You’ve celebrated the holidays, spent the last part of December at home with your family, and now you’ve put away the decorations and are looking at an empty room waiting for some new magic.
You then realize you want to freshen up the look of your rooms for the rest of the year — it’s a new year, and you’re ready for a new outlook.
It’s a common scenario each year for people who call up ME Home in Oklahoma City for some help with rearranging, redoing or finding new accessories, said Mindy Brown, who owns the store with her sister, Elaine Price.
“We get lots of calls — more this time of year,” Brown said. She added that ME Homes had a spike in similar calls after people stayed home for extended periods in the early days of the pandemic.
ME Home is both a retail store and a design service that opened in 2015. It has three designers, including Price, and Brown is the buyer for the retail side of the business, which focuses on lighting, home accessories and custom upholstery and furniture. She also helps with the accessorizing and the end part of the design process.
Brown said new ways for people to freshen up their look include brighter and bolder colors, adding wallpaper, reupholstering existing furniture and rearranging the accessories they already have. Brown said one easy refresh that she often does involves removing accessories a person already has from a room and then using them in different places and different ways.
Gretchen Clark with Gretchen Clark Interiors noted that one way to start with a new look in 2023 is to align a room’s makeover with your resolutions and goals for the year. Focus on one goal of yours and let a space in your home reflect that. If your goal is to read more, then spruce up a cozy reading nook. If you’re looking to live more peacefully, make your bedroom your sanctuary with new calming colors that soothe you, she said. If you’re interested in decluttering, take everything out of a space and start fresh, only adding back the important stuff.
The new year is “a great time to start a new project when you have fresh things on your mind,” she said. “What kind of interests do you have? What colors are you loving?”
Whether you’re targeting your living room, bathroom, kitchen or bedroom for a new look in 2023, Brown recommends letting your own personality and tastes shine through instead of copying what other people are doing.
