3 Ways to Freshen Up a Room Without Decorating the Whole Place*

Do you ever walk into a room of your house and feel like the place needs freshened up a bit? I do more than ever at the moment since my sister got my mum and I into the whole “Hinching” craze. My house hasn’t really been touched since we moved in 4 years ago, apart from LM’s room and standard cleaning. In the last month I’ve cleared out draws and cupboards, bleached skirting boards and windows and even repainted radiators. If I allowed myself, I could go crazy but due to lack of funds I’ve had to reign myself in (Disney holidays with LM still come as top priority). Once we’re back from California I already have a list of what I want to tackle yet, on my single mum friendly budget. Hopefully I’m going to have my lounge feeling both fresh and cozy by the time Winter is full swing.

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So here’s how I’m going to freshen up the house without decorating every room;

Replace Skirting Boards
As I mentioned above, I went around bleaching my skirting boards. They’re the original ones on the house and as I was cleaning I noticed they’re going a bit yellow. I worked out for the lounge (my most used room) it would be better to replace them in the long run. I love the look of the Ogee Skirting Board, it’s simple, white and I think it would look great against my cream walls and brown carpet. At the moment they skirting boards just look dirty due to the colour but haven seen what a difference a bright white skirting board made in my mum’s kitchen it’s something I can justify spending money on. It’s not like gloss paint is all that cheap anyway!

New Curtains
I’m pretty ashamed to say the curtains in my lounge a) don’t even fit the window and b) are hand me downs from my sister. I’m not even sure what room she had them in in her old flat but when I came to moving in the idea of buying loads of sets of curtains felt like such a waste of what little money I had left. You thankfully can’t tell from the outside but I can tell. I think investing in some really nice lined curtains would really bring the room together. Not only that, my curtains are thin cream ones, if I bought some nice backed curtains it would make the room feel warmer in the coming winter months! This may even save money on my heating bills!

Change The Art Work
One of my favourite things to do to change up the look of a room is to change the art work. I have already done this in LM’s bedroom, the staircase and even in the kitchen. My lounge however, houses a lot of photos of LM. I need to take the plunge and place a bulk order to a photograph printing website so I have something new to go in the frames. A lot of them have photos in from our early trips to Disney when LM was only 3! I also have some canvases on my wall that actually hung in my first apartment with a boy! I’m not a huge fan of blank walls so when I moved in my dad hung them. I have some new canvases ready to be hung up on that wall when I get around to arranging them, I really think it’ll make a nice feature wall.

Freshening up a room doesn’t need to be incredibly stressful or expensive, little tweaks can go a long way into changing the feel and atmosphere of the place!