Home Improvement: Re‘NEW’ing Your Home!

We’d all like to give a makeover to our living spaces and make our homes look new in the New Year. Recreating your own comfort zone is like therapy to most of us! We know that the house, for the most part, is in decent shape and we don’t want to spend too much… and we definitely don’t wish to turn our home into a construction site! But still, it would be nice to see some change and feel that sense of ‘navu gher’ in the ‘navu varas’! Hormuzd Darulwala, ace interior designer and owner at M Daruwalla and Son, brings you smart tips to make your old home look spanking new within a couple of days – just in time for New Year – with minimum cost and effort!

Gher ghannu junnu lagech – chal paint karaviye” is the common way in which most of us believe that we could change the look of our home. However, getting a fresh coat of paint gives us a ‘neat looking home’, not a ‘new looking home’ – which is what we all really want… something new and exciting! So, the next time, before you once again decide to paint the house for that ‘new’ look and feel, consider the following tips and bring in that transformation of a ‘new looking home’:

home imp pic copySoft Furnishings: Change the colour of all soft furnishings. Switch the sofa upholstery (and sofa pillows) and curtains with matching, bright colours, as these catch the eye and are mood-changers, setting up the ambience, especially in the living room. Similarly, get matching bed-sheets and curtains in the bedroom – you will be surprised how much this adds to the fun of a new look! Texture And Papers: It’s always a good idea to enunciate one wall in a room, either by a texture paint or a simply a dark shade of paint (no pastels) or tasteful, designed wallpaper. Wallpapers provide character to the room, and its installation takes only two hours! So, redecorate just one wall and see the whole room come alive!

Graphics: Though graphics are not generally used in houses, give it a shot! Children especially love it in their bedrooms! You can print anything in today’s day and age, with modern technology! A Ferrari or a Barbie graphic in the room really lights up their moods!

Shifting Furniture: It’s a common trick but works every time! Get your creativity flowing to shift the orientation of sofa sets and the movable furniture around some, and you have yourself a nice new set-up. Changing the centre table piece with something new and trendy will be a welcoming change in your room.

New Floor: Now that’s a big step but worth the look. Wooden-looking flooring is a great option and isn’t expensive either. Its installation takes a day or two. Before taking this decision, check level differences with respect to other rooms. You might need to shave off the doors from the bottom to accommodate the thickness of the floor. But the look you get once installed leaves you proud!

So you see – just by playing around with furniture, applying wall-paper, changing upholstery and working on a new flooring, you’re gonna be the proud owner of a brand new house within a few days, and that too at a reasonable cost! So go ahead and unleash the creative instinct in you… re‘new’ your old home for the New Year!

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