The Covid-19 pandemic has no doubt changed life as we know it. Across the planet, most of us spent more time at home than ever before with lockdown restrictions seeing us reprioritise many aspects of our personal and professional lives.
Despite the negatives that went hand-in-hand with lockdown life however, one trend reigned supreme – home improvement.
Before the pandemic, most of us simply didn’t have the time to dedicate to revamping and refreshing our homes the way we’d like to. But with more time spent at home, those forgotten DIY jobs and long overdue design overhauls came back into focus. With this, DIY stores everywhere received a huge revenue boost as we stocked up on supplies to make our own home improvement dreams come true.
The pandemic changed the way we decorated our homes too. Our homes were no longer just a place to eat and sleep. They had to double as a home office, a gym, and an entertainment hub. They also had to be a place of relaxation, a sanctuary that gave our close knit family unit essential respite in an increasingly chaotic and damn right scary world.
Even as lockdown restrictions ease, we’re continuing to see our homes in this new, multifunctional light, especially as many of us still work from home and many more remain a little cautious about relaunching our lives in the new normal. Post-lockdown our lifestyles are still centred around the home, which means there’s still plenty of good reasons to reshape, refresh and revamp.
Whether you’ve got a DIY to-do list as long as your arm or have tackled the big jobs and are ready to move onto the fun bit of personalising your space, you’ll want to read our top tips for refreshing your space post-lockdown. As you’ll discover, it’s easier than you think!
Reconfigure your space
Open plan layouts have been the go-to trend for as long as we can remember. Whilst they’ll remain popular going forward, creating privacy in a bigger open plan space is the key to making your layout work post-lockdown.
Cosiness is after all particularly comforting, especially as we continue to handle the uncertainty that is part and parcel of the pandemic. Use furniture placement to your advantage to transform your space into a multifunctional masterpiece. Erect invisible walls without disrupting the open plan scheme permanently, giving each zone a purpose.
The same effect can be mastered with storage and lighting to ensure each and every member of the family has their own space to escape to, even if you are all in the same room!
Choosing different wall colours or flooring can also provide separation without closing the space off. Create quiet zones, teenage breakout areas, home offices and grown-up living spaces whilst maintaining the flexibility that an open plan scheme is known and loved for.
Take home life outdoors
Extending your living space doesn’t require any structural overhauls or planning applications. You can instead take your home life outdoors, creating dedicated living spaces in your garden to use all year round.
As lockdown restrictions ease, our confidence is increasing, which means we’ll be more eager to make up for lost time. Create the perfect, safest meeting space to reintroduce yourself to the social scene by investing in your backyard.
Install a deck (or make it bigger), add an entertaining space such as a fire pit area or patio to an underutilised corner of the garden, or incorporate seating to make your garden feel like another room of your home and embrace outdoor living in all its glory just in time for summer.
Add a splash of colour
Brightening up your outlook starts within the home and this can be achieved rather easily (and affordably) in one weekend by sprucing up your space with a fresh lick of paint. Add a splash of colour to white walls and more neutral colour schemes to make your home the vibrant space that it should be in what seems like a particularly bleak world at the moment.
Want to create a more calming, relaxing space to unwind in? Adjust your scheme accordingly by opting for, what experts are referring to as, the ‘quarantine colour palette’.
There are many tones that have been proven to reduce stress. This research from Minnesota State University is just one study that documents the effects of room colour on human behaviour. Red tones were found to have an adverse effect when used within the home, exacerbating feelings of stress. Green and white shades on the other hand had a soothing, settling influence.
For home décor that provides comfort after a long day, opt for blues and teals, soft violets and lilacs, greens with pale yellow or beige undertones, pastel or dusty pinks, and whites.
Your colour overhaul doesn’t have to be a whole room thing. Adding a new colour to create a feature wall can have the same impact, whether you’re looking to add calmness or up the vibrancy.
Print and frame for an instant makeover
If digging out the paint brushes and getting messy isn’t your idea of a fun weekend, you can still enjoy a dramatic home décor change. Printable wall art is the gift that keeps on giving, and it’s a quick, easy and affordable way to revamp and refresh your space.
With printable wall art, you can download art, print it yourself, and frame it to upgrade the look and feel of a room in an instant.
Wall art is so much more than a final flourish. It draws the eye, connects your colour scheme with the rest of your theme, and makes your home more inviting. Whether going for a mini, small, medium, large, or oversized print, you can add colour, texture, mood or all of the above to any room within your home, with dramatic results.
Wall art adds personality like no other home décor accessory, with your choice of print able to demonstrate your passions and unique style at a glance. Finding printable wall art to personalise your space couldn’t be simpler with Cactus & Lime.
Use lockdown lessons to your advantage
Whatever you’re looking to achieve from your latest home décor refresh, using the lessons we all learned during the pandemic will certainly serve you well, not just during this post-lockdown limbo but for many years to come.
