Brilliantly Simple (and Free) Ways to Reboot Your Home
Organise, refresh and revamp for a better-looking and smoother-running home. All these ideas demand is a little time…
Making your home a better place to live doesn’t always require cash or credit. Working with what’s already there can produce style miracles; store-cupboard ingredients can make the tired or grubby as good as new, and sorting now can save both time and money in the long run. Check out these quick projects.
…or lots of pieces in a single hue, as in this example. Mixing in clear glass is a good idea, as it won’t interfere with the carefully picked palette.
Taking your beloved items down and organising them into groups of similar shades is also the perfect opportunity to give both shelves and treasures a thorough dust.
Taking your beloved items down and organising them into groups of similar shades is also the perfect opportunity to give both shelves and treasures a thorough dust.
Make a moodboard
Planning a future decorating project can be a pleasing and creative endeavour in its own right – plus it’ll help you to get the elements and their combination right first time when you choose to go ahead with a fresh scheme.
Gather images that catch your eye in a Houzz ideabook – perhaps ones with an appealing mood, clever feature or the perfect colour scheme.
Then send off for swatches, from fabric and tiles to paint and wallpaper, and pin them to a board to see them all working together. Try to keep each roughly in proportion to the area of the room they’ll occupy.
Planning a future decorating project can be a pleasing and creative endeavour in its own right – plus it’ll help you to get the elements and their combination right first time when you choose to go ahead with a fresh scheme.
Gather images that catch your eye in a Houzz ideabook – perhaps ones with an appealing mood, clever feature or the perfect colour scheme.
Then send off for swatches, from fabric and tiles to paint and wallpaper, and pin them to a board to see them all working together. Try to keep each roughly in proportion to the area of the room they’ll occupy.
Soften sheets
If some of your bed sheets were bargain buys and the comfort this scheme, for example, projects is a million miles from your scratchy reality, try this remedy, which relies only on what’s in the store cupboard.
Wash the offending linens with around 250ml of bicarbonate of soda and 125ml of white vinegar and feel the softness when you next slip between the sheets.
If some of your bed sheets were bargain buys and the comfort this scheme, for example, projects is a million miles from your scratchy reality, try this remedy, which relies only on what’s in the store cupboard.
Wash the offending linens with around 250ml of bicarbonate of soda and 125ml of white vinegar and feel the softness when you next slip between the sheets.
Revisit linen storage
Wasting time trying to find a set when it’s bed-making time? Instead of keeping sheets, duvet covers and pillowcases in same-item piles, put away specific bed sets inside one of the pillowcases.
That way, you can just grab and go knowing you have all you need without disturbing each pile when it’s linen-changing time.
Adopting this system might also make a glass-fronted linen cupboard an attractive option, rather than a potential cabinet of horrors.
Browse bedding sets in the Houzz Shop
Wasting time trying to find a set when it’s bed-making time? Instead of keeping sheets, duvet covers and pillowcases in same-item piles, put away specific bed sets inside one of the pillowcases.
That way, you can just grab and go knowing you have all you need without disturbing each pile when it’s linen-changing time.
Adopting this system might also make a glass-fronted linen cupboard an attractive option, rather than a potential cabinet of horrors.
Browse bedding sets in the Houzz Shop
Tackle the pantry
Whether your dry food and ingredients are stashed in a purpose-built pantry cupboard or in kitchen units, emptying and reorganising can help save money in the long run.
Put like with like, then place the tins and packets with the longest shelf life at the back of the cupboard and work forwards, so you use them in the right order and don’t end up coming upon long-expired foodstuffs.
You can also make things more ergonomic by putting the ingredients used most frequently on the shelves within easiest reach.
Find a professional in your area to design your bespoke kitchen storage
Whether your dry food and ingredients are stashed in a purpose-built pantry cupboard or in kitchen units, emptying and reorganising can help save money in the long run.
Put like with like, then place the tins and packets with the longest shelf life at the back of the cupboard and work forwards, so you use them in the right order and don’t end up coming upon long-expired foodstuffs.
You can also make things more ergonomic by putting the ingredients used most frequently on the shelves within easiest reach.
Find a professional in your area to design your bespoke kitchen storage
Bring sparkle to taps
The most assiduously cleaned bathroom can lose its pristine edge if the brassware gets coated in limescale.
Fortunately, the remedy is in your own larder. White vinegar will dissolve the stuff that’s coating brassware. Soak a cloth or paper towel in the vinegar and leave it in contact with the build-up for an hour or so, then wipe and rinse for taps that look like new.
A word of warning, though: don’t do this on plated taps, as you risk damaging the surface.
The most assiduously cleaned bathroom can lose its pristine edge if the brassware gets coated in limescale.
Fortunately, the remedy is in your own larder. White vinegar will dissolve the stuff that’s coating brassware. Soak a cloth or paper towel in the vinegar and leave it in contact with the build-up for an hour or so, then wipe and rinse for taps that look like new.
A word of warning, though: don’t do this on plated taps, as you risk damaging the surface.
Rethink your wardrobe
You don’t need a walk-in beauty like this one to create streamlined clothes storage – a little time spent sorting can reap benefits in even the most basic of wardrobes.
First, make sure you’re only hanging what should be hung (so fold T-shirts and jumpers), and you might find you create the extra space that means ironing efforts aren’t compromised by the crush as soon as you put things away.
Putting similar items together is also worthwhile, and isn’t just for neatniks. Follow this strategy and you’ll not only find things more easily when you’re in a hurry, but it could also help you to swerve amazingly-similar-to-what-you-already-own purchases, because you’ll be able to see your existing collection in your mind’s eye when you’re buying.
You don’t need a walk-in beauty like this one to create streamlined clothes storage – a little time spent sorting can reap benefits in even the most basic of wardrobes.
First, make sure you’re only hanging what should be hung (so fold T-shirts and jumpers), and you might find you create the extra space that means ironing efforts aren’t compromised by the crush as soon as you put things away.
Putting similar items together is also worthwhile, and isn’t just for neatniks. Follow this strategy and you’ll not only find things more easily when you’re in a hurry, but it could also help you to swerve amazingly-similar-to-what-you-already-own purchases, because you’ll be able to see your existing collection in your mind’s eye when you’re buying.
Rearrange accessories
A pleasing arrangement of objects – aka a vignette – can take a room from bland to beautiful and definitely needn’t mean shopping for new pieces.
The idea is to get the eye to travel around your display and a pyramid shape will achieve this. Here, the bedside lamp is at the top, with a vase of blooms and the radio plus the vintage books completing the shape.
You might need to bring in accessories from other parts of the house to forge a link between the elements in the vignette – or even snip some flowers from the garden. In this room, blue links the bloom and the radio, while the paperbacks are in a complementary orange.
These homes have all used one simple styling trick
A pleasing arrangement of objects – aka a vignette – can take a room from bland to beautiful and definitely needn’t mean shopping for new pieces.
The idea is to get the eye to travel around your display and a pyramid shape will achieve this. Here, the bedside lamp is at the top, with a vase of blooms and the radio plus the vintage books completing the shape.
You might need to bring in accessories from other parts of the house to forge a link between the elements in the vignette – or even snip some flowers from the garden. In this room, blue links the bloom and the radio, while the paperbacks are in a complementary orange.
These homes have all used one simple styling trick
Go for a gallery
Gallery walls are an impactful way to hang pictures, but may involve some spend if you take the approach of linking elements with the same frame, for example, or you fork out for picture shelves to line up the images.
However, find a pre-existing element that will link your collection and you can get your gallery for free. Here, it’s a dark-coloured wall that does the job, providing a backdrop that grounds the grouping for a successful display.
Alternatively, review your existing artworks and use those featuring a similar colour in the pictures themselves, or opt for the same frame colour (don’t worry about the style). Alternatively, go for the same theme (nature, architecture…) and make your group harmonious that way.
Gallery walls are an impactful way to hang pictures, but may involve some spend if you take the approach of linking elements with the same frame, for example, or you fork out for picture shelves to line up the images.
However, find a pre-existing element that will link your collection and you can get your gallery for free. Here, it’s a dark-coloured wall that does the job, providing a backdrop that grounds the grouping for a successful display.
Alternatively, review your existing artworks and use those featuring a similar colour in the pictures themselves, or opt for the same frame colour (don’t worry about the style). Alternatively, go for the same theme (nature, architecture…) and make your group harmonious that way.
Love the fridge
If you’ve taken time to tackle dry ingredient storage, don’t neglect its fresh-food partner by leaving the fridge disorganised or, worse, spoiling the atmosphere of your kitchen as it emanates nasty niffs.
A bicarbonate of soda solution is ideal for wiping down and dealing with any lingering marks inside, so tackle surfaces and shelves before organising the contents, bearing in mind the same use-first rules and chef-friendly interior arrangement as with the larder cupboard.
Leave a small bowl of bicarbonate of soda at the back and you’ll put a stop to the odours that want to hang on in there, too. Replace fortnightly.
Tell us…
What’s your top tip for refreshing or reorganising without a spend? Share your ideas and photos in the Comments section.
If you’ve taken time to tackle dry ingredient storage, don’t neglect its fresh-food partner by leaving the fridge disorganised or, worse, spoiling the atmosphere of your kitchen as it emanates nasty niffs.
A bicarbonate of soda solution is ideal for wiping down and dealing with any lingering marks inside, so tackle surfaces and shelves before organising the contents, bearing in mind the same use-first rules and chef-friendly interior arrangement as with the larder cupboard.
Leave a small bowl of bicarbonate of soda at the back and you’ll put a stop to the odours that want to hang on in there, too. Replace fortnightly.
Tell us…
What’s your top tip for refreshing or reorganising without a spend? Share your ideas and photos in the Comments section.
That jumbled mass of crockery/mugs/storage containers (delete as applicable) is ready and waiting for a little sorting.
Take everything down and group all the pieces that work together colour-wise. Perhaps there are a number of shades you could arrange in an ombre effect, or you have numerous items in one of two shades, as seen here…