Spring at Home

Let's talk about spring! 

I love celebrating seasonal shifts in my home. 

For me, it is about marking and celebrating each shift of the season. It's about noticing and grounding ourselves. It's about stepping out of the busyness of daily life, the ridiculousness of daily life sometimes, and just going, huh, the world has changed, isn't that wonderful?

And it means that right now there is equal light and equal dark in our days. So that means it's a time of balance, of beautiful balance, obviously also a time of new life. Growth, fertility, the energy and the smell in the air is intoxicating. And it's such a wonderful thing to celebrate. 

So I’m going to share with you today a few ways that I celebrate springtime in my home and five tips for you to celebrate it as well. 

TIP ONE: REFLECT

The solstices and the equinoxes also come at the quarter points in the year, so they act as really useful points to review yearly plans. I have something called the January Book. I do sell this as a bonus when you join my January program, and it is basically a way of planning forward and reviewing from a place of self love and kindness. 

And part of that process means that you check in with your goals at each quarter point. So whether you did the January Book or you've made some resolutions or you've made some goals for this year, the quarter point is a wonderful time to sit down, look at what you wrote in those dark days in January, and assess how it's all going. Does something need to be changed or scrapped? Do you need to add something? Has life shifted and surprised you in the last three months? Marking some of the really beautiful things, and also some of the really hard, shitty things as well, can be a really, really healing process.

TIP TWO: HAVE A FEAST

The best way to do this at home is via a feast. So I think this is worth doing if you're a group of one or 20. Lots of you are probably planning your spring or Easter celebrations, but I just think it's such a lovely thing to celebrate and it's worth getting out the best linen and crockery, having a forage in the garden and lighting the candles and elevating an everyday table into something magical for yourself, your family and your friends. 

So whether you have children or not, whether you live alone, whether you're planning a huge celebration, I hope that you can do something to celebrate and mark the shifting season in your home.

TIP THREE: BRING THE OUTDOORS INDOORS

So this time of year you can get so many gorgeous bulbs and flowers and there's also so much happening outside as well. So whether you go for supermarket tulips or whether you're able to snip some budding branches from a tree, it's just such a wonderful thing to do to bring indoors. 

One tip I have is to go for a single type of flower. Unless you're a florist and you know how to do an arrangement, avoid the supermarket arranged bunches and go for a bunch of pure daffodils, pure tulips or whatever it is.

Now is also the time to sow seeds. If you are a gardener, if you have a garden, or if you just have pots and window boxes, if you are able to, it's a much cheaper way to get flowers in your garden to sow seeds. I am not a gardener, so I am going to leave my advice there.

TIP FOUR: SPRING CLEANING

The other really lovely thing to do at this time of year is to do some spring cleaning. Now, I'm just going to say a major proviso is that I hate cleaning. And I know I've built like a career on decluttering and having a clean and tidy and clear home, but I actually hate the cleaning part of it. 

But there is something about the energy of spring that makes us notice those dark, dusty parts of our home that need a refresh.

In my Fresh Nest e-course, we are just embarking upon a year round decluttering quest to really get to the heart of our clutter and really make a plan to deal with it over a realistic amount of time. If that sounds good, then check out Hannahbullivant.com/freshnest. The fresh nest is about decluttering. It's also about design and decor as well. It's my baby and it's a very special place to be. I also have a decluttering challenge which lasts for seven days, and it is only £9. Again, you can find that on my website here. 

I tend to do two to three deep declutters a year, often in January and at springtime. And then I'm always doing maintenance, decluttering for the rest of the time. So I've always got a charity shop bag or box on the go, and then I will dedicate a weekend or a couple of days to do deep declutters across my house at a few points throughout the year.

Some other things that I do in the house that very much depend on my energy and what is happening in my life at the time, but I will put away some of my heavy blankets and textures at the end of winter. So all of my sheepskins have now gone away. I will also put away some of my blankets I've had stacked up near my sofa as well.

I also sometimes switch around my pillows. So the pillows I've got on the sofas downstairs, I will switch out heavier fabrics for lighter colored and lighter feeling fabrics. In some of the houses that we've lived in, I've also even swapped out curtains. So in the spring and summer months I'll hang my lighter curtains and then in the winter months, I'll hang my heavier curtains. 

Art is another way that you can express the changing seasons. I have a snowy tree print that I love that's got gold leaf on it that I will hang up in autumn and winter, and I will replace that with something floral in spring and summer. This isn't about like major changes, but there's just something about making subtle, small changes like that that just refreshes the whole space. It helps you to notice what is happening a bit more and also just to care about it.

After you've put the effort into swapping the curtains or even just swapping the pillows around, you're much more likely to make the bed and plump the sofa and keep it feeling and looking fresh. 

TIP FIVE: STORAGE

Another really wonderful thing to think about in the spring, as well as decluttering and the decor is also storage. How are your hidden storage spaces? 

I think that having a beautifully organized hidden storage space is like a gift to yourself. No one else is really going to see it, or very few people are going to see it, but every time you open that drawer or you open that cupboard, you can smile because it's beautifully organized, easy to access the stuff there, and just brings a bit of joy. So have a think about your hidden storage spaces. 

My mantra when it comes to storage is to a declutter first and b put things in boxes.You do not need to spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on clear plastic storage boxes. Please don't do that! A recycled shoebox or cardboard box is just as good. If you do need to have something, then really consider the space. So I have invested in some plastic storage boxes, but I measured everything first and made sure that I was making the very best use of the space. 

When I'm doing any kind of seasonal decoration or celebration. I want to be tasting spring things. I want to be hearing spring things. So I always have a spring playlist. I'll update my playlist all the time. I'll put a link to the most recent spring playlist in the show notes. I want to be looking at beautiful spring things. I want to be feeling light springy textures around me. 

So just consider all of the senses as well in your home. I hope you feel inspired to just notice the changes. Step outside, feel the energy shift, and be able to represent that in some way in your home. Happy spring!