March 01, 2008
Hello again, and welcome to the second issue of Dream Home Decorating News - THE FRUGAL ISSUE (March 1, 2008).
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Publisher’s Note
- Tip of the Month: Lose Something!
- Featured Article: Home Decorating Trends, Part II: Frugal
- Legal Stuff
Publisher's Note
It's lovely to welcome you back! And maybe you could explain to me why computers have a habit of breaking down right before a deadline? I heard about this before, but now I know what it feels like.
Well, I’ve worked as fast as I could to make up for a lost day’s work, and to make sure you get this newsletter on time. And I'd love to hear your comments on this issue. Were the topics useful to you?
Do drop me a line - your feedback will be much appreciated!
Let’s start with the Tip of the Month:
Lose Something!
Wouldn’t it be nice if, at the beginning of spring, we could just hit the ‘Refresh’ button for our home? And then, automatically, all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the past year just sifted itself into ‘keepers’ and ‘losers’, and our home got rid of old ballast and opened up to a new, happy season?
Wouldn’t it be nice to start with a blank canvas for our lives, every spring?
Well, we have a problem ... we haven’t got that button ... yet. (Sigh!) So this 'Tip of the Month' is about a hands-on way of creating the blank canvas ourselves.
Now, maybe you’re a Naturally Tidy Person.
- You deal with everything just once, and decide straight away whether to do it, delegate it, or dump it.
- And you surround yourself only with things you either use, or love – and with nothing else.
If you are one of these extremely rare human beings, I doff my hat and humbly ask you to skip this 'Tip of the Month' and move on to the next section!
If you’re not, then here’s a little clutter-control routine for you. It’s small, and it is very powerful. If you feel it could be useful to you, I suggest you try it out.
The way to do it is for 20 minutes a day, every day (or 6 out of 7 days) – until you’ve cleared all things out of your home that have no purpose in your current life.
You're going to create
- a home that feels fresh and clear
- a sense of control over your living space
- a system where you find anything you look for, straight away
- a home with an easy, upbeat, light energy to it.
Here are the rules:
1. Once a day, preferably at the same time every day, set a timer for 20 minutes.
2. During these 20 minutes, all you do is clear up one small section of your home that feels untidy or disorganized (the table in the hallway, the sock drawer, unopened post …)
3. Find something to throw away, and throw it away (or recycle it).
4. Start with the parts that look the easiest.
5. When the alarm goes off, stop. You’re done for today.
6. Acknowledge yourself for having completed your 20 minutes today.
Here are a few comments on the rules:
1. If you’re going to beat clutter, you want a sense of control from the start. Clutter eats away at our self-confidence. So it’s important to assign yourself small chunks of work that will fit snugly into your day. You’re in control. During these 20 minutes, you focus entirely on the task you’ve set yourself. This will guarantee a result! It may not look big on Day 1, but by the end of the first week you’ll already have spent 2 hours clearing stuff, and you’ll begin to notice a shift in the energy of your home.
2. Focus creates quick results. When you stay focused on the job at hand, you’ll start experiencing success almost immediately, and that will give you enough energy to tackle the next clutter hotspot.
3. If there are things in your wardrobe or cupboard that you haven’t used for a year, consider giving them away. Ditto for things you feel you are expected to keep because they were presents, or things you bought but now you find you aren’t really using or enjoying them. There’s great joy in letting go of things from the past. You create freedom for yourself. It’s weight off your shoulders and off your mind. It can be a huge relief. The future is yours! You could promise yourself that for every five things you get rid of, you can buy one that is really great and suits your current lifestyle perfectly.
4. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of the stuff we’ve accumulated over a long time. Starting with easy clearing jobs increases your confidence. After the first successes, the more awe-inspiring clutter hotspots feel much easier to handle. You know you can handle them. And because of that, you will.
5. Stopping on time is just as important as starting on time. It adds to your sense of control: you’re not taken over by the clutter-clearing process. (You could, of course, make a conscious decision to do some more of it for a fixed period of time. But you don’t have to. After 20 minutes, you’re done.)
6. Acknowledging yourself draws your attention to the results you have achieved. Be proud of yourself, every step of the way. Always celebrate your success!
Should you lapse in your routine before you’ve cleared all clutter, forgive yourself straight away and pick up where you left off. Nothing’s lost. Just do it. Slow and steady wins the race!
And ... please do let me know how you get on!
Home Decorating Trends, Part 2:
Frugal Decorating
A week ago, I had an e-mail from one site visitor, saying:
“How do I decorate on a low budget? I married a frugal guy.”
I loved it. It takes much more than a newsletter to answer this question, but let’s make a start.
I think it’s cool to be frugal. It can be a lifestyle choice. If you’re frugal, that says
- you’re opting out of the myth that ‘more’ and ‘new’ is always better
- you know that you're not what you have
- you’re creating your own life, not one that looks like a TV commercial.
Frugal home decorating can take many forms:
- you buy less
- you buy plain and simple and then add your personal touch
- when something breaks, you repair it
- you shift your possessions around the house to create a new, fresh look
- you find creative ways of transforming what you have
- you use things that are free, or inexpensive
- you recycle what you have into new decorative uses.
The money you save, you can splash out on something that’s really important to you and adds serious quality to your life - say, a state-of-the-art mattress, a glorious desk chair (if you work at home), a mind-blowingly beautiful worktop for your kitchen, or the hi-fi of your dreams.
Here are a few ways to transform what you have:
- Give a wall (or a piece of furniture) a lick of paint
- Exchange door or drawer handles for something really beautiful
- Cut ‘windows’ into cupboard doors, set them with (frosted) glass and add some lighting inside
- Instead of glass, use fabric or chicken wire to cover the new door openings
- Exchange the feet of a wardrobe or the legs of a table
- Exchange a table top and keep the rest
- Slipcover seating furniture
- Cover the floor with a (large) carpet to change the look & feel of the whole room
- Cover a table with a gorgeous tablecloth that reaches the floor
Free and inexpensive things you could use in your home:
- Make 'roadside' bouquets (if there are no flowers in bloom, pick foliage and grasses … they’re gorgeous.)
- Instead of buying a whole bunch of cut flowers, add just a few (in a narrow vase) to a cluster of green potted plants, for a splash of color.
- Use old-fashioned milk bottles (or other vessels with timeless shapes) as vases and containers – you can achieve a lovely ‘minimalist’ look with that kind of thing. Fill them with sweets in colorful wrappers, or pebbles, or beautiful bare winter branches. Fill them with small photographs. Or with sugar cubes for your coffee. Or with other things that strike your fancy and happen to be the right size.
- Replace some of the pictures on your walls with new ones. Choose images that lift your heart. Or get creative! (Some whacky ideas for new things to put in your frames: fun Japanese packaging, your own photos of holiday breakfast settings, interesting flat things from your favorite color family …)
- You’ll find more tips in the chapter on Country Decorating on a Shoestring.
And last not least, here are some recycling ideas for you:
- Glasses, filled halfway up with sand, make great candleholders for simple white household candles (just stick ’em into the sand).
- Cracked bowls, cups and other pretty containers that can’t hold liquid any more can still hold fruit, earrings, soap, a sponge, kitchen tools, and the like.
- Lidless cans can be covered in fabric or giftwrap and hold plants, pens, or a glass container with flowers inside.
- If you have a small purse or bag that you’re not using any more, fill it with sand or pebbles and turn it into a unique doorstop.
The beauty of the 'frugal decorating' concept is that when you limit spending, when not all is freely available ...
... you get to use your own brainpower, creativity and inventiveness.
And you get a sense of the preciousness of the things around you, of what you love and what is really important. And you end up with a home that has a truly unique flair – your own.
Legal Stuff
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"See" you again on May 1, 2008!
All the Best to You,
Renate Hering-Shepherd
www.dreamhomedecorating.com