If you are a house and garden junkie, you’ll see some pretty beautiful ideas across magazines, Instagram and renovation shows. Seemingly miraculously, pretty boring homes are turned into pretty beautiful spaces. And you want your house to look like that too, right? Here’s how.
As an award-winning interior designer in Adelaide, I work with clients who want to make big changes to their home. They look at the homes of their friends and then become more critical of their own.
Turning a home into something more eye-catching and modern is something that everyone wants to do. Especially in Australia, we love our indoor-outdoor living and we love to have a home with great curb appeal. Our homes represent us, after all.
They’re more than just lifeless bricks with roofs on top. Our homes have a personality linked to the owners because of the way we treat them and bring them to life. We don’t want cookie-cutter houses that look the same as the entire street.
However, not everyone is an accomplished interior designer, landscape gardener, or builder. Nor do many people have the time or the confidence to make big changes. The average home owner doesn’t know how to improve all aspects of their home perfectly… no many how many episodes of ‘The Block’ they watch.
Luckily, there are professionals prepared to add to your own knowledge base and help you. Combined with your own personality (it is YOUR home after all) and a little effort you can enjoy pretty beautiful results.
Yes, your home can transition from an average and ordinary caterpillar into a bright and beautiful butterfly.
6 Ways to Turn Pretty Boring Into Pretty Beautiful
Go To Work On The Surrounding Area
First impressions count, so why not start with the front of your home? Fixing and painting a broken fence, weeding pathways and flower beds, and painting the front door are all fairly easy ways to smarten up the front of your home.
Consider using solar lights to brighten up gates, pathways and the front porch. Plant flowers in large pots to add colour where there are no garden beds. I also string solar fairy lights through trees and shrubs as they look fabulous at night. You’ll find fairly cheap fairy lights at K-Mart or Target, and they are pretty good quality.
Use a pressure washer to clean bricks and pathways as this will really smarten up outdoor areas. I have also been looking at up-dating the fixed outdoor lighting with new sconces on either side of exterior doors. You’ll be surprised at how inexpensive these items can be, however factor-in what an electrician will charge.
You probably should have trimmed back branches and shrubbery by now. However, if you do need to trim them back then do it now. Seek advice from your local garden centre as fertilising the soil will also help plants to grow and thrive.
Don’t Take The Front Door For Granted
The front door will give visitors a hint as to what is behind it. Be confident to paint your front door in a bold colour; this is very on trend too. Add pretty beautiful hardware such as an impressive door knocker. Planter boxes on either side of the front door add style and a welcoming feel.
If you’re not interested in splashing out on an expensive and imposing front door, then be sure to keep the one you have clean and tidy. Imagine walking up to a home you’ve never been in before, and noticing that the front door is covered in muck, cobwebs, and stains – not a pretty sight, huh?
Renovate The Kitchen And Bathroom(s)
There’s something about a beautiful kitchen and a beautiful bathroom that makes people so impressed. These areas are meant to be kept hygienic and healthy anyway, but that extra hint of glamour and that extra shine always sits well with most.
If you currently own fairly older-looking kitchen and bathroom areas, then renovating them wouldn’t be such a bad idea. These two places hold a lot of value, so if you have the money to do so, then it’s a no-brainer if you want to beautify the home altogether.
Get An Extension Or Conversion
If you have the space, the money, and the permission, then extending your home can add value as well as an enhanced lifestyle. In my work as an interior designer, I also re-design floorplans and create extensions especially for extra kitchen and living spaces linked to the outdoors.
Redesigning a loft or basement space into something usable, functional and stylish will enhance your lifestyle. And when it comes to re-sale value, your home will be more attractive to more buyers. Have you ever seen the before and after photos of a loft conversion? The results are amazing.
Refurbish Your Garage
If you have a garage, and you’re not using it to store your car, then spend a day on the weekend to clean it out and tidy it up. If you’re garage is damp, dreary or dusty a clean up could provide you with a great new storage space or even a games room. There are so many possibilities with a garage conversion, and you could literally get started tomorrow.
You might not be able to turn it into a luxurious garaport with lots of different gadgets surrounding it, however you can certainly give it a wonderful makeover.
What is now an old, smelly building with a bumpy stone floor could easily be turned into a productive and modern-looking room.
Replace The Roof
People only really notice a roof after it has been worked on. Over time, a roof gets severely damaged and covered in leaves, mold and debris.
Getting in touch with roofers and replacing what you have with a new, shiny, and fresh one will change the entire look of your home.
Add a Games Room or Entertainment Area
Usually, when you think of a games room or entertainment area, the idea of a stuffy man cave may come into mind. However, entertainment areas don’t need to be crammed full of pass-times. They can be beautifully displayed and match the decor in the rest of your home. Take a look at Quedos for Handcrafted Billiard, Snooker and Pool Tables you could consider adding to your entertainment area to add not only an element of fun, but also class and sophistication.
Right now, your home might look rather similar to every other house on the block; in a month’s time, you could seriously stand out from the crowd with a pretty beautiful and individual home.
