How Features Such As Reclaimed Wood Flooring Can Transform The Appearance Of Your Family Home
When you start your home renovation, you may be looking to refresh its appearance in the way that completely transforms its look. Sometimes overhauling the look and feel of your personal home can make it feel as if you’re in an entirely different house. Renovations often have the purpose of creating a home that looks as good as new, so you can get the feeling of moving house without having to put your home on the market. Whether you opt for reclaimed wood flooring, a new kitchen, or get creative with the lighting fixtures, the possibilities are endless.
Wasted space
Before you start looking at useful features, it’s a good idea to re-evaluate the plan of each room in your house. When you have small children about the house, it can be easy for your social space to become incredibly cluttered. Toys, artwork and general personal items can quickly fill up what used to be free space. Therefore, having kids can be a great opportunity to reassess how you use your space. Taking a look at each room and deciding how you can re-adjust how the space is used will help you add in useful features.
One of the best ways to do this is take out items of furniture that are no longer child-friendly. You don’t have to throw them out – in fact they could probably spend time in the loft until the little-ones are a bit older. For example, a coffee table might not be ideal for those with, particularly small children. A softer, and much smaller pouf could be much more sensible and space-saving option for your living room.
Why flooring is important
While painting and wallpaper might be your first go-to features to change, you shouldn’t forget your flooring. What you walk on can have a fundamental effect on the atmosphere of your house. If you want to achieve a vintage effect that’s easy on the environment, then Reclaimed Wood Flooring adds a subtly sophisticated tone to the room. Buying from a reliable provider means the wood will be preserved and crafted to prevent any adverse effects that are usually associated with reclaimed wood.
New kitchen
Whether or not you believe that the kitchen is the heart of the home, it’s undoubtedly a room that you will spend plenty of time in. It’s where we get up and have breakfast, make lunch, cook dinner and dip in and out of to get snacks. Even if you’re not the world’s greatest cook, having somewhere pleasant to make coffee or tea can make your home a refreshing place to live. Here are few ways to renovate your kitchen:
A kitchen island: if you are blessed with a large kitchen and have enough space with an island, this can be a useful storage saviour. Not only is it a great place to put floral or fruit displays, but it’s also a space to store utensils and cutlery. It can be a place for guests to pull up a stool and spend quality time in the evenings.
Replace appliances: in the same way that cream and coffee-coloured cupboards can immediately date an old 70s kitchen, so can outdated appliances. Swapping out large white goods that might be past it will ensure that your kitchen looks contemporary and new. It will also save you some pounds on your energy bill in the future – just be sure to purchase only appliances with the highest energy efficiency rating. You may even want to add in a few nifty new and small appliances. A brand-new coffee maker could be a helpful addition to the school run in the morning.
Use lighting tricks
If your house has plenty of smaller rooms, you may be looking to create an optical illusion to make them feel bigger. Of course, limiting the amount of bulky furniture in the room can improve the light and space in the room, but so can playing with the use of light:
Curtains: Don’t use large, heavy drapes in a smaller room. Anything that will collect dust will only contribute to the feeling of claustrophobia. Instead, of for lighter fabric, in paler tones. These will let in more light, and help the room keep a breezy feeling. If you want to skip curtains entirely, then using pull-up blinds could create even more space around the window area.
Pale paint: If you have a room that’s small in size, one of the worst things you can do for making the most of the space is cover it in a dark colour. Light, bright tones help to reflect the light that comes in and create the illusion of a much bigger space. This is ideal for children’s bedrooms and spare bedrooms. There’s no need to compromise the feel of one of your smaller guest rooms.
Mirrors: When it comes to maximising you space, you may just have to use a bit of smoke and mirrors – literally. Large, decorative mirrors reflect the image of the entire room, making it look almost twice as big. They also reflect light, which on top of a light colour, could create quite an effective illusion.
Lighting fixtures
As well as maximising the use of light in small rooms, using lighting fixtures to add design to a room can make a world of difference. When you have a family, space will become your priority. Finding furniture that won’t take up too much room and re-jigging the space to accommodate larger numbers of people can affect what you physically put on the floor. Lighting, however, allows you to get creative without affecting the floor space. Adding elaborate lighting fixtures can be an interesting way of adding a theme or drawing your eye in one of your rooms. Alternatively, if you’re still looking to create an illusion of space, then making them flush with the ceiling will help to create a sense of openness. Even adding an elegant table lamp to either your bedrooms or reading spaces can easily add sophistication.
Exposed brickwork
If you’ve been spending hours looking through swatches and not being able to settle on which colours to pick, then it could be worth exposing the brickwork in some of your rooms. This adds a rustic look that is effortlessly timeless. While you will have to undergo the process of stripping back the layers of paint, this will achieve an aesthetic that is very low-maintenance.
Exposed brickwork is also very useful for the exterior of your home. It saves on spending time and money having to get the front of your house re-painted every few years or so. It can also compliment the appearance of vines and outdoor plants.
Family-friendly bathroom
If your bathroom isn’t quite functional enough for your family, one of the biggest transformations you can make to your home is upgrading your bathroom. Nowadays, you can even buy digital showers, which have different functions for different types of bathing; whether you need to be rinsed and out the door in seconds or whether you’re indulging in an extended soak. Family-friendly bathrooms are vital, particularly if you have small children who need bath times before bed and early morning rotations surrounding who needs to use the sink first. However, just because your bathroom needs to be functional for your children, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t still manage to be a place of sanctuary. Here are a number of ways to make your bathroom work for both you and your children.
Storage: putting in cupboards and racks will help separate adult toiletries from kid’s bathroom supplies. If you have expensive face creams, masks and makeup that you don’t want your children to get hold of, store these up on a higher shelf. If you also have more indulgent bath time treats such as expensive bath soak, you can put these on display. This keeps them out of reach from children, while also using them as a stylistic feature in the room.
Plants: One way to add life to the room, keep it relatively mature but not make it too grown up is to add plants to the room. Plants are not only great for the air quality, but they also act as functional decoration. Some plants may even benefit for the humid atmosphere of a bathroom.
Bath toys: If you feel as if you’ve completely lost your bathroom to the presence of endless bath toys and children’s no-tears shampoo, you may be wondering how to get your old bathroom back to its former glory. Finding storage solutions for your children’s bath toys will seamlessly hide these away, so they can be brought out when they’re needed. Whether you keep a bathroom cupboard for them, or hide them in a linen basket, having them out of sight can help to re-balance your bathroom.
Decoration and vanity mirrors: one way to re-introduce a bit of adult sophistication back into your bathroom is to add decorations and vanity mirrors. Reminding yourself that this is place for you to relax and unwind is just as important as finding storage for the kids’ bath toys.
Art and design
As your kitchen becomes filled with pinned-up drawings and paintings that are the work of your children’s creative hand, it can be tempting to avoid buying new artwork altogether. After all, children’s artistic creations have their own intrinsic value, as well as the fact that they can take up a lot of wall space in our homes. However, adding new designs and artwork to your home can have a huge effect on the appearance of your home. They can be used to tie in colour themes, and create focal points in each room. As mentioned before, they can also reinstate a bit of a grown-up atmosphere back into a room. While your children bring you endless amounts of joy, the odd Tonka Truck and box of Lego can sometimes change any room in the house to a playroom. Creative artworks help to redress this balance by adding a touch of sophistication. It’s also a way of adding unique meaning and significance to a room that’s resonates with you as a family.
Personal touches
If you happen to have a creative streak in you, then this could be an easy way to add personal touches to your home. When you transform the look of your home, it can be tempting to throw out all of your smaller items to create the illusion of space. However, keeping hold of smaller mementos and trinkets can keep a look and feel inside your home that is unique to your family. Adding your own home-made personal touches is also a creative way of doing this. Designing your children’s headboards and embroidering pillows are two very simple ways of adding creative flare using your very own hands.
Smart appliances
Having children can be an expensive venture – as can entirely renovating your family home. Once you’ve totalled up the cost of paint, materials and new furniture, you might be looking to start saving again in the near furniture. Therefore, it could be beneficial to implement money-saving measures in your home transformations. As well as smart, energy-efficient appliances, you may wish to add thermostats and smart metres to your home. Adding a smart thermostat will not only regulate how often you are using your boiler, but it wall also learn family habits. This will enable your heating to come on when you need, so you don’t have to constantly boost the central heating for the sake of it. It will also give you some insight into where your energy is being used and how you can save money.
Transforming the look of your personal home when you have a family will involve a shift in priorities. Before children, any home renovations may have followed the aesthetic design of the home, rather than the functional purpose. When you have small children you have to take into account the space, safety and practical uses of each room. However, even with the children’s needs in mind, you can still visually transform your family home in a way that feels fresh and new, while also maintaining your family’s personal charm.
