May 28, 2020

A Stay-at-Home Retreat: Tips to Help You Reinvent Your Home

About Brookdale Senior Living

Brookdale Senior Living offers multiple care levels for seniors in more than 600 communities nationwide. Brookdale helps you find the right care plan for yourself or your loved one. With amenities such as transportation services, salons and private dining rooms and activities such as gardening, fitness classes and trivia nights Brookdale caters to a wide range of interests and needs.

As the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has moved many of us indoors, you may be thinking about ways to make over your space to fit your new routines, including working and learning from home. Here are some suggestions to help you make your home feel more like a retreat with beautiful, cozy spaces that can multi-task to help meet the new demands of staying home.

Declutter your space

While tackling spring-cleaning projects may seem a little overwhelming, decluttering your space can be a way of taking control of one of the few things you do have control over right now: your home. Home design experts recommend starting small and tackling one room at a time, like the bathroom. Even cleaning off tabletops or organizing your pantries and closets can offer that feeling of control.

Decluttering will also help you get better organized, and you’ll likely be able to more easily clean and disinfect your home during the COVID-19 pandemic for more peace of mind.

Reinvent your living space

Your living space is a reflection of you, and stay-at-home orders can give you an opportunity to switch things up and think about what really works for you and your family while you are spending more time indoors. Kelly Wearstler, an award-winning decorator and product designer, suggests moving the sofa to face the window to get as much sunlight as possible and to feel connected to the outside world.

She also suggests creating more space or the illusion of space by moving pieces of furniture that you don’t use out of the way to the attic or garage. You can also repurpose pieces. Move a lamp that you don’t use in your living room to your bedroom and create a reading nook. Or carve out a home office space with a comfy chair and an unused console table.

You can also bring the outdoors in with a miniature garden such as terrariums and bonsai trees. Plants can help bring a natural element to a room to brighten the space.

Add some color

Don’t underestimate the power of a changing up a room with a new paint color. A fresh color can help lift your mood and make you fall in love with your space all over again. You can order paint and supplies online, and don’t worry about the latest design trends — pick a color that calls to you. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to transform your space to bring more joy to your home during this difficult time. If you’re not sure you want to commit to a whole room, start with one accent wall, and if you change your mind, it’s paint! You can change it back.

New accent pillows, a rug or artwork can also refresh a space and breathe new life into your home. You don’t have to invest in expensive art pieces to create that “wow” factor. Check out sites like Society6 and Etsy that support artisans and small businesses. You get art that sparks joy, and you help support artists and small businesses during the pandemic. Or if you’re feeling creative, you could try your hand at making your own art with starter arts and crafts kits for projects like pour-paint art, weaving and polymer clay sculpting.

If the thought of all of these home projects leaves you feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry. You can scale these ideas up or down to fit your needs. Or you can take one day at a time and ease up on trying to be productive with “all this extra time” at home. In what is already a very stressful time, adding more pressure to optimize every moment of the day with projects and improvements can make you feel even more tense. Instead, slow down and indulge in more self-care practices.

For more inspiration on how to reinvent your space, check out Brookdale’s Make It Mine home makeover series with tips to help you create your own retreat and find comfort in staying home.

At Brookdale, we’re focused on care for seniors and have been trusted by families like yours for more than 40 years. In that time, we’ve been through a lot together and have learned even more. We’re here for you and we’ll get through this crisis together.

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