cleansing your style palate

Why wait for spring to start spring cleaning? January is a good time to start reinvigorating your space even in some small ways. Its been a few weeks since we set our New Year’s Resolutions and I’m sure like me you have already begun to break you commitments. Why not refresh things now to get motivated to keep going on towards your goals?

For me I am rethinking my living room from scratch so I wanted to do a little exercise in cleansing my style palate to get my creative juices flowing. Rather than try and re-style the whole room I decided to start with my mantel – the primary focal point of this space. This is what it has looked like since about mid-December:

As you can see it is quite cluttered with pictures, cards, candles, and such. Some of the items were put here when I was decorating for Christmas and had to make room for all things red & green. The cards are also from the holidays, which I never took the time to move away from there until today.

Finally, the painting is a print of a Monet that was passed down to me from my aunt when I was in college. It has made it through every move I’ve been through, in every apartment I’ve lived in since that time. I think it may be the one piece of artwork that I’ve held onto for a bit to long and so I’ve decided to let go of it and pass it on to someone new.

After taking every item away I was left with at clean slate:

Now this is normally where you might see an after photo showing the final result of the new look. But I am just getting started. I will be posting more of my progress on my living room over the coming blog posts but for now I want to rest in the presence of new beginnings. Before I fill it up with new items too quickly I want to ponder my vision for this room. That’s the whole point of cleansing your style palate – to leave space for envisioning a whole new experience in your home.

Just wait.

Take time.

Relish in open space.

But I won’t leave you hanging wondering what to do next. Here are the steps I’m going to take to get this project going:

1. Purge – I’ve purged one little area of my living room, over the next few weeks I’ll go through the rest of the room and weed through items that need a little refreshing. Some I will reuse in a different way and some I will pass on to a new owner (and just a few will need to be trashed). As far as furniture goes, of course I won’t takeaway anything until I have an adequate replacement.

2. Dream & Scheme – This is the fun part – getting some inspiration and doing my homework to determine what I’m really desiring to see in my living room re-style! Keep an eye on my living room Pinterest board to see what I’m going for 😉

3. Set a budget – This is the hard part. Rather than go above and beyond my means I’m gonna sit down with my hubby and come up with a firm budget for what we want to invest in this room. While it may feel like your limiting yourself if you do this, it will ultimately allow you more freedom in choosing things that are a the right fit for your lifestyle.

4. Begin collecting pieces to fill in your space – This is the MOST fun part. After I’ve done all of the steps above its time to take some action. Play with new looks, styles, and ideas. This is actually where the design part takes place. It takes more than inspiration to make a room reality. Once you have your design scheme laid out – its time to go shopping!

It would take a whole book of blog posts to explain my process for designing a space which may be in the works down the road but these steps above are a good place to start.

If you are planning on re-styling a space in your home start with the first 3 steps above and then if you are stuck as far as what exactly you should include in the new look feel free to contact me. You never know I may just have a solution for you 😉

What are your thoughts on cleansing your style palate? Is NOW the time to refresh and make things new by purging your space of unwanted items?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!