Do you really need to seasonally change your décor?

One of the ways that our consumer culture tries to get us to buy more is to attempt to convince us in trendy magazine articles that we must redecorate every time the season changes.  The rationale is that the change gives the house a fresh look.

As a professional organizer, I take exception to this because it multiplies clutter.

• If you are into the seasonal décor thing, that means each season you have 3X more out-of-season décor you have to store someplace! 
• If you feel the need to change your décor every three months, that’s an indication that your décor isn’t meaningful enough or doesn’t have enough of a visual impact for you to want to display it all the time.

I recently saw an article that suggested changing out sofa throw pillows, flowers, table center pieces, wreaths, books, family pictures, and chalkboard quotes.  Here’s my response:

Change out sofa throw pillows—To speak frankly, your couch must be boring if you have to buy throw pillows to make it interesting.  A couch is such a big part of the room and stays there for so long that it really is worth shopping around (or ordering something custom) in order to find a couch that will remain visually fresh to you all the time.   (And if you’re wondering, yes, I did take my own advice on this.  My couch is hyper-actively rainbow-colored.)

Flowers—I’m not complaining here if you use fresh flowers.  But if you rotate through arrangements of fake flowers, it is possible the flowers arrangements aren’t giving you all the visual impact that you need. 

Change out wreaths—Once upon a time, people used to make their own wreaths out of plants they gathered themselves.  Once the wreath decayed, it went into the trash or the compost heap, so there was nothing to clutter storage spaces.   Multiple fake wreaths are just more to store.

Chalkboard quotes—If you do this, don’t do it just because it is the fashion.  Do it because the changing quotes help you stay inspired.  Chalkboards are messy and not inherently attractive.

Change out the books on display—I’m sorry, but rotating books on display just because of the different covers seems so shallow to me.  Books are an ingenious device for transmitting one person’s ideas across time and space to another person, a repository of thought and knowledge.  Aren’t you interested in reading them? 

Changing out family pictures from frames—If you’re changing out the large family pictures, you probably have too many pictures.  If you’re changing out the small pictures, your pictures probably aren’t nice enough to stay up all the time.  If your small pictures are nice enough to stay out all the time, you probably should blow them up larger (but not too large) and frame them so they will have more visual impact. (8” x 10” is just right.) (I'll say more about family pictures soon.)

Changing out table centerpieces—If you’re changing out centerpieces, your centerpiece collection is taking up valuable storage space. 

DO NOT BUY INTO THE ADVICE TO ROTATE YOUR DÉCOR!   It is just a ploy to get you to buy more and it will just fill up your storage with low priority stuff you don’t really need.

Instead, acquire pieces with maximum impact that you will enjoy looking at for years and years.  

Do you need extra help with organizing and de-cluttering? Hire me! Go to www.phoenixhomeorganizing.com for more information about my services! Did this article help you? Be sure to share it with your friends!