8 Creative Ways to Update your Home for the Beginning of the Year
BWS Marketing • February 17, 2020

Starting the new year with pleasant changes is an excellent way to set the pace for months to come.

Updating your home won’t just improve its appearance. It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring positive emotions into your life.

If you are looking for inspiration, these creative ideas can help get you started.

 

1. Painting the Wood Trim

If you have interior wood trim in any or all of your rooms, it’s time for some tweaking. Many people tend to forget about the trim and leave it “as is”. However, painting it could transform the way your house looks and feels.

Paint the wood trim white. It can modernize the space substantially. Start with one and see how it goes. While you are at it, consider painting interior doors white as well. The more white you add to your home, the brighter and larger it will appear.

If you have wood-stained cabinets that seem to be showing their age, consider painting them white as well.

2. Major Decluttering

Minimalism has been gaining popularity over the past several years. If you want to follow the trend, it’s time to do some serious decluttering.

Anything that’s collecting dust on tables or shelves has to be removed. Consider sending all the stuff you don’t use every day to the basement. Better yet, arrange a garage sale. Things that you haven’t touched in over a year should go.

3. New Cabinet Handles

One of the cheapest yet highly effective ways to update your home is to replace cabinet handles and knobs. These elements lose their shine with time. By investing in handles with a creative shape, you can transform the way your kitchen and bathrooms look.

If you think that it’s time to replace or repaint the cabinets, start by replacing handles. You may save time and money.

4. Creating Open Space

While open space may not always work for offices anymore, it’s on top of the “must-have” list for homes. Many homeowners choose open floor plans for kitchens and dining rooms. Is it possible to create an open space without major reconstruction?

All you have to do is remove bulky furnishings and add some mirrors. Mirrors do an excellent job creating an illusion of large space. If you aren’t ready to get rid of large cabinets, consider painting them an off-white color. These hues create a light and airy impression.

5. Considering Custom Blinds

Anything custom-made brings an extra zest to your home. When it comes to blinds, they can transform any room with minimal changes.

Custom blinds are decorations with benefits. You can choose colors and patterns to add brightness to the room. Meanwhile, well-fitted blinds can create the illusion of extra space.

6. Replacing Light Switch Cover Plates

Light switches undergo loads of wear and tear. White plates turn gray and unappealing. Silvery faceplates get covered with scratches. Replacing them only takes a few seconds. Meanwhile, the effect you’ll see will be astounding.

7. Hiring a Professional Cleaning Service

No matter how well you clean your home, professionals can do it better. Each house or apartment needs some serious expert scrubbing at least twice a year.

You’ll be amazed at how new, fresh, and updated your home will look after such a cleaning.

8. Adding Printed Photos

As the digital era is changing the way we live, printed photos still have an immense appeal. Take the time to choose the best pictures and print them out. Buy frames and hang these photos on your living room or bedroom walls.

Updating your home doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive. A little creativity mixed with the right inspiration can achieve miracles. For more ideas, please contact us today.

 

 

Expert Advice by Just Blinds

May 29, 2025
Windows give a home warmth, light, and a view of the outside world. But with the right treatments, you can also use your windows to make your home feel cozy. Coziness is a semse of comfort and familiarity. It defines a charm that feels like home, whether it's the coziness of a warm room in winter, your movie den in the summer. When we think of coziness, we often think of couches, candles, and throw blankets. But your windows play an equally important part. After all, it's your window treatments that frame the light, add softness to your walls, and set the mood for every room. The right window decorations can make your home feel warm and inviting. Using Windows, Drapes, and Shades to Create Coziness  Window treatements create a vibe for your entire room. Drapes, shades, and shutters can be used to create a backdrop of texture, color, and style. They also allow you to control the light levels in your home and even the color of the light. This means that your windows are the best place to start when making a room feel cozy. Layering soft drapes in rich colors is a great way to add that sense of comfort and warmth to a room, while cheerful blinds in soft neutrals can help a room to feel relaxed and welcoming. You can also use drapes or blinds to add a splash of color as a bold accent in any room. These touches combined with glowing sunshine during the day create a cozy and comfortable space. Plants as Cozy Window Decor You can use other types of decor to evoke a sense of coziness, too. We particularly love plants. Leafy green plants love the sunshine as much as you do and thrive when placed in a sunny window. Place an elegant snake plant in the windowsill or hang creeping ivy from a hook near the top of a window frame to make your room feel cheerful and alive with green energy. Plants make a home feel natural and vibrantly lived-in which is perfect for your cozy vibe. For a cozy kitchen, you can even grow fresh herbs in a box on the windowsill that add a delicious aroma and tasty fresh seasoning along with their natural visual appeal. Enhance Your Space with Aromatherapy Speaking of aromatics, you might be surprised how much your windows can take part in cozy aromatherapy. Window treatments like drapes and blinds are fabric that can help purfumes and essential oils linger in the room for days. Cozy scents are often warm aromas like cinnamon, vanilla, lavender, almonds, and coffee. But fresh fruit or floral scents that smell like "home" to you can also add a sense of coziness to each room. Simply spritz your curtains with your favorite scents and each room will subtly carry that comforting smell of home that makes you want to snuggle into the couch and relax at the end of each day. Moody Shade and Maximizing Light When we visualize coziness, light levels often play a role. Your minds eye may see a sun-drenched cottage or a gently lit library as your mental idea of a room that is perfectly cozy. Window treatments allow you to set the mood by reducing or maximizing light to the perfect levels. Well-designed shades and drapes can pull back attractively to maximize light, bathing your room in the warm welcoming glow of sunshine. Or if you prefer a more relaxed coziness, you can use translucent drapes or cellular shades to filter the light exactly the right amount. Diffuse and reduced light filtered through fabric of a warm color can make you feel safe and at peace. Increase Your Happiness with Window Design Your home should feel welcoming, relaxing, and cozy. The right window treatments can help set the stage for a delightful welcome home each night, rejuvinating weekends, and an overall feeling of at-home coziness when you are relaxing in your favorite place. To achieve this goal, you can experiment with home decor changes, including your windows, to achieve your ideal at-home bliss. Contact us today for custom drapes and blinds to complete your cozy room design.
April 23, 2025
Your selection of window treatment products and services is not merely about getting a job done. Rather, if you look hard enough, you can find direct correlations between the type of person that you are and the window treatment that you select. We have created this personality-based guide to help you best discover what kind of window treatment truly matches your spirit. The Dependable Type: Wooden Blinds You are the person that all of your friends can count on. You are the type of person who truly sticks to your plans when you make them, and you are the type of person who will choose wooden blinds for your home. Privacy is important to you when selecting your blinds, and that is why you find yourself pulled into the idea of putting up wooden blinds. Besides that, they happen to be highly functional, and that's not something that you are willing to pass up either. The Planner: Blackout Curtains Those who value truly getting the most value out of their blinds or anything else that they install in their homes will think very carefully about their options. For those people, going with blackout curtains makes a lot of sense. They want to gain as much value as possible out of their options, and they know that they can significantly improve their quality of sleep and so much more when they opt for blackout curtains. These also happen to be a great option for those who work night shifts or other odd hours and yet still want to enjoy their sleep. They need blackout curtains to help increase the quality of that sleep and allow themselves to get their day started right. The Tech Enthusiast: Smart Shades They roam among us: The type of people who are quick to adopt any new technology and get to work figuring out how it can improve their lives. These people are great because they are not afraid to take a risk and because they help to move our society forward. They simply want to get more out of each day, and they often do so by adopting and using the latest technologies. These individuals will gravitate towards smart shades for the following attributes: Innovation - Who wants to stick with the boring old ways of shading one's house? Smarter options are now available, and you better believe that the tech enthusiasts among us are willing to latch on to them. Efficiency - These shades are a more efficient option for those who care about that kind of thing. They can be easily activated and set up to open or close automatically (how cool is that?!). Progressive - The "cool" factor is a big deal for people who fall into this category as well. They might not admit to it right off the bat, but they care deeply about what others think about them. As such, they want window shades that have that cool factor attached to them. The Dreamer: Sheer Curtains Finally, we land upon the dreamer. This is the person who views every day for the possibilities that it can bring. They are not scared off by those with a negative attitude. If anything, they believe that they can change those people! Instead, the dreamer wants sheer curtains because they bring in soft light, open spaces, and bring about a feeling of possibility all throughout the house. Sheer curtains are the ideal option for someone who classifies themselves in this way. They will receive plenty of compliments on their curtains, and they will appreciate how open they are to the world.  Which kind of person are you and which window treatment option makes the most sense for your personality? For more inspiration and ideas, reach out and contact us today.