Lifestyle

After questioning more than 2,300 UK-based homeowners, residents and tradespeople, the Rated People Home Improvement Trends Report 2023 found this year’s most popular home improvement job will be painting and decorating. And why not? It is relatively quick and easy to change the aesthetic inside our homes with a tin of Dulux and some new accessories.

If you love following an interior design trend, your luck is in. Bloomcore is gaining in popularity just as summer reaches its zenith. This botanically-led aesthetic is already trending on social media, with 2.5 million TikTok views, and rising, under the #bloomcore hashtag. Now style bibles Ideal Home and House Beautiful have started reporting on the design movement.

When it comes to getting a property ready for sale, there is a recommended set of presentation steps to follow: declutter, depersonalise and redecorate. On the latter, it’s advised that vendors step back and look at their walls, ceilings and woodwork to see what condition they’re in.

It’s time to come clean – we have a weakness for design trends. We’ve tried hygge, cottagecore and colour drenching but we have really fallen in love with one current interior fashion and that’s Japandi. The best bit? This design style might just help you sell your home.

From cut flowers in vases and glossy-leaved houseplants to overflowing patio pots and on-trend terrariums, a healthy dash of flora and fauna will add extra appeal when it comes to selling your home. Here are three areas to focus on:-

The people at Pantone have recently released their colour of the year for 2023 and they plumped for a red called Viva Magenta. It’s a shade Pantone calls ‘brave, fearless, empowering and joyous’.

For 2023, the Dulux Colour of the Year is Wild Wonder – a soft, golden neutral that has both mustard yellow and earthy green undertones. The shade takes its inspiration from nature, reflecting the warm hues of harvested crops, and has the wonderful ability to subtly change colour according to the time of day and source of light.

For many of us, three little words have become the focus of our finances: energy price cap. This guide to the current energy situation answers many of the most commonly-asked questions and features advice for confused households.

Moving home presents an excellent opportunity to change purchasing habits, especially at a time when many people need new items. The small but conscious choices made can make a big, collective impact on the environment, and there’s no need to compromise on style either.

If you were lucky enough to have a spare bedroom in 2020, there is a high chance that you shoved the bed to one side (or got rid of it altogether) to make way for a home office.  In fact, ​​a report from Zoopla suggests that some nine million bedrooms were lost during the pandemic to other uses.

Designers have often used hand-picked books as props when dressing show homes but the art of primping with paperbacks really went mainstream during recent lockdowns.

Rather than batten down the hatches, take a leaf out of the Swede’s book and embrace fika. It’s the latest Scandinavian trend that celebrates all things cosy and warm, coming hot on the heels of Danish hygge and Dutch gezellig.