A few personal touches et voila!

It’s the little things that make a house a home. As someone who has just recently moved, and will be moving again in the coming weeks, I know how important little touches can be when trying to turn a new place into your own personal space.

Quite often when you move into somewhere new, you move into a neutral-coloured, personality-free zone that has been intentionally designed this way to make the place buyable or rentable to a wide market. It’s hard to tell the interior of one house, or apartment, from the next. Entire rooms designed straight from the Ikea catalogue – generic, bland, impersonal and uninspired! Now you’ve moved in you want to shake off that show-home feel.

Few can afford a total overhaul up front so here are some cheap and easy suggestions that go a long way in making your new place more you!

Creating a Homely Look and Feel

As obvious as it may seem creating a nice relaxing aesthetic and ambiance can go a long way in making a place feel snug and cosy. No radical changes are required, it’s all about manipulating the senses. Create a soft mood through use of warm lighting, textures, scents and sounds.

Start by putting on your favourite chill out CD. Music can be magical when it comes to altering a person’s perception of their surroundings!

Bright, stark over-head lighting can make a space feel cold and uninviting. A few flickering candles can do wonders in totally transforming the feel of a place. I suggest splashing out on some Yankee Candles. Although they may seem more expensive than buying a pack of tea-lights in your local supermarket, in the long run they are a much better buy. They look great, come in lovely glass jars, and burn for an amazingly long length of time. The large jars cost about £18 or €20 and last for up to 110 hours…that’s over five hours per euro!

Add ambiance with candles

As well as adding nice gentle light to the room, Yankee Candles are scented. With hundreds of fragrances available there’s a range of candles to suit every season as well as food, fruit and floral scents. There’s even a range aptly called “Housewarmer Candles”, specifically designed to make a house feel like a home. There’s an undeniable connection between fragrances and how they make us feel. Choose a scent that’s familiar to you, something you associate with warm memories; a comforting place or a friendly face, such as Baby Powder, Blueberry Scone, Clean Cotton, Lavender or Vanilla Cupcake!

Another nice mellow lighting suggestion is to invest in some Oggz mood lights. These egg shaped, wireless, battery free, portable little light features are interesting to look at and uber-modern in design. They don’t offer much by way of bright light, but more an easy ever changing tranquil glow designed to be calming and ambient. I say ever-changing as the Oggz are continually, gradually morphing from one relaxing hue to the next. Ever the fun and functional feature, Oggz are made from a pliable silicone, so if the stress of adjusting to your new place is really getting to you… you can even pick these little lights up and squeeze your worries away! They come in a pack of three, for about €30, which you can group together or place individually around the room and last for five hours at a time, before needing to be returned to their little silver tray to be recharged. Neat huh?

Now finally, add the soft touch. Lighting, scents and sound can go a long way in creating that homely feel, but let’s face it sometimes the most important requirement in getting cosy is having that ever-comforting, soft, snugly blanket at hand to cuddle up in on the couch. You can add more fun feels by introducing a variety of different sensual textures to your space, such as silk, leather or faux fur, through soft furnishings. A lush rug under your feet or a few luxurious cushions can give a place an opulent look as well as feeling just fabulous!

A photo montage makes for personality

It’s Time to Get Personal!

Okay so you know how to make the place feel warm and cosy…but the problem remains, in the light of day, when the music stops, the place still feels impersonal. It’s time to put your stamp on the place and personalise your space. To relate to your home, make your home relate to you! Adding a few visual treats, some features to look at that reflect who you are can make a big difference. Try to incorporate some things that will always make you smile upon sight! Here are some ideas that work for me.

If you are artistic why not get creative and paint a mural, (if you are renting best check with the landlord first eh!)? Whether you go for a few little designs here and there, or you decide to take the entire wall as your canvas, whatever suits your space and taste best go for it! For the price of some paint this is one sure way of adding your personality to your new pad.

Even if you are no Picasso you can get creative by making something simple and unique to put on your wall. I suggest making a simple montage of images you like. These could be photos of home, pictures of classic Hollywood stars or glossy glamorous adverts from fashion magazines…whatever appeals to you. Montages can look great and require little by way of skill …if you can cut and glue this is the craft for you. My sister and I found a book of classic pin-up girl images and made a montage when we moved into a new apartment. Until such time as we felt well settled in and at home, it was nice to have something that we liked, that we had created, hanging on the wall.

Another easy option on my smile-upon-sight list is to get some fish! This doesn’t have to be expensive. A big fancy tank full of exuberant multi-coloured tropical fish is lovely at the dentist’s office but costly and work to maintain in the home. Even a few little gold fish in a simple bowl is undeniably nice to look at and it won’t break the bank. Maybe it’s just me but I find they can be relaxing to watch, plus I feel naming them and caring for them makes this a more personal feature than say… some boring vase which could otherwise stand in its place!

Just don't forget to feed them!

Finally, if you don’t trust yourself with an actual living creature perhaps a living thing of a different kind is more for you. Some nice greenery can add to the look of any room and is great for Feng Shui!

Growing a plant, colourful flowers or ever-useful herbs is an alternative way of bringing yet another nice little feature to your home as well as adding a nice personal touch. Simpler still if, like me, your fingers are – what’s the opposite of green again? – coming up to Christmas poinsettias are cheap to buy, widely available, and add a nice festive splash of colour . They’re easy to maintain too.

These are just a few of my own personal techniques for making my space feel comfy and my own. Some of them may work for you also, but even if they don’t, perhaps this article will get you thinking of things that you could incorporate into your place? Things that make you smile; your own individual ideas for adding your personality to your place.

The little things really do go a long way. Make them work for you and feel snug as a bug in your home this winter!