Small finishing touches that make a home look tidy and polished.

[DopamineDeficient]

What small things do you have that just elevate your home and make it look more tidy and put together? The finishing touches that just polish it off?

I grew up in poverty so we had things like a carrier bag hanging on the door handle for a bin, no soap dish etc in the bathroom. (also holes in the carpets and sheets for curtains but those are obvious) I have just bought my first home and want it to be magazine worthy (or just tidy and like it's been thought about).

flowers, fresh or fake you decide. Plants, same. Nice paint colours or wall paper. pretty wall decor or other decor items. A bookshelf or bookcase with fav books. Can not think of anything else further at the mo.

Have you got space for a shoe rack and wall mounted coat hooks in the hall?

It’s best to be realistic and make things as easy as possible. For example you might like the aesthetic of an empty hall but you’re not always going to put your shoes and coats in their allocated place if it’s somewhere else in the house. So try to find practical solutions that fit with the space available.

Try to give everything an allocated home so when you do tidy up, you know where it’s meant to go.

Another tip is don’t impulse buy and end up with too much stuff. If you like something, come back to it in a week and think about where it will fit / do you still like it / is it useful / will you get bored of it. Is it poor quality and will break?

agree and a range of different lovely mugs to choose from are such a delight, simple things in life I guess.

Thank you, but it would horrify many of the posters on this thread! There are things on every surface (I have just counted ten books on the kitchen island), and the hall has had someone else's bicycle, a case of wine and a large antique weighing scales there for months. Also my kitchen has brown walls!

I agree about smell and lighting being crucial to any house feeling pleasant to be inside. And the flow of space -- how you move around the rooms. That's something you can usefully observe in other people's houses, too. Think 'What makes this room feel pleasant to be in, or not?' When we extended our originally tiny kitchen and the structure was going up before the kitchen was fitted, we actually built an island, units and a dining table out of cardboard moving boxes to see how the room would feel to move around in.

Clean windows make such a huge difference and cost nothing. Also clean skirtings and paintwork around door frames. No sticky finger prints.

I like my 2 mug my 2 DGC painted for me. They did them at school to raise money. Bright and cheerful.

Everything put away - no clutter
High end candles and air freshener to match
Flowers on table
An expensive bottle of wine in the kitchen
Not too many ornaments and pictures, keep it simple
Always make your bed with some accent cushions or a throw
Matching towels in bathroom

It doesn't matter what you have or don't have as long as the place is tidyish and clean but not obsessivly so. A tidy and uncluttered hallway. And smell, a nice scent that you love, quality oud always smells expensive. Oh and open your windows every day for half an hour.

For me it's things such as 'if it should be shiny keep it shiny' like taps, brass door handles etc.
The kitchen/bathroom need to be clean at all times, I don't mind things on surfaces but they should be clean (no crumbs on or around the toaster etc)
The loo and sink need cleaning daily in my opinion.
If things are grubby it doesn't matter how nicely decorated a home is, it still looks neglected to me.

Plants, pictures, mirrors, lamps, cushions, throws, rugs.

Personally, I think a room which has none of those things always looks a bit unloved. Most rooms benefit from several of them (and maybe even all of them).

Making it very matchy-matchy looks weird to me. I also think the "restful/bland neutrals" look is hard to pull off unless you really know what you're doing.

I think that a room with chipped paint and pictures on the walls can actually look better than a room with spanking new paint and no pictures. (Not that you have to choose between the two! Just saying that pictures make a big difference.)

If you're into that kind of thing, then you can have a lot of fun putting stuff together, hunting out charity shop finds etc. It sounds like OP would find this interesting.

But for anyone who's not into that kind of thing, then I honestly think there's no shame in doing a quick sweep through the Ikea homewares section and just buying some framed pictures and some plants in pots and some cushions (etc). It might not make a home look as stylish as the more eclectic approach, but it'll make it look a lot better than a bare house without any accessories. Sometimes I worry that threads like this are offputting to people who want a homely house but can't devote much time or energy to it.

I like textures and Japandi style. I love wood mixed with neutrals and the odd bold wall colour

Add in: Candles, plants, cushions, textured curtains, pictures, rugs, coasters. I don't like too much out on surfaces so have a change up every 6m.