Do you decorate for spring? I don't...much, anyway. I always find it amusing that we go
so all out for Christmas, and then we don't really do much to our houses the rest of the year. And it seems when we come to springtime, most people are especially over
adding decorations to the house. If anything, they're ready to minimize all décor, just to make the house feel lighter and brighter. No judgment, of course. Just an observation. :)
Sometimes, though, by spring, I am ready for something fresh around the house. Something to make it feel new again. And if I don't want to bring in a bunch of extra things to scatter around, I need to find a way to take the things that exist year-round and give them new life. So today I'm taking a look at a few ways to freshen up your walls. I'm pulling from ideas we've used in our own house, so some of them may not fit your decorating style, and that's okay! But maybe one of them will inspire you to try something similar that does fit your style.
1. Swap out a seasonal picture.
Actually, this is one I
haven't done in our house, but I've always liked this idea and plan to do it as soon as I figure out what I want to use for my focal point. If there's a place you particularly love, take a good picture (or hire someone to take a good picture) of it in all four seasons, and then swap the photo out seasonally. It could be a picture of your house, or a tree you love, or a waterfall. I appreciate having things in my house that are meaningful to me, rather than just random pictures, so I love the idea of taking pictures of a significant place. While you could just as easily display a year-round collage of all four photos, you can freshen up quickly by having one picture that you rotate seasonally.
2. Update photos in frames.
At least where we live, most people tend to get family photos taken in the fall, because they use the photo shoots for Christmas cards. And of course, kids tend to get new school pictures in the fall. But if you haven't updated framed photos of people in your family for a while, this could be a great time to ask for an updated picture. In our house, we also have picture frames that I fill with candid pictures - of us and of our family members - and some of those pictures are pretty old. It's time to update!! Same frame, but something new inside it to look at! This next part doesn't apply to us since we don't have kids, but I know some parents and grandparents frame art made by their kids and use that to decorate their homes. If you haven't updated the art frames for a while, it might be time to do that!
3. Shop the house.
Whenever I feel the need to redecorate but don't have the budget to actually do that, I just shop the house. I look around to see if there are pieces of wall art that I could just move into a different room. Some of our decorative themes are specific to one room. For example, we have a coffee-themed kitchen, so all my wall hangings in there have to do with coffee. While I am in NO WAY opposed to an entire house filled with coffee art, that theme seems to fit best in our kitchen, so I limit it to that space. But the
rest of the house is similar in style, so I've been known to move a picture or painting from one room to another just so it can be seen with fresh eyes. Bonus? It's free!
4. Finish the project.
Ahem, Bekah? Read and follow your own point #4.
In our bedroom, we have a huge picture from our wedding day. It is one of the photos we recreate every year on our anniversary. (If you're new here and don't know about that tradition of ours, you can see it
here.) A couple of
years - yes,
years - ago, I got the great idea to print 4x6 pictures of that recreation each year and make a collage around the big original from our wedding day. I even bought ten matching frames to get us through the first decade. Haven't hung up a single one. Can't freshen a wall with frames sitting in a box in the closet, can I? Sometimes your best ideas are ones you already have. You just need to
do them.
5. Commission something.
I'm all about doing life on a budget, but I'm also all about something unique. Ryan and I have a pretty firm rule that anything in our house needs to have a special story. We tend not to go out and just buy random things to have in the house. We like our belongings to be meaningful and memory-inducing. This includes our wall art! Several of our bigger pictures are actually prints of pictures we took on our vacations. We have a caricature of ourselves hanging in the office...a fun souvenir from a trip. I have two art pieces in the office, each given to me on my last day of work from my two jobs. All those things have a story. But we also have two art pieces commissioned just for us, and we love them! They're watercolor paintings of the homes we've lived in. I love them, and if we ever move again, I plan to get a painting of that house too. Sure, something like this can cost a bit more than shopping the house, but it gives you a one-of-a-kind masterpiece to freshen up your walls!
Happy redecorating!! :) ** Disclaimer: I am not responsible for increased grumpiness in husbands as a result of this series. Ha!**
2 comments:
Such good ideas!
I am not one to decorate for each season either!
Several years ago, I had an elderly neighbor lady that I was close to. My parents had gotten to know her as well. She had gotten back into doing oil paintings, so one year, my parents secretly commissioned her to paint a picture of my house for me as a Christmas present. I really cherish that painting because she is gone now, as are both of my parents.
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