There comes a point when you suddenly feel it’s time to make a big change on the home front. You decide you’ve had enough of your worn out sofa and chairs in the living room, and the dining table has seen better days with years of the children using it as a colouring, arts and crafts and general messy play area.
While you’re making changes to the furniture, it often pays to spend the extra time, money and effort in redecorating, too. The main advantage in this is that you can start from scratch and not have to match anything new to any of the old. Of course, there may be things that you still like and want to keep the same – a big bookcase, or a favourite armchair, for example. Cast an appraising eye over any favourites and decide if they will stand the test of time when surrounded by new things.
These days, it seems, we don’t have to wait for anything. We used to have to wait for the two or three weeks a year when there was a furniture sale on before we could revamp our rooms. Now, if you’re looking to buy, you can find a sale whenever and wherever you want. And, of course, with online shopping, you don’t even need to go out and shop, you can do it all from your sofa.
However, if you are looking to replace furniture, it’s a good idea to go and see the pieces you’re considering ‘in the flesh,’ even if you then go home and order online.
So, once you’ve decided what kind of stuff you want, map it out in the living room or dining room, using squares of newspaper to mark how much space the new furniture is going to take. It’s no good buying a cheap dining table and chairs if they’re going to dominate the dining room and leave you no space to move around them.
Choose furniture that complements the size and shape of your room, and if that means getting something smaller than you originally planned, then so be it. When picking a sofa, corner sofas can look large in the shop, but when you map out a place in the room at home, you may find that they actually give your room the illusion of space as they neatly fill a corner.
Before making any purchases, decide your colour scheme, and work everything in to fit that. If you approach your home’s makeover in a logical way, you’ll get it just right and have fun in the process.