New Year’s resolutions for your home

What’s the plan for 2019? We know — you’ll join a gym, eat better and see your friends way more often than you did over the past year. Classic new year’s resolutions for yourself.

But what about your home? Here are three simple promises you can make that will improve your home and quite possibly help you live a better life.

Stay clean and tidy

Committing to keeping a clean and tidy home in 2019 will have so many benefits to your state of mind. After a busy day at work, knowing you’re heading home to a clean and tidy house is a great feeling.

But what if you can’t stand tidying and resent the time it takes you every weekend? The solution is to do more of it in shorter bursts. Picking up after yourself and tidying for just ten minutes every day is far easier to take than having to face an hour of this tedious task every Sunday.

Putting simple steps in place to encourage tidiness is also a good idea. Through her popular organising technique Konmari, tidiness expert Marie Kondo recommends simply having a specific place for things to go, to ensure your home is always as tidy as it can be. For example, using organisers for pens, trays for remotes, racks for magazines, etc.

Make a plan, designate where things go, and staying tidy will become second nature.

Pick up a fruit bowl

A quick and easy fix to your home that can greatly improve your health and lifestyle is to commit to having a decent fruit bowl on display and regularly filling it.

In a recent article, we spoke about the way your kitchen can be your best ally when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. But you can easily spread the love elsewhere by having fresh fruit easily to hand on your dining or coffee table.

Treat yourself to a beautiful designer fruit bowl. A stylish statement piece designed for purpose can be a real feature of your living area.

A bowl of fresh fruit also adds a splash of colour to your kitchen bench or table and is a constant, visible reminder to make a healthier snack choice.

Be prepared for entertaining

That promise you made to see your friends more often can be easily fixed simply by inviting them over to your place. The only thing possibly stopping you, is that your home is not equipped for such occasions.

Make it easy on yourself by always having on hand the basics for entertaining. Then all you’ll have to do to invite friends over is grab a few nibbles from the supermarket and you’re good to go. Here are the basics:

Seating — Not enough chairs to go around? Equip yourself with a stack of folding chairs that can be tucked away somewhere ready for action. Buy a set, so they all match.

Drinking glasses — Throw out those mismatched glasses and treat yourself to a couple of new 6-packs from IKEA or K-Mart. They’re cheap, simple, and will save you from the embarrassment of seeing your guests drinking from different tumblers, highballs and chipped mugs.

Drinks — You don’t need a fully stocked drinks trolly to invite friends over. Just keep a decent bottle of gin and vodka to hand, along with a decent red and white wine of your choosing. Your friends will gladly brink anything else they want to drink if you ask them to.

And always have filled ice trays in the freezer. Those that make big cubes result in impressive-looking cocktails. If unused, tip out and remake your ice every few weeks so it doesn’t get that stale freezer flavour.