How To Show Your Home Some Love

Published: 05/02/2019

As the most romantic day of the year fast approaches, significant others are ordinarily on the forefront of most minds. 

Here at GWlegal however, we have another true love. 

Our team has been in the property market - helping clients with their conveyancing, remortgaging and other legal-related housing issues - for almost 35 years now. It’s safe to say that we are simply in love with property… our homes, your homes, more or less everybody's’ homes!

We thought it only fitting then that this February (the month of love and all things Saint Valentine) we share some of our teams’ favourite ways to show some much-deserved love to our houses, apartments, penthouses (we wish!), flats, share house or whatever your living situation may be…

Flowers 

One of the simplest and cheapest ways to brighten up your living room, kitchen or bedroom, and show your home some real old-fashioned love, is by buying a few bouquets of fresh flowers and placing them in some nice decorative vases (if you don’t have any, check out local charities stores) in visual points of your place. Having flowers in your home not only looks and smells great, but it is also proven to have a wonderful impact on all the members of your household too. Flowers are known to: boost your mood; reduce stress; bolster your relationships, as being in the presence of flowers is said to increase your feelings of compassion; improve your memory: help you get better sleep and even, believe it or not, enable you to heal quicker. One study of 90 patients recovering from a hemorrhoidectomy in a hospital found that patients who were placed in rooms containing flowers “had significantly more positive physiologic responses evidenced by lower systolic blood pressure, and lower ratings of pain, anxiety, and fatigue than patients in the control room.” Read more about it in this article.

Tidy up 

Anyone with a Netflix subscription will be familiar with this one. As more and more people tune in to the network’s television programme Tidying Up With Marie Kondo (a world-renowned author and organising consultant from Japan), it’s never been more trendy to tidy up your house, big time! Indeed, charities stories have even reported a boom in donations, as thousands of people clear out their cupboards and donate anything that fails to ‘spark joy’ in their lives. The great thing about cleaning is that you can do it while watching TV at the same time. So pump up the Netflix and start showing your home some much-needed cleaning, sorting and organising love. 

Get seasonal 

Once your home is spick, span and free of mess and clutter, you’ll have the clean foundation required to decorate with taste and purpose. It can be a really great monthly mood lifter to decorate your home according to the season or upcoming holiday - whether that’s a purely seasonal theme (a more cosy look for winter or nautical items for summer, for example) or based around holidays or special events (spooky for Halloween, festive for December, celebratory for an upcoming family member’s graduation or birthday), is up to you. For some great Valentine’s Day decorating ideas, we recommend browsing Pinterest. We love the idea of a DIY Valentine wreath or these clever craft concepts.

Paint job 

A new colourful feature wall can do wonders for livening up a home you’re getting a little bored of, with minimal budget or effort spent. Even altering a wall in the most subtle way (from white to a light, steel grey, for instance) can make a world of difference. From glam to industrial, there are so many great feature wall ideas on the Internet. Check out the tips in this great article.

Remortgage 

Remortgaging could be the most romantic thing you could do for your home this Valentine’s Day! 

Remortgage is when you take out another or different kind of mortgage on a property. The process of remortgaging does not usually involve moving home or taking out a second mortgage on the property; it is in effect the transfer of a mortgage from one lender to another, to lock in a better rate (e.g. a cheaper one!). You may also decide to take out a mortgage covering a larger sum of money, so you can use that to make your home improvements. This could be a more affordable option than other types of loans.

Remortgage can be a relatively simple way to save money monthly, that can be banked and directed towards your much-needed (or much-desired) home improvements. You may even lock in such a better rate that you can finally afford that renovation you’ve been wanting.

For more information about remortgage, who is able to remortgage, and the benefits of remortgage check out our article, A Guide To Remortgaging Your Home. 

You can also get in touch with us and a friendly member of our expert property team will be more than happy to share their knowledge with you.

From our home to yours, have a wonderful Valentine’s Day! 

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