New Year New Home - The Best New Year's Resolutions for Your Home

It won’t be long now before we’re changing the home décor from red and green to silver and gold. That’s right, New Year’s Eve is just around the corner - the time of year when we take a look at our lives and make resolutions to improve them.

This year, why not consider what resolutions you can make to give your home a fresh new feel?

Improvements are always welcome in the home, and hey, maybe this is the year you finally organise your garage so you can list it as storage for rent!

Whether you’re refreshing the paint job in your bedroom, or getting your hands dirty with a full kitchen remodel, making a list of how you’d like to enhance your home is a great place to start.
 

Do a Post-Christmas Declutter

As much as we look forward to it, the Christmas season always seems to go by in a blur of tinsel and twinkling lights. After the stockings have been taken down and the last plate from the Christmas feast has been washed, the reality of clearing out the Christmas decorations sets in. We’ve already given you some tips on how to pare down and store your Christmas decorations, but you should also remember that, to ensure good luck for the year to come, you’ll need to pack your holiday décor up before Twelfth Night!

1. Comb through your Christmas decorations

Those of us who find a great deal of joy from organising are going to love this step - sift through your decorations for the ones you’d love to keep. Maybe you scored a great deal on some fancy new baubles, and your old ones just aren't as shiny as they once were.

The first thing you’ll want to do is sort through your existing decorations for anything that you no longer want or need. Next, see about donating your unwanted décor, or giving them away to someone who would appreciate them.

This will make getting your home prepped for Christmas company so much easier the next time you break out your holiday decorations, knowing you won’t have to dig around the unwanted clutter to find the special items that mean the most to you.

2. Clear containers are your friend

A cardboard box with a label slapped on it won’t be much help when it’s time to decorate the tree. What’s really going to make a difference in your decorating endeavours is having your baubles and trinkets organised by colour in see-through bins. This will save you time and frustration next time around, when you know exactly which decorations you’re pulling out of storage with just a glance.

3. Safely store your Christmas décor

Now that you’ve got only the decorations you know you want, and you’ve carefully organised them by colour, it’s time to put them away for a twelve-month slumber.

Keeping those holiday boxes out of the way for the year is key. A cool, dry attic or storage room would make the perfect place to put your decorations to bed - hidden and out of the way until you need to deck the halls all over again.

Make More Space for Storage

Once your holiday decorations are packed up and out of the way, you can then shift your attention towards renewing the rest of your home.

To start with, you’ll want to give yourself as much of a blank canvas as possible - after all, when you choose to declutter your home, you maximise your living space.

Just like you practised with your ho-ho-holiday baubles, you’ll want to start going through the rest of your things. Separating items into piles marked “keep”, “donate” and “toss” will be the best strategy to tackle this project, but you’ll need to make sure you leave no cabinet closed and no corner uninspected.

With the new year on the horizon, you should sift through all of your old things to determine if they’re in alignment with the new you.

There’s an even greater opportunity on the horizon when you rid your home of the unnecessary - creating more space for storage. If you end up with more room in your home or garage than you know what to do with, you might consider renting that space out for others to use.

Chances are, someone in your area might even use the extra room to keep their holiday decorations. Put your spare space to good use this year and earn extra cash with Stashbee while doing it!

Adopt a One-In-One-Out Policy

It’s pretty common for a pile of new things to build up after the holidays. With gifts from loved ones and bargains you just couldn’t pass up in the Black Friday sales, new stuff piles upon old stuff and, before you know it, you’re drowning in clutter.

This nightmarish scene can be avoided, however, when you implement a one-in-one-out resolution come the new year. Take account of each new thing you’ve acquired over the last twelve months - is it a duplicate? A replacement? Or something truly new?

To keep a fresh rotation of things without letting the clutter pile up, donate or give away some of the older things in your home that just aren’t necessary. It’s as easy as that - a simple resolution that allows you a clean start to the new year.

Make Time for Repairs

Now that you’ve un-decked the halls and the holiday hubbub has quieted, you can hear the annoying drip of that leaky tap, again. Or maybe you’ve something in another area of your home that could do with some repair work.

As far as house resolutions go, this is the one that will make the greatest difference in the months to come. When your home is suffering from disrepair, the energy in your home can become congested and the sanctuary of your home is jeopardised.

Use the month of January to make your list of needed repairs, set your budget, and start scheduling work to be done! Plus, by getting all of the peskiest projects out of the way at the start of the year, you can sit back and relax in the comfort of your freshly-fixed home as the rest of the months go by.

This one should definitely come top of your list of New Year’s resolutions, because it’s one that the whole family can get involved with. Repairs don’t always have to be completed by a hired handy-person.

Say you’d like to update the art in your living room, or you’d love to see more storage added to the entryway. Spending a Saturday afternoon doing DIY projects with the kiddos is a great way to see your home improved, while teaching them the values of doing a project yourself.

Improve Your Cleaning Rota

In the spirit of a New Year clean-up, this would also be a wonderful time to check in with your current cleaning rota. What’s there? What’s missing? Over the past year, have you developed any bad habits when it comes to keeping your home clean? We know how easy it can be to let the dishes pile up in the sink.

Organisation is key to sticking to this resolution. Not only do you want to keep all of your cleaning tools together and readily available, you’ll want a handy cleaning schedule to compliment them.

By tackling little projects throughout the week, you can keep a clean house without having to dedicate a significant part of your weekend to getting your home in tip-top shape.

Commit to spending some time before bed to take care of the dishes and wipe down the counters.

Before you settle into the sofa in the evening, challenge yourself to dust the surfaces and go over your space with a vacuum. Relaxation at the end of the day is so much more enjoyable when everything in your home is tidy and in order.

Upgrade your storage practises

The last thing you want is to head into the new year with a fresh outlook on life, only to discover an unwanted mould problem in your storage space. Mould represents decay and poses a threat to your health and wellbeing.

Garages are especially prone to mould because they’re more susceptible to the elements. A leaky roof or lack of natural light can contribute to the development of mould on your things. Imagine heading into the garage to look for a long-lost item, only to discover it’s become damp and damaged.
 

Instead of walking into a mouldy fiasco, ditch the cardboard boxes and bolster your garage storage with sealed storage containers made of metal or plastic, which are much more secure against attracting moisture.

Likewise, keep your things well-ventilated and dry by placing a dehumidifier in your garage. If a new appliance isn’t in the budget, simply opening up the garage door for some time each day allows the space to breathe.

Lastly, you’ll want to do whatever you can to keep things stored above the ground. Things stored on the ground are more susceptible to moisture and changes in temperature.

However, by installing added shelving or hooks in the walls, you can get more security and space out of your storage - and you’re making your garage more attractive to potential renters. Cha-ching!

Spruce Up Your Spare Room

We love this resolution because it defines the meaning of new year new home. Let’s say you met your new year resolution of decluttering your home, which resulted in an empty spare room - awesome!

A spare room is a blank canvas, and a great representation of the possibilities presented by a new year. When we spend time assessing our lives at the start of the year, we give ourselves the opportunity to recognise what’s missing and make a change.
 

Do we want a space dedicated to wellness? Maybe it’s time to leave the yoga mat unrolled and add weights to the spare room. If the start of the new decade has taught us anything, it’s that a quiet space to work is invaluable. You could transform your spare room into the office space you’ve always wanted.

If it’s extra cash that you value the most, consider updating the storage opportunities of your spare room. A few added shelves in a well-lit space can turn an average storage room into the perfect option for a renter looking for storage in your area.

Feng Shui-ify Your Space

According to the principles of Feng Shui, how your home is set up affects the energetic transactions that take place in your life. Keeping a clutter-free entryway allows for good energy to enter your home. With the addition of pictures on the walls, especially in hallways, this energy flow slows down, remaining in your home for longer.

In your home office, adjust your desk so that it faces the doorway, to welcome good energy as it enters the space. Furthermore, depending on what you want to get out of the year ahead, the colours in your home could also use an update - for free-flowing thoughts while you work, make sure your desk chair is blue.
 

Give Your Space a Facelift

After a while, the same old look can start to feel stale, like it’s lost its magic, but there’s an easy fix: start in the room you spend the most time in.

How can you update storage and organisation? What would this room look like with a different colour scheme? The simple switch of an old rug and throw pillows for new ones can instantly update the look of a room.

If you’re looking for a more dramatic update, look for areas where you can update the paint colour and light fixtures.

These are just a few of the most common New Year resolutions you can put into practice for your home.

Which of these resolutions are you going to put into practise first? Consider teaming up with your partner or housemates on a joint resolution to keeping the home tidy.

New Year cleaning feels so much better when you’ve enlisted the buddy system. Then when your space is ready, list one of your newfound spare rooms for storage space and enjoy seamless payments on the side!

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