10 Simple Styling Changes That Make Your Home Feel Fresh Again

11 minutes ago

6 min read

I just changed a lamp in my living room and everything felt different. Loved it. I then went up to the attic and dug out a few throw cushions I’d put away because I was completely bored with them a few years ago. Next to the new lampshade, I suddenly loved them again too.

Nothing was wrong with the cushions in the first place, I had just looked at the same combination for too long.

Sunlit boho living room with teal sofa, patterned pillows, many potted plants, and a pink pendant lamp against a brick wall.

It made me look around the rest of the house and think about how often we buy something new when we’re really just bored with what we’re looking at. Not necessarily the individual things, but the way we’ve put them together. Move something, swap something, put something away for a while and the whole thing can look different again.

And if you do still want to buy something afterwards, at least you know what the room actually needs rather than adding another cushion to the pile.

1. Change A Lampshade

This is obviously the one that started mine. I changed the lampshade on a lamp that was already there and it altered that whole corner far more than I expected. The new shade is made from glass, has colour and a different texture and suddenly other things I already owned started working with it. A lamp can have been sitting in the same place for years and changing just the shade makes you notice it again.

It is also a fairly cheap thing to play around with. Try a different shape, a pleated shade, something patterned or a colour you already have elsewhere in the room. Before buying one, I’d even try swapping shades between lamps you already own because you never know. Sometimes the lamp you thought you were fed up with was fine all along.

Cozy living room with pink wall, lit floor lamp, gray sofa, bookshelves, potted plants, and two ukuleles in a basket

2. Move A Plant

Plants are brilliant for those corners where something is missing but another piece of furniture would just make it crowded. You get some height, some green and something that isn't another decorative object sitting on a surface. A bigger plant can be enough on its own, particularly in an awkward corner beside a sofa or chair. And no, you don't necessarily need to buy one.

Move one from another room first. We stop noticing plants when they have been sitting in the same place for years, just like everything else. You might have a great one tucked away in a bedroom that looks much better downstairs, or a plant that has outgrown its original corner and deserves somewhere more prominent. Just check it will actually survive there before congratulating yourself on your styling.

Sunlit boho living room with lush potted plants, framed art, round wooden mirror, white cabinet, and beige chair on wood floors.

3. Dig Out Your Old Cushion Covers

This is the one I’ve just done and I am now wondering why those cushions spent so long in the attic. I was bored with them, so away they went. A few years later, next to my new lampshade and with different things around them, I really like them again. Same cushions, different combination.

This is why I much prefer keeping good cushion inners and changing the covers. Covers barely take up any storage space and you can rotate them whenever you fancy something different. Put the ones you are tired of away rather than immediately getting rid of them, particularly if you loved them once. You may pull them out again in two years and wonder what your problem was.

Cozy beige sofa with three textured throw pillows—tan, black, and woven gold—on a striped blanket in a bright living room.

4. Rearrange The Furniture

Some furniture ends up in the same position for no better reason than that’s where you put it when you first moved in. Then five years pass and nobody has questioned it since. Try the chair on the other side of the room, swap the side tables around or pull something away from the wall. You don’t have to spend Sunday afternoon dragging every piece of furniture around the house to see a difference.

Even fairly small moves can fix a corner that has never looked quite right. A chair might work better beside a different lamp, or a side table that looked too small beside the sofa might be exactly right somewhere else.

I’ve moved things around plenty of times only to put them straight back again, but at least then I know. And occasionally you find a layout that makes much more sense and wonder why you never tried it before.

Woman in a black-and-white patterned dress lies on a brown sofa in a sunlit room, looking calm and relaxed.

5. Have A Summer Rug And A Winter Rug

If you have somewhere to store one, rotating rugs is such a good way to change a room without constantly buying new things. I like the idea of a lighter rug for spring and summer and something warmer and heavier for autumn and winter. A rug takes up a lot of visual space, so when you change it, you really do notice. Everything sitting on and around it looks slightly different too.

You also get to miss the one you put away. By the time it comes back out six months later, you haven’t been staring at it every day and it feels good again. It doesn’t need to become some elaborate four-rugs-for-four-seasons situation either. Two is quite enough unless you have considerably more storage space than I do (I do tend to collect rugs...).

Sunlit modern loft living room with brick walls, arched windows, white rug, lounge chair, plants, and shelves, calm and cozy

6. Clear A Surface And Start Again

Take everything off one shelf, console or coffee table and start with an empty surface. I mean everything, rather than moving the vase ten centimetres to the left and deciding you have restyled it. Once it is empty, you can look around the house and decide what you actually want to put there. Some of the original things might go back, but they don’t all have to.

These surfaces tend to collect things without us really noticing. A candle gets added, then a bowl, then another candle and before long there are seven unrelated objects all politely trying to look intentional. Clearing it gives you a chance to make a completely different combination using what you already have. You may also decide it looked rather good empty.

Smiling woman in black top and light jeans sits on a wooden cabinet in a sunlit room by a window.

7. Shop Your Own House

I do this all the time. Before buying something for a particular spot, walk around the house and see if you already own something that could work there. Take a lamp out of the bedroom, move a stool upstairs, steal a vase from the hallway or put a little side table somewhere it has never been before. There are probably plenty of things in your home that you still like but barely register anymore.

The nice thing is that you can try it without committing to anything. Live with the lamp in its new spot for a week and see whether you like it there. If not, put it back and try something else. It costs nothing and you might end up liking both rooms better simply because neither looks exactly as it did before.

Blonde woman in patterned top and jeans stands by white French doors, hands covering her face in a sunlit hallway.

8. Move Your Art

Once art is on the wall, it tends to stay there. You chose the spot, drilled the hole and that is apparently where that picture will live until you move house. Except it doesn’t have to. Swap two pieces between rooms, move a smaller piece to a different wall or take something down and lean it against the wall on a shelf or sideboard instead.

It is funny how much more you notice a piece when it turns up somewhere unexpected. Something that had almost disappeared into the background in the hallway might look great above a bedside table. You can also change which colours you notice in a piece depending on what you put around it. Same art, no new purchase, and one less blank corner to solve.

Woman in blue gingham shirt hangs a framed SOUNDCLASH photo on a white gallery wall, focused and careful.

9. Bring Things Back Out Of Storage

If you have a cupboard, attic or box full of things you once liked, go and have a look before heading to the shops. Not everything deserves a comeback, obviously. Some things were put away for very good reasons. But there will usually be a few pieces that you simply got tired of seeing every day.

Time away helps. Your home may have changed since you put them away, your taste probably has too, and they are no longer sitting next to exactly the same things. Bring back an old vase, throw, candlestick or ceramic piece and try it somewhere completely different. If you still don’t like it, perhaps it can finally go rather than heading back upstairs for another five-year sentence.

Wooden attic loft office with hanging coats, desks, drawers, and a striped rug, lit by daylight from small windows.

10. Change The Combination

This is probably the biggest lesson from my lamp and my formerly rejected cushions. We tend to look at an individual thing and decide we’re bored with it, when sometimes it is the combination we’re bored with. The cushion has been sitting against the same sofa, beside the same lamp, on the same rug for years, so of course it isn't particularly exciting anymore. Change one or two of those things and you may feel completely differently about it.

Elegant beige living room with wooden armchair, sofa, lamp, rug, leather ottoman, and potted plant in soft daylight.

So, when a corner of the house starts looking a bit blah, I wouldn’t immediately ask what you can add. Look at what you can move, swap, remove or bring back first. You may end up buying something new anyway, just as I did with my lampshade, but that one change might be all you need to make a whole load of old things work again.

And I have to say, finding something in the attic that you already paid for years ago and suddenly loving it again is particularly satisfying.