Americans spend 93% of their lives indoors. That is an astounding amount of time to spend in rooms and spaces that create and control our mood, outlook, and disposition. If our living space has this much control over our attitude, we should consider keeping that influence positive.
Feng shui starts at the front door and brings energy through your home. But is your energy projecting a vibrant, productive atmosphere or causing you to crash on your couch daily to binge Netflix? No judgment, but let’s keep it uplifting!
With minimal effort, you can create an environment adorned in home accents that make you feel welcome, content, and able to receive positive energy. Sometimes, we already have what we need but it needs to be freshened, rearranged, or organized. Other times, we need to level up from the ground up.
Whether you need simple organization or to burn it down and start over (figuratively, of course!), here are five surprisingly simple ways to brighten your home without much effort. Look around you and you will see that you are closer than you think to a home that feels more like you and embraces you with comfort.
5 Simple Ways to Brighten Your Home
- Home Décor That Makes You Happy
- Room Decorations to Brighten Your Day
- Tell Your Story with Home Accents
- Relive Your Adventures with Decorative Souvenirs
- Create Casual Vibes and Cozy Comfort
1. Home Décor That Makes You Happy
The benefits we get from being outdoors are unmistakable. The sunlight, fresh air, and oxygen-producing plants, trees, and flowers elevate our outlook and improve our mood. By bringing those qualities to our indoor space, we can significantly improve our mental health and productivity.
The energy that enters our home from these natural improvements is invigorating. By opening our blinds, a window, or a door, we can breathe fresh air into our space without spending a dime. The fresh air provides oxygen which may affect the serotonin levels in our body, contributing to a boost of happiness and relaxation.
Along with fresh air, consider bringing more outside in—it’s easy to get house plants and fresh cut flowers to brighten up any home décor. Use small plants on end tables or windowsills to bring life and color to any room. Go ahead –buy yourself the flowers. You deserve them!
Easy Home Décor
- live plants and flowers
- fluffy pillows
- family heirloom furniture
Nature provides excellent home décor solutions, but so can a few fun accent pieces. Bright pops of color can lighten up a room and bring a smile. Whether found in a throw rug or whimsical drink coasters, these winks from your favorite color will greet you every time you enter the room and elevate your mood.
Fluffy pillows are also an easy home décor essential. We all love to snuggle up with a fluffy pillow and read a book, listen to our favorite music, or get consumed by an epic murder mystery podcast. Fluffy pillows are a playful way to brighten up a room and remind yourself to lighten up!
Family heirloom furniture can add a chic and nostalgic touch to any home décor. Even a small end table or writer’s desk that has been handed down through your family can give that vintage, familial feel to your room. Great memories create happy moments and having that reminder of family in your home can warm up your space.
2. Room Decorations to Brighten Your Day
Many room decorations express your personal style. The ceramic frogs, souvenir shot glasses, and antique dolls certainly make a statement. There are additional ways to communicate your style and whimsy while breathing light and fun into each room.
Whimsical Room Decorations
- wall art
- inspirational pictures/plaques
- funky lamps
Get Creative with Home Accents
Wall art can include anything from movie posters to metal sculptures of fish. A classy and elegant way to elevate the design of your personal space is with nautical wood maps. Not only are they a beautiful way to capture a body of water that may have meaning for you, but they’re also a simple design element to bring in the airy, nautical feel of movement and light.
Ottomans are another clever way to add style and personality to a room. From a cow print to a decorative, fluffy poof, an ottoman offers functionality with a creative flair. An ottoman that offers storage is an additional element of functionality that pulls a room together and communicates your individuality.
Add some inspiration to every day with an inspirational poster or clever wood sign. “Bless This Mess” or “Collect Moments Not Things” are phrases that can be custom painted on wood signs to remind you to expect more from your days. Even the smallest positive message brings brightness to a space.
For an added dash of playfulness, bring in a funky lamp or colorful lampshade. A clever design or interesting shape brings immediate interest into the room and can inspire an improved mood. Whether you chose the leg lamp from “The Christmas Story” or a flamingo rising through a lampshade, the fun and clever lamp will bring additional brilliance to your day.
3. Tell Your Story with Home Accents
While there are pieces of home décor and room decorations that bring a smile to your face and a lightness to your home, there will always be personalized home accents that resonate as purely you. These are the items in your room that make people smile and say, “Oh, that is so you!”
Home Accents that are Uniquely You
- pet themed accents
- family photos
- bright accent wall
- signature piece of furniture
The first home accent you can identify in any animal lover’s home is the species and breed of their pet, intermingled with their undying love and devotion. One look and you will see the cat-themed drawer pulls or the pug salt-and-pepper shakers. A pet is the equivalent of a child; there is no judgment in memorializing the beloved beast in home accents.
Family photos are another home accent that is uniquely you. Whether you arrange framed photos of family trips on the wall or display the collection of vintage Olan Mills portraits on your bookshelves, these cherished images of your loved ones are unapologetically, unabashedly, uniquely you. The light they add to your day is immeasurable.
An accent wall is a whimsical and unique addition to any room. Using a bright paint color, rustic wood slats, or interesting wallpaper on one wall can bring a light, airy, and uplifting feeling to the space. With just one wall, you can transform the energy of a room and create an inviting space in your home.
Have you ever walked into a friend’s house and been drawn into that one unique, captivating piece of furniture—a signature home accent that pulls the whole room together and is surrounded by a warm, inviting, non-imposing aura? You can find a piece that will bring that welcoming feel to your home. You will know it when you see it; you will be drawn to it, it will lift your spirits, and you will know it belongs in your home.
4. Relive your Adventures with Decorative Souvenirs
Your home is the showroom of all that is important to you, and that includes adventure. Time spent traveling, exploring other countries, other states, or other cities is often memorialized in souvenirs and room decorations. Displaying these important mementos often invites conversation and shares details that are important to you.
Your time in Ireland, the childhood trips to the U.P, and the adventure to Italy that remains on your bucket list can all be displayed in your home décor. These trip-related room decorations are often a bright spot in your space and your day. An instant mood-booster, this travel-related décor instantly brings you back to the journey and all the memorable moments you experienced.
Travel-related Home Décor
- nautical wood map
- original local art
- decorative travel journal
Incite Your Wanderlust
Brighten up your room with a travel vision board. Attach stickers, boarding passes, and ticket stubs from places you have traveled to a board placed in a heavy traffic area of your home. Include photos, itineraries, and clippings depicting the places you still want to explore; travel goals energize you to start planning your next venture. This board collects your memories and gets you excited about future travel, creating an inspirational room decoration.
Instantly elevate your space with a nautical wood map. Whether you have already experienced the beauty of Cape Cod or it tops on your wish list of next trips, a wood map depicting the depths, shallows, and stunning beauty of the surrounding waters will immediately elevate and brighten your space. The happiness on your face will illuminate the room and immediately create a more joyful environment.
Use Souvenirs as Room Decorations
Along with the experiences and memories you collect as you travel and explore, local art becomes a part of you and continues to inspire you long after you have returned home. Displaying pieces of original local art collected as you travel is an instant mood-booster. The beauty and originality of the home accent take you back to the place you found it, instantly recalling the sights, sounds, and feelings of the locale and brightening your space.
How else do you remember all these wonderful travel memories and the location where you found that perfect handmade patchwork ceramic pug? You documented all your findings, thoughts, and feelings in an exquisite decorative journal that becomes functional home décor, allowing you to relive your experiences and refresh your feelings of adventure by reading a few pages anytime you need a pick-me-up.
5. Create Cozy Vibes and Casual Comfort
Your home is your castle. It is the place that protects your spirit and gives you the comfort to be yourself. Your hideaway, safe space, and refuge from the world, your home is the haven you return to at the end of each day, seeking comfort, rest, and relaxation. Home décor that projects cozy vibes and creates a personal retreat is key to elevating your mood and brightening your environment.
Cozy Home Accents for your Personal Retreat
- plush throws and pillows
- serving trays
- candles and diffusers
As you snuggle into bed at night or cozy into bed on a rainy day with a good book, plush bedding and pillows recreate the feeling of a high-end hotel or relaxing cottage getaway. Creating the look and feel of a posh resort is as easy as plumping up your pillows and raising the percale in your bedsheets! You will lose yourself in luxurious room decorations and get a refreshing night’s sleep every night.
Place Cozy Home Accents in Every Room
Much like plush bedding makes your bed the star of your sleeping space, soft blankets and throws warm up your favorite reading chair or loveseat. Instantly softening the look with fluffy faux fur or creating a vibrant accent with funky patterns and bright colors, a soft blanket wraps you in comfort and creates your favorite happy place.
When surrounding yourself with home décor that spoils you, you must always include a serving tray. The signature home accent of luxury, a serving tray is at the ready for your afternoon tea, midnight snack, or breakfast in bed. The ultimate day-brightener, a serving tray at hand while you read will hold your teapot and a small plate of sugar cookies.
Scent is vital to the hominess of any room. A tasteful display of candles or the airy mist of a diffuser can bring to mind places and times stimulated by smell. The whiff of a familiar flower and you are in the gardens outside the Getty Villa Art Museum in Malibu.
Home Sweet Home
Our homes are our personal retreat from the outside. The comfort and safety we cherish within our four walls may be the reason we spend so much of our time inside! If we are going to dedicate so much time indoors, it is essential to keep our personal space cheerful and uplifting.
The ability to lift our spirits with home décor and home accents is surprisingly simple. Whether you highlight local art discovered in far-flung places, collect wood maps, or simply open your doors and windows to let the fresh air in, your home can be filled with lightness and brightness to improve your mood.
Most importantly, your home should be a place of peace and comfort. Creating an environment that soothes your soul and invigorates your mind begins with room decorations that are meaningful to you.
Surround yourself with room decorations and mementos that mean the most to you and spark the most joy. Create a home décor style that treasures you above all!