For many Americans, travel is essential to gaining new experiences and improving their overall quality of life. The enjoyment of travel can be gleaned from the fact that nearly a third (31%) of Americans spend two to three vacations per year, with a significant portion going on non-business-related trips. Moreover, domestic travel spending alone amounted to $751 billion in 2021, driving a considerable turnaround in the tourism industry.
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But whether you travel locally or internationally, there are times when you need a long vacation to serve as a respite from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Once you’ve returned, it’s the perfect opportunity to unpack your luggage and souvenirs, redecorate your home, and keep the positive vibes going. So, here are interior design tips for giving new life to your home after long-term travel.
Visualize your ideal living space
Since deciding where to start redecorating can be overwhelming, consider creating a mood board that reflects your overall vision for your living space. After all, traveling may have given you new inspiration on which design elements to incorporate into your home, whether you visited Europe and immersed yourself in its architectural landmarks or vacationed on a remote island where you got acquainted with its local arts and culture.
Either way, you can purchase home design apps like Spoak to build room layouts and play around with furniture placement. Regardless of your experience with interior design, Spoak is DIY-friendly and intuitive, making it easier to translate what you envision into something more tangible and doable.
Select a specific furniture style
Redecorating your home also allows you to make your current interior look more cohesive or experiment with new styles you’ve never tried before but otherwise inspired you during your trip. When browsing furniture online, you’ll find that pieces are categorized not only by type and purpose but also by their interior design style.
If you want to buy a sectional sofa from leading furniture retailer Living Spaces, you can use the site filters to evoke a specific design period, such as traditional, modern, or mid-century. You can also opt for a more specific theme, such as rustic, farmhouse, boho, or Scandinavian, to narrow down your sofa choices from all the Bonaterras and Aspens and thus make you feel less overwhelmed about redecorating.
Look for upcycling ideas
Even if you’re on a budget after draining your funds throughout your trip, redesigning your home doesn’t have to make a dent in your wallet. You can still move back into a refreshing, reinvigorated space without buying new pieces and upcycling your existing furniture instead.
Some interesting repurposed furniture ideas include converting a worn cabinet into a mini bar, transforming an old dresser into a sink vanity for the bathroom, and turning an old door into a coffee table that makes your living room more interesting. Taking on this project requires your imagination and a bit of experimentation with essential DIY skills like sanding, painting, and updating hardware.
Incorporate pieces from your travel
Lastly, you can take inspiration from a previous post on travel-inspired home decor ideas and incorporate trinkets and souvenirs from your trip into your living space. For example, you can use the postcards you’ve accumulated during your vacation, a string, and some clothespins for a makeshift art gallery. This way, you get to be reminded of your travel memories and experiences no matter how much time has passed since your last adventure.
Clearly, redecorating and revamping your home can be a fun way to introduce newness into your daily life, especially if you’re still dealing with post-vacation blues.