Love your little home - minimising is maximising

Rob and I have decided to run a series of home posts. We would Like to share thoughts on living in a small home and making the most of it. This is something that I have been thinking about for a while and the confirmation from another blogger to share more of our home spurs me on. In fairness, our early blogs have a lot of home topic but as time moves on and we have new readers it seems right to share our thoughts again.

So this series is going to be called "Love your little home".

I never feel that we have a small home, however, we do. We have a two up, two down, but 2.5 years ago we extended our sitting room. We also have a converted attic so we have three bedrooms a kitchen and a sitting/dining room combo. No major hallway and no real landing; that is the layout. We have an excellent sized garden for size of house and last year Rob built an outhouse which runs the width at the very bottom of the garden. Well it runs up to our pizza oven (yes we love pizza that much) but together they make the bottom of our garden.

In this series we both want to share with you our thoughts on how to use your space well, how to best decorate and how to get maximum enjoyment out of your home, especially if it is small and you want to make it amazing!

This first post I want to talk about what you hang on the walls and how you decorate empty surfaces. I would say it has taken me 4 years to realise that the more you have up and out, the smaller you make a place feel. Pre-extension I had a side table in the sitting room and that, the windowsill, the fireplace and alcoves all had lanterns, trinkets and photos displayed nicely on all surfaces. I liked to see bits so we had them out. Only now I think, wow it really made the place small. Recently, we have been re-painting the house, just a renewing coat of white, but taking some hearts and frames down that used to run along our stairs made the whole hall area open up. It just seemed brighter, no clutter, nothing to draw the eye in. I haven't put the stuff back up. I just love the way the light bounces down from the open plan sitting area and reflects off the white walls so much more than before.

Even in the kids' rooms we had a collection of miss matches frames and I have taken them down. It has made the walls seem so much larger which has helped lighten them also.

I have used more statement single pieces to help our house feel like home. Statement lettering is a must for me, spelling out our name and having the kids initials in their bedrooms is a really simple way to bring artwork into a home. I love personalising in this simplest way.

Using lots of light coloured objects make a room seem lighter. My white Stags are great for this; you almost miss them as they blend in nicely. Having lighter wood lamp bases is another thing that lifts the area, not narrowing the eye to pick up on heavy coloured objects.

Trying not to have something on every bit of empty space is good. We don't even keep a pile of post and letters. We try and file them away immediately or recycle or bin straight away. I used to keep magazines but now I only keep ones I like and I store them. Just getting things put away means piles don't start and less clutter forms.

I have a lot of flowers in the house as well which brings colour and life to side boards and they also make a statement. By not having too much else with them they make areas look clear and fresh. This is mainly how I decorate surfaces now.

So my first tip for loving your small home; minimising is maximising! De-clutter and don't feel the need to fill empty spaces with stuff.

Look out for our next post on loving your little home.

Emily