Tips for improving your home

Apart from the furniture and overall layout of the house, I tend to assess the quality of the life of the people living in a house, by the bedsheets on their bed (makes sense to do so, since it occupies half of the bedroom), as well as the bathroom essentials they have like shower gel, soap and moisturisers. 

So, a good way to improve your life is through investing in some good quality bedsheets, such as these amazing ones I found at Dunelm. https://www.dunelm.com/product/diamond-quilted-quiltcover-set-1000151497

They are bright, silky, luscious. They will make your bed and your room look royal-like. Not only you will feel like a king or a queen, but you will also feel like you are sleeping in a 5-star hotel every time you get into your bed. They also come at a great value: a duvet cover and 2 pillow covers only cost £40. 

Another luxurious bedding option is this Dorma collection which will make you feel majestic and will provide an elegant look and feel to your room. https://www.dunelm.com/product/dorma-tatianna-natural-bed-linen-collection-b03188

Like bedding, carpets are also very impactful, as they set the tone and the background of your living room. I love soft white carpets with frosty grey accents which expand the size of your room and make it look sleek and polished. I also love cream, vanilla-like carpets that confer that sense of warmth and cozyness. Regardless of colour, a good way to enhance the sense of comfort in your bedroom is by laying down soft carpets in which your feet end up sinking into as you step into the room. It is such a luxurious feeling! To deepen the comfort you feel as you step onto the carpet, I recommend investing in some underlining which is a foam-like material that gets layered under the carpet, so you can step into something even more comfortable than just a carpet. My husband and I recently invested in these cream carpets and the from Tapi Carpets and are so appreciative how this little change ya completely transforms the look and feel of our bedrooms. Our bedrooms now feel so comfortable inviting - like a blissful retreat at the end of a busy day.

For the living room, hallway and staircase, I recommend laying down cherry wood flooring which, just like a juicy ripe cherry, is a rich blend of brown and red with a glossy, luscious finish. While a bit expensive, it’s an excellent long term investment. It has brought me so much joy stepping onto this luxurious floor ever since we decorated our house 3 years ago. It works amazingly well on transforming your staircase from the mere link between your floors to the statement piece in your home.

Also, flowers. They are another great way to make your home feel more inviting. I love the sight of fresh flowers, but sadly they don’t last very long. I always thought that artificial flowers are not a good substitute for the real ones as they look too fake and accumulate dust. But recently I’ve started to love hydrageans so  much that I’ve had to find a way to bring them into my house. after some research I’ve come these beautiful hydrangea flowers from OKA which look so natural and are absolutely sublime. They are a bit pricey but so worth the money. I love white hydrangeas. They are so lovely and pure and it’s amazing how three simple hydrates flowers have transformed the look and feel of my living room.

Plants are also great for freshening up your space. I particularly love bonsai trees for how cute they look and plants with wide leaves and foliage for the exotic atmosphere they create. 

Likewise, you can easily turn your bathroom into a spa sanctuary even if you don’t have fancy tiles or decoration le by simply investing in a few statement pieces of bathroom essentials like shower gels, hand wash and moisturises, body lotions and towels. Luxury bathroom essentials from high end brands like Jo Malone, Dior, Elemis, Espa, Molton Brown and even the mid tier ones like The Body Shop and Cowshed can add a bit of sparkle into your bathroom and are such an easy way to polish the look and feel of the space you’ve dedicated for your daily routine, self care and pampering. They may be a bit pricey, but nothing compared to the cost of doing some more substantial improvements to your home. Whenever I enter a bathroom with fancy soaps, hand wash and shower gel, moisturisers and towels, I instantly feel like a sense of care and wellbeing pervades. 

Decluttering is another important thing to consider when trying to improve your home. One reason why people hold on to things and therefore live in cluster is because they don’t like waste, throwing things away or getting rid of stuff is like throwing money down the drain. I completely understand that and I identify to this to an extent as I have been brought up in the same culture and practice. However, external clutter creates internal mess, so the easiest way to achieve inner order, peace and contentment is to get rid of things that no longer serve you. It is so blissful to just be able to walk into a neat and tidy space where a sense of purity and order pervades all around. This becomes a space that inspires relaxation, wellbeing and in my case a desire to be productive and my better self. However as I have been brought up to see decluttering as wasteful I have also struggled to maintain my space free of unnecessary things. Until I discovered that I can get rid of them and release some of the cash sunk into them by selling them online on various marketplace platforms like Depop, EBay and Amazon. 

Glass furniture is another relatively inexpensive way to create that sense of sleek modern luxury. I particularly love glass tables of all sorts: coffee, dining as well as side tables. My favourite is this peacock table that my husband and I bought from Anthropologie as soon as we moved into our new home. It’s such an art piece in its own right and I adore looking at it. It elevates our otherwise ordinary bedroom to one of style and class. It was one of the first few pieces I bought when I moved on not my house, before purchasing any functional pieces of furniture like a sofa or chairs. Afterwards came the dining and coffee tables which I also picked to have the base made of glass. 

Candles. I adore candles for that soft sense of coziness that they create, as well as their aromatherapy effect. They are also relatively inexpensive for the value they bring in terms of elevating the look and feel of your space and so versatile that they can be placed in any room, to confer a deep sense of warmth, peace and tranquility. I talked at length about how much I love candles in this article.