With January just around the bend, you will soon be pining for ways to freshen up your home in time for the New Year. Not sure what your next steps should be? Well then, let’s zhush your nest in 2022, with my home makeover tool, my 3-to-5 Things Designer Framework.

The 3-to-5 Things Designer Framework

I created this home makeover tool to help my readers and strategy session clients make noticeable improvements in any room or rooms in their home by doing a makeover without completely gutting your rooms. I know this tool gets results because I’ve used variations of it for over two decades of designing high end homes where clients have antiques and artwork we need to feature and work around.

 

 

Step One, Identify the Rooms that Need a Makeover the Most

In a clean notebook (I love notebooks from Cupcakes and Cashmere at Target) or a clean sheet of paper, first identify the three to five rooms in your home that you want to makeover and freshen up. This gives you the perfect Scope of Project. I like to encourage them to choose the living room, dining room and entry.

Step Two, Identify the Things You Already Have and Love

Identifying the things you already have, and love gives you a solid basis for the style and color scheme you’ll be doing. They will be the basis or foundation for your makeover.

Any new items you purchase should coordinate with, enhance and call attention to the things you are keeping: those items you already have and love. This is one of my super-secret tips for designing rooms my clients love: build design schemes around things they absolutely love. It’s crazy simple but makes complete sense.

 

 

Via Domaine

Step Three, Identify the Things You Truly Dislike

Now, list the top three to five things you truly dislike, things that aren’t working for you at all. Review each and every rejected item carefully and as unbiased as possible and decide if they are indeed unusable because about 50% of the time, I find my clients’ rejected items are actually fine.

Ask yourself, “is it the sofa I don’t like, or simply how the sofa looks with the carpet?” “Would the carpet look better with a good cleaning and a fresh wall color or vice versa?” Once I point this out, they are amazed they were able to rework the project around something they once deemed unusable.

 

 

Mark D. Sikes

Step Four, Creating Space

Once you’ve exhausted every possibility for using or repurposing your rejected items, create space by giving away, selling on consignment or discarding them. This will help you create space for a new design scheme.

Don’t skip this step. Removing things you don’t like will give you space. But most importantly it will enable you to better visualize a new design scheme without the old things hampering your ability to visualize.

Step Five, Keep Them Handy

Go back to the 3 to 5 things you love in each room. Take pictures, measure, and keep them handy for referring to when shopping for new home furnishings.

Pop the bubbly my friend because this plan is the key to your new design scheme/s and is built upon the things that … you guessed it… you already have and love! Now you have a great basis for making over the important rooms in your home beautiful, original and completely you.

 

 

If you love this post, please share my home makeover tool with a friend. 

The Workbook to My 3-to-5 Things Makeover Framework

That’s it for today. If you’d like the workbook that goes with the 3-to-5 Things Framework, then get my free, easy to read, 10-page book, The Wellness Home, 5 Steps to a Beautiful Restful Home for Women Who Value their Health and Wellness. This framework will help you create inviting retreats in your home so you can regenerate and reconnect with yourself; create spaces in your home for exercise; give you basic how to’s on kitchens, work zones and techy kitchen stuff. So, let’s help you get ready for your home makeover by the time January rolls around. 

Bye for now!

Shiree’

Here’s that link again. xo

For more on wellness design and easy home makeovers, check out my post “Give Your Home a Wellness Makeover in One Weekend”plus, a link to my interview with Deirdre Fitzpatrick.