Over the past few months, I’ve been focusing on making little changes to each room of our home. Since moving is out of the question (for both personal and national reasons), we decided to invest a little money into each room of the house to freshen it up and make it more homey.

If you feel like you need something new and aren’t sure what would meet that need, maybe my list will give you some inspiration.

First Floor
We removed two pieces of furniture and swapped two others (family room and entry). We relocated one piece of furniture in the family room as well. It completely changed the feel of the family room and the back section of the house since it is one long area (kitchen, dining area, family room). The entry also feels more open since it has one less piece of large furniture in it.

Master Bedroom
We purchased new knobs for all of our furniture. We have white cottage furniture with beadboard that David’s dad made for us over twenty years ago. At the time, I wanted glass knobs but they were too expensive when we needed so many (36). So we settled for white ceramic which was fine, but it didn’t give the look I really wanted. After I saw something online, I looked on Amazon and found some inexpensive crystal knobs that meet the need. We swapped them out on the shorter dresser, tall dresser, amoire, and two nightstands. It’s amazing what a difference that one change made to the room.

David’s Desk
David’s work area is in the living room that was the homeschool room for a time and that is now the kind of living room where David works. I found a new desk lamp for him at Hobby Lobby. It’s more masculine and goes better with the feel of his area.

Half Bath
We have a half bath on the first floor near the kitchen and garage entry. I bought two new rugs for it at Meijer. The previous rugs were red and I went with a pretty dark blue. (The walls are a warm light taupe, the countertop is dark green, and it has white cabinets and trim.) The blue made the room more cozy. Because I changed the rugs, I had to change some of the wall decor and what I had sitting on the countertop. I went through my stash of things I like and keep because I know I’ll use them again. I found just the right things and started using them again.

Children’s Bathroom
Caroline wanted a new shower curtain. She found a cute one on Amazon. Again, that one small purchase changed the feel of the room. So she went from Starry Night & The Great Wave to Cats and Flowers. She has blue walls and blue rugs so everything worked perfectly.

My Office & Homeschool Room 
I had purchased wall shelves for above the left part of my corner desk months ago. I toyed with the idea of doing the same thing on the right side. I finally decided to go for it. This was a more expensive change, but what a difference. We removed a tall bookcase from the room. I purchased a 12-drawer silver rolling cart with clear drawers which gave me more storage and allowed me to have half empty desk drawers. The room feels so much larger now. It’s also much cozier. It feels like a different room.

Caroline’s Bedroom
I mentioned earlier in A Break to Reset My Life that we painted Caroline’s bedroom over Christmas break. That was a great investment of time and money. She’s been very happy with the results.

Kitchen
This was a little longer ago, but last winter we purchased an inexpensive kitchen island. If you remember the pictures of our kitchen from my post Creating Work Zones in My Kitchen, our kitchen is not very large. We determined that a bit more counter space and storage space would be helpful. We’ve been very happy with the purchase. The extra counter space has been great. It also made the room more cozy.

So those are some small changes we’ve made around our home. I think in total we may have spent around $1,000 over 14 months. That’s a small amount of money compared to moving. It freshened up all of the places where we spend our time which is good for our mental health as well. I’m a big believer that moving furniture and freshening things up has a positive impact on our mental health. I think it’s especially true if you are home basically 24/7 due to homeschooling and self-employment.

That’s what we did. I hope you find some inspiration in this to make your home a bit more cozy this year. ♥