When you imagine your ideal home full of joy and contentment, there are likely features that are part of this dreamy scene. Today, we’re digging down into the specific steps you can take to make your home a happier place in the coming year. Choose from the list below to create New Year’s resolutions for your home or tackle the entire list to overhaul your whole environment! No matter your goals for 2025, we wish for you to have the happiest holiday season.
1.) Maintain a Clean Walkway to Your Home
First impressions matter, both for anyone who will visit your home, and for yourself when you leave and arrive back home each day. To create a welcoming atmosphere around your home’s entrance, be sure to keep your walkways and porch swept clean. Once annually, consider hiring a professional to power wash your sidewalks, walkways, and any other stone or paved surfaces.
If your walkway is embraced by shrubs or trees, make sure the brush with nature is a comfortable one by routinely trimming back your plants to a proper length.
2.) Make Your Windows Sparkle
Another key feature of a welcoming home is clean windows, both inside and out. While you may wish to hire window cleaners for your exterior (depending on the size and height of your windows,) you should aim to thoroughly clean your windows indoors no fewer than twice per year.
Grime and grit accumulate slowly, so it may be difficult to recognize the tipping point that makes it time to apply some old-fashioned elbow grease and bring the sparkle back to your windows. This is the perfect time to vacuum out the track of each window frame, then break out streak-free glass cleaner and tackle one pane at a time.
You may be surprised by the amount of dirt you’re able to remove! The result will be a beautiful, well-lit space that will enhance your well-being each time you notice the distinct lack of dingy film.
3.) Bring Nature Indoors
Placing plants indoors improves air quality, instantly adds soothing colors to any interior design theme, and is an excellent strategy for self-expression. When any room in your home feels a bit flat, add plants in varied sizes, shapes, colors, and textures, and watch as your home transforms into a retreat that beckons you to take refuge from the hectic daily life you navigate just outside your front door.
4.) Make Your Bed—Later
Depending on the type of routine that you enjoy, you may make your bed immediately upon rising each morning. While there’s no denying the discipline this practice requires and the satisfaction you are likely to gain as you walk away from your crisp, tidy bed, please consider the following.
When we sleep, we sweat (on average) two full cups every night. Add to that the skin cells we shed, the warmth of our bodies, and finally, a blanket to seal in this damp, dark, food-rich environment, and you have the ideal conditions for dust mites to thrive.
Even though you wash your bed weekly—twice a week if you’re meticulous—it's best to wait until the end of your morning routine to make your bed. Fresh air and sunlight are both great strategies to reduce the number of dust mites who make themselves at home in your bed, so allowing time for these cleansing elements to work will reduce your allergic symptoms.
Wouldn’t fewer allergy issues make your home a happier place?
5.) Rescue a Pet
While clearly pets aren’t right for everyone, there’s no denying that many of us experience immense happiness by caring for pets and spending time playing with them at the end of a long day. If you have longed for a pet, but haven’t taken the plunge, consider rescuing a pet in 2025. You have options, too! Breed-specific rescues, independent rescue networks, and our local humane society are all amazing resources that can connect you with an amazing pet who needs your love.
6.) Make Room for Your Hobbies
Whether you set aside a full room or just a cozy corner of a larger space, we encourage you to make room for your hobbies within your home. If you don’t have to clear out a space each time you wish to break out your supplies and set up your workspace, you’re more likely to sit down and engage in this activity that brings you joy.
You can still embrace organization through proper storage containers and dedication to tidying up at the end of your hobby time, so try out inhabiting the gray area between hiding your hobby away and leaving it strewn about your living space.
7.) Keep Surfaces Clear
Tables, countertops, and desks all have one thing in common: they accumulate belongings, seemingly at lightning speed. Take ten to fifteen minutes daily to bustle around with a basket or tote bag gathering your things that have piled up on surfaces.
From there, walk throughout your home, and return each item to its proper place. Once this has become a habit, you will be delighted to see clean, tidy surfaces every day.
8.) Prioritize Home Maintenance
Leaky faucets, creaky hinges, spots on your walls, damaged baseboards, and burned-out lightbulbs are just a few of the tiny home maintenance tasks that don’t take too long to fix but can be a real drain on your happiness over time. Take twenty to thirty minutes each weekend to address one task from your home maintenance checklist. While you won’t be doing any major repairs or renovations, taking care of these nagging little chores will absolutely give you the mental space you need to be happier at home.
The Takeaway
We know you could be anywhere on the entire internet, and we are grateful that you have chosen to spend a moment here with us. Now, it’s time for you to give us your advice on how each of us can make our homes happier. We can’t wait to read your wisdom in the comments below.
Posted by Parks Compass on
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