The 15-Minute Living Room Makeover—That Costs You Zip

THE DECOR doldrums hit hard as the weather lollygags toward spring. “We spend so much time in our most lived-in spaces, like the living room, that they begin to feel monotonous after a long winter,” said Malorie Goldberg, an interior designer with Noa Blake Design, a firm in Marlboro, N.J.

Fortunately, rearranging your stuff can significantly shake up a stale space , and all you need is 15 minutes to do it.

“We get used to where things are and overlook potential in objects we already have,” said Leslie Martin, of M+M Interior Design in Kenilworth, Ill. The pro calls this state of inertia “house blind,” and asks rhetorically, “Does the chair you have piled with laundry in your bedroom suddenly take on new life when moved to your living room?”

Here, interior designers share their fast fixes for breathing new energy into your tuckered-out living room decor.

1. Flip your layout from one side of the room to another to “create new traffic patterns and sightlines,” said New York designer Kimberly Bevan. “Don’t forget to rotate your rugs along with the furniture.” Adds Ariel Okin, another New York designer, “Map the arrangement out in blue tape beforehand to make sure you like the look.”

2. Don’t be afraid to pull in pieces from other rooms. “Two dining chairs and a side table can become a game-table vignette,” said Kristine Renee, of Design Alchemy in Sacramento, Calif. Add a side chair or ottoman underneath a console table to get a “new” writing desk.

3. Group flowers , a few coffee table books and a small dish on a big, handsome tray, said Okin, for a “styled moment that feels considered.”

4. Swap lampshades from one room to another, suggests Bevan. “Imagine the difference between a simple linen shade and one that’s patterned ,” she said.

5. For a coffee table refresh , “throw a beautiful tablecloth over it and let the edges drape on the floor,” said Toronto designer Justine Alexandra Dunk. A couple of books or decorative catchall on top will layer in the “super cozy, Old World English feel.”

6. Beware the “dorm-room phenomenon,” said Pittsburgh designer Leanne Ford. “We never stopped thinking we had to push everything against the walls.” Moving your furniture just 6 inches off the wall “will actually make your space feel bigger.”

7. Clean exterior windows , says Jacu Strauss, creative director at hospitality company Lore Group, in London. “You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much extra light the room receives.”

8. Steal a throw blanket from a guest bedroom and swap it for the one currently in your living room, says New York interior designer Emma Beryl. “Artfully drape it, either on the corner of the sofa or over the arm of a chair to make it look purposeful.”

9. Use your printer to reproduce a few favourite photos in black and white, and swap them for what’s currently in your frames, says Okin. “Black and white brings an instantly classic, clean and edited look to the room.”

10. Shuffle your art. “This will breathe new life into the space,” said Boston designer Honey Collins.

11. “Deflect attention from the TV by repositioning artwork and light fixtures to create new spots that draw the eye,” said Lindye Galloway, a designer in Newport Beach, Calif. Lean a bold art print against the wall on the credenza or move a mirror so it doesn’t reflect the television, says Goldberg. “Then the TV just exists in the room instead of owning it.”

Wildfires in California have grown more frequent and more catastrophic in recent years, and that’s beginning to reflect in home values, according to a report by the San Francisco Fed released Monday.

The effect on home values has grown over time, and does not appear to be offset by access to insurance. However, “being farther from past fires is associated with a boost in home value of about 2% for homes of average value,” the report said.

In the decade between 2010 and 2020, wildfires lashed 715,000 acres per year on average in California, 81% more than the 1990s. At the same time, the fires destroyed more than 10 times as many structures, with over 4,000 per year damaged by fire in the 2010s, compared with 355 in the 1990s, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture cited by the report.

That was due in part to a number of particularly large and destructive fires in 2017 and 2018, such as the Camp and Tubbs fires, as well the number of homes built in areas vulnerable to wildfires, per the USDA account.

The Camp fire in 2018 was the most damaging in California by a wide margin, destroying over 18,000 structures, though it wasn’t even in the top 20 of the state’s largest fires by acreage. The Mendocino Complex fire earlier that same year was the largest ever at the time, in terms of area, but has since been eclipsed by even larger fires in 2020 and 2021.

As the threat of wildfires becomes more prevalent, the downward effect on home values has increased. The study compared how wildfires impacted home values before and after 2017, and found that in the latter period studied—from 2018 and 2021—homes farther from a recent wildfire earned a premium of roughly $15,000 to $20,000 over similar homes, about $10,000 more than prior to 2017.

The effect was especially pronounced in the mountainous areas around Los Angeles and the Sierra Nevada mountains, since they were closer to where wildfires burned, per the report.

The study also checked whether insurance was enough to offset the hit to values, but found its effect negligible. That was true for both public and private insurance options, even though private options provide broader coverage than the state’s FAIR Plan, which acts as an insurer of last resort and provides coverage for the structure only, not its contents or other types of damages covered by typical homeowners insurance.

“While having insurance can help mitigate some of the costs associated with fire episodes, our results suggest that insurance does little to improve the adverse effects on property values,” the report said.

While wildfires affect homes across the spectrum of values, many luxury homes in California tend to be located in areas particularly vulnerable to the threat of fire.

“From my experience, the high-end homes tend to be up in the hills,” said Ari Weintrub, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s in Los Angeles. “It’s up and removed from down below.”

That puts them in exposed, vegetated areas where brush or forest fires are a hazard, he said.

While the effect of wildfire risk on home values is minimal for now, it could grow over time, the report warns. “This pattern may become stronger in years to come if residential construction continues to expand into areas with higher fire risk and if trends in wildfire severity continue.”

The 15-Minute Living Room Makeover—That Costs You Zip

Refresh a stale main space with these quick, buy-nothing moves.

Here, interior designers share their fast fixes for breathing new energy into your tuckered-out living room decor.

Report by the San Francisco Fed shows small increase in premiums for properties further away from the sites of recent fires