Personalizing and decorating your house might just be the most exciting thing you’ll do in your home. One of the challenges of decorating your home is making it look beautiful, be warm, and inviting, and still feel like you. When you only live in your home part-time because you’re splitting the year between locations, you don’t want to spend a lot of time or money decorating. Here are 5 tips to save you time and money when decorating your seasonal home.
Picture Frames
There?s really no easier way to turn a house into a home than lining the walls with framed pictures. Whether they’re images of friends and family or just framed pictures that mean something to you, this is an inexpensive way to add a personal touch to your home. Plus, photos are fairly budget-friendly to reproduce so if you really love a picture you can have one in each home.
Bookshelves
Books are just something we seem to accumulate as we navigate through life. Whether you’re an avid reader or not, bookshelves can add a cozy element to your home. You certainly don’t need to fill your shelves with first editions or rare collections; even hobby books or books of photography add a dimension. Books make great gifts so chances are you’ve received a few over the years. You can always visit a great second-hand bookstore or a garage sale to find books at a low price. Find books that tell a story about you and then find some that guests may enjoy perusing. In this electronic age, seeing a bookshelf full of actual books is almost a statement art piece.
Create Color
Add colorful touches around the home in different ways to add a fun spin to your surroundings. If you spend half the year in a Sunbelt state and your summer in Minnesota, you might want to bring some of the colors you see in each place into your home space. The combination of colors and textures will add an eclectic feel that will be uniquely yours. Try colored vases, throw pillows, tapestries, or wall colors. You’ll be able to find fun items at many second-hand stores too.
Tell Your Travel Story
You live in two locations or maybe you travel half the year and spend your summer at home, either way, you’ve been places and seen things; use that to decorate! Maybe you have shot glasses from every place you’ve been, or you found some beautiful art on your travels, fill your space with mementos! They’re conversation starters when you have guests and it?ll bring a smile to your face when you walk past the porcelain elephant you lugged across the country with you.
Area Rugs
Add layers to your d?cor with area rugs. They definitely give the space a homey feel and you can decorate around them. Try different rugs of varying sizes and use more than one in each room. Rugs bring all the elements in the room together.
Things to Avoid:
- House plants–when your time is divided between two locations it’s unlikely the plants will survive your absence and they’re tricky to travel with if you’re trying to bring a plant with you to both places.
- Big Renovations–again, when your time is divided you may not want to spend half (or more) of your summer taking on huge renovation projects. Small updates are often more manageable.
- Large Decor Pieces–chances are your seasonal home is going to be a little modest in size because you’re either renting or you own another house somewhere else. Don’t clutter the space with huge decorations and giant pieces of furniture.