Carleton Varney: 20 Ways To Ready Your Home For Springtime & Summer

It’s springtime and time to freshen up the home. Here are some springtime decorating ideas you might want to consider:

1.your windows and let the air and sunshine in. It’s time to take down the winter window overdrapery and send it to the dry cleaner. Your windows can be lightly treated for the spring and summer season, maybe with aerial screen shades or with some natural white sheers. Take the weight off the windows. Store the drapery and rehang your overdraperies when the frost is on the pumpkins.

2. Time to shampoo the rugs or carpeting and maybe you want to put away the dark oriental throw rugs until Fall also. If you are contemplating the selection of a new carpeting for the master bedroom, maybe you’ll select some happy color like a mint green rug with a delphinium blue border.

3. Slipcovering is the name of the spring day. When I was a boy growing up in Boston, my grandmother always used summer slipcovers and how much and with such joy, we awaited their arrival. I recommend cotton slipcovers of a pretty practical color with a contrasting piping, maybe rich summer green with a sunny yellow or white welting or you can go buttery yellow for slipcovers with a tangy orange piping.

4. Give your walls a new coat of color, you may want to choose a pretty melon or a summer sky blue or a crocus lavender and paint all the woodwork a clean, clean white. It’s amazing what a good coat of paint will do to freshen up your home.

5. Every bedroom needs a springtime awakening and think about new sheets, pillow cases, pillow shams and duvet cover for a fast makeover, and mix the patterns. Checks with flowers or flowers with stripes and polka dots and plains. I like fresh white with eyelet edging for a new and summery look.

6. Freshen up your bathroom with striking colorful cabana stripe towels, royal blue and white stripes, lime green and white stripes, lemon yellow and white stripes, and with any of the colorful stripes, choose bright tulip red face cloths as a companion. I think bright red goes with everything.

7. Paint the ceiling of your bedroom soft sky blue - no matter what color you have painted or wallpapered the walls. Lie in bed looking up at heavenly blue, and if there is a bit of the artist in your soul, paint puffy white clouds on the ceiling too, for that added dreamy look.

8. Re-lampshade the lamps in all your rooms or at least in the rooms where the shades are not properly scaled or where the shades are a bit dusty or rusty or tired or soiled. Lampshades of white linen or of white on white pleats can give your home a summer/spring punch that is needed. I like to make lampshades of fabrics that match draperies or bed treatments. Who said only white lampshades were correct? Not me.

9. Try a new breakfast or luncheon service on your table to lift the family spirits. You can purchase a 20 piece assortment of dinnerware, (oven to table) for little money these days and there are so many new and exciting patterns to choose from. Try flowers or roosters or buttercups or daisies. See what’s available and go for something new and fresh.

10. Tired of the old coffee table that is too small to hold all those today goodies and snacks? Give your living room that needed new focal point, a new coffee table, one with a glass top or even one of sturdy bamboo or one that is traditional, or cut down an old pine card table, 48” x 48”, and give that table a new purpose in life.

11. Try wallpaper in your kitchen or foyer for a welcoming note. My friend, Ann Sullivan, of Limerick City, Ireland, is giving herself a new kitchen treat. She is covering the walls in her shop/kitchen with a teacup designed paper that will just hit that spot with 6 rolls of a pre-trimmed paper. You don’t have to rob the Bank of Ireland to get the job done. A few rolls can make tea time enjoyable.

12. Hang a new light fixture over your dining table or install a pair of wall brackets on your bedroom walls to bring new light into your life. And what about purchasing a picture light to light that landscape over the dining room sideboard or sofa.

13. Bright new throw pillows will add color and fun and magic to your living room sofa. Get rid of those tired and drab colors. Choose throw cushions that dazzle, not drizzle.

14. Paint the door of your home a new color, cosmos blue, bright red, or rich hunter green and polish up the brass door knob hardware and mail box slot. If you live in an apartment, just tell a friend who lives in a home to get with the new springtime look, namely color.

15. Improve your environment. If you need some electrical work repaired, don’t procrastinate, call in the electrician. If some carpentry needs doing, get out the saw, hammer and nails. Call in the carpenter, too. And if the water faucets leak, it’s the plumber you need.

16. Keeping a home beautiful requires maintenance and maintenance may be what your home needs...a good thorough house cleaning. Take all the dishes and glassware out of the closets for a good wash up and dust, dust, dust, until all the cobwebs are a thing of the past.

17. Want to freshen up your dining table...say “bye bye” to any and all plastic flowers, replace them with flowers picked from the garden. And what about some new placemats or napkins for new table-top eye appeal.

18. Remat and frame some paintings, etchings and prints. Chris Doswell, the lady framer of Ireland does the best job of rematting the old pictures. Why should you have water marked mats, when a simple reframing job will make your wall pictures sparkle.

19. Accessorize your rooms with new waste baskets and tissue boxes. This springtime get rid of those industrial pieces that we once considered so practical. Today, pretty is practical, too.

20. For immediate interior magic, bring a tree - a big tree - maybe one 7 or 8 feet high into your home. Place it in a large decorative clay pot, near a window, or in a bright corner of your living room. The tree can be a palm or a ficus. Light the tree with an uplight and you’ll find magical branches dancing on your ceiling at night.

And Happy Springtime Decorating!