Moving.

The never-ending sea of stacked boxes..
The stuff you’ve accumulated over the years..
The physical act of moving it all to a new space…

It’s stressful.
In fact, it is listed as one of the most stressful life events right up there with divorce, job loss and death.

It can make you want to hide in a cardboard box like this woman on Twitter.

But moving doesn’t have to be stressful.

It can be an opportunity for a fresh start.
Moving can help you reinvent your space, your habits and lifestyle.
It can give you a chance to make the changes you so desperately wish and maybe even need to make.

Today, I am going to take some of the stress out of your move and show you how to effortlessly set up your new home so you can have the real fresh start you desire.

(Psst… Not moving, but yearning for the feeling of a new home? Not to worry. What I am going to share will help you too. This exercise will show you how to effortlessly refresh your space, without moving, in a matter of 15-minutes.)

Okay. Now down to business.
I have a question for you.

Have you ever thought about how much time you spent in your house before you decided to rent or purchase it?

The truth: Probably 30-minutes. Isn’t that crazy?
The biggest investment of your life is made in 30-minutes.

It’s mind-blowing really.

In those 30-minutes you were probably hyper-focused on your love of the big windows, the neighborhood, the crown molding, spacious kitchen or the dining room and the furniture you could purchase to fill it.

You didn’t think about where the laundry baskets go.
You didn’t think about how you had one less closet in this house.
You didn’t think about where the pile of clothes would inevitably start to accumulate during busy weeks.

That’s what happened to my client, Jen.
Jen and her family moved into their new dream home and a year later felt overwhelmed by dysfunction and mess.

To help her start fresh again we did a house tour.
So what’s a house tour?

It’s basically when you go through your house, room by room and assess what is working for you and what isn’t.

While I took Jen through the house tour to plan her fresh start she had a few powerful epiphanies. She realized in that brief walk thru that she had set up her new home exactly how it had been staged when she purchased it.

She put all the furniture in the exact same places even if it didn’t really fit.
Jen had really just adapted to the house.
She didn’t think about how the house could adapt to her life, her family and their needs.

So what happened after the house tour?
I gave Jen a simple design and organizing ideas and tips she could use to instantly refresh her space.
Here is what she did:

• Jen changed their dining room into a playroom for her kids. They never used the dining room so this was an easy change. They even made some money from this decision. They sold the furniture and made a couple extra hundred bucks.

• She lined the walls of the coat closet with hooks. It took the hangers out of the equation and made putting coats away super simple. Random winter coats never ended up on furniture or in piles on the floor.

• She bought over-the-door shoe organizers and hung them on the back of her kid’s bedroom doors for all their little “treasures”.

• She also replaced the ugly “builder boobs” light fixtures with more stylish light fixtures which not only looked better but also gave off better light.

Jen told me the best part was that now every Saturday instead of spending the first few hours of their day trying to clean up the mess of the week, they were able to go on a fun new adventure with the entire family.

You can have this kind of fresh start too.

Here’s a 30-minute exercise which will help you go through each room and find quick and easy design and organizing ways to make it feel like home again.

Step one: Get a piece of paper for each room in your house that needs some TLC.  Go sit in each room and make a list of all the changes you want to see in that space. Pretend that time and money are not issues. (Also don’t forget the little things you’d like to fix. If there is a room that needs a new light bulb or your doorknob is loose on your guest bedroom,  write it down.)

Step two: Prioritize the list for each room.  Generally I recommend starting with what bothers you the most, or if budget is an issue, then start with the issue that is the least expensive to fix.

Step three: Prioritize the rooms. While this may feel “pie in the sky,” it’s actually very helpful. This will become your plan of where to focus your attention.

Step four: Start with your first room!  This is not a race, more like a marathon so pace yourself.  And keep in mind the three budgets that everyone has to work with – money, time and energy.

To new beginnings of every kind.

 

 

P.S. Need a one-on-one reinvention intervention? Get 10% off my design and organizing services until July 31st at midnight! Book your session HERE.