your evenings with indoor and outdoor lighting. Change fading lightbulbs for new LED bulbs. This is a great time to rethink your light fixtures as well. If there's a dim room, try a fixture with more spread, or add can lights in the shadowy spaces.
Light your front porch and back patio, as well. This will make the space more welcoming for chairs and evening conversations. A warm glow from your patio is a great beginning to a season of outdoor family dinners afternoon play, and morning contemplations.
Don't let the end of winter drag on. Instead, embrace the springtime energy as each day is longer and warmer than the last. Take a page from the plants budding their first green leaves and flowers of spring and reenergize the inside of your house this season. Contact us today for brilliant indoor and outdoor light fixture solutions to brighten your home design.
