Design Insight

Feel at Home in Your New Home

One of the joys of owning your own home is the ability to customize it however you want to make the home yours.  Personalizing your home to suit your and your family’s taste is very important in the overall enjoyment you’ll get from the home.  You need it make it feel like yours!  Here are a few simple ways to customize your new home- even if new just means new to you!

Customize Your Paint Colors:
Paint helps to create the look and feel you want, inside and out. Painting your home with colors you’ve hand selected is a low-cost way to create a completely personalized living space.  Painting the exterior is the single quickest way to change the look of your home.  You’d be surprised at how a simple color change can make a huge difference. And if you do decide to do any exterior color changes on a new home don’t forget to get association approval first!  After exterior consider the accents: the front door, shutters and fences.  If you bought a home that doesn’t need a new paint job and overall is a color you like, consider painting just the front door to add a pop of color and your own personal touch. Yellows, reds and more modern greys and blacks all make for a polished entrance.  And don’t stop there!  Painting shutters, fences, eaves and other exterior accents a contrasting color of your choice is quick and inexpensive. These are all small tweaks that have a large impact and most importantly,  they’ll make your home all yours. For interiors,  aim to match colors to a room’s purpose, so that bedrooms have the feeling of a restful sanctuary, bathroom walls look clean,  and common living areas are warm or energizing. If you have a limited budget, or you’re afraid to make bold color choices, try accent walls which we’ve blogged about before.  A single wall of color in every otherwise neutral room can go a long way toward customizing your home.

Take an Inventory
We’ve also blogged about taking inventory before as it relates to cleaning out closets and decorating your home for the holidays, but perhaps the most important inventory you can take is the one that happens when you move from one home into a new one.  Many people are buying smaller homes in an effort to manage costs of ownership, but even if you’re not moving into a smaller home, moving anywhere presents an opportunity to truly customize your living spaces for the activities you want to do and how you want to live in them.  There’s no rule that says the table and chairs have to go in the dining room just because it’s called that.  It’s your house so take control! Maybe that space would be better as an office for you and homework space for the kids, and you can eat in the kitchen or part of the living room. The extra room doesn’t have to be a guest room.  It might make for the perfect exercise room or playroom for the kids.  Before you move in, make a chart that divides all your home’s spaces, including any seemingly wasted spaces or small areas under the stairs or in the garage. Then decide what you want to do, and store in each area. This approach empowers you to make sure every person, activity and thing in your home has the right amount and type of space.

Built-Ins
If you can afford to splurge on the extra construction costs, built-ins make a world of difference.
Consider build in items like: closet organizers, window seats, desktops and bookshelves,  pantry-optimizing shelves, spinners and drawers, and medicine and linen cabinets.  If you need some guidance or some inspiration as to what types of custom organization systems will work with your home, a consultation with a carpenter should answer all of your questions.

Match Your Furniture
Match your furniture to your space.  Think about the things that always bothered you and you wished you could change in your last place.  Anticipate them, and as you plan to buy any new furniture, be methodical about it so everything has a purpose.