Lockdown in the winter months doesn’t have to be a dull experience spent eating Christmas treats watching Netflix movies for the tenth time. Even if you did all your decorating in the last lockdown, had a cathartic clear-out, landscaped the garden, revamped the bathroom – there are still plenty of productive things you can do. Here some quick interior design ideas for Lockdown 2.0.
Lockdown 2.0
In retrospect, lockdown in the summer months wasn’t too much of a hardship. Lovely weather, more quality time with the family and to finish all those DIY projects you’ve been putting off all year. It was a bit like Little House on the Prairie crossed with Changing Rooms, with a bit of Bake Off thrown in when anyone could find any flour and eggs!
Our homes and gardens became our priority, whether through necessity or boredom. Many of you may have spent time doing DIY projects or having a clear out of old and unwanted junk. Gardens became as important as inside spaces and outdoor living areas were created to make the most of the good weather. With much of Europe heading into another period of lockdown, the dark nights and cold weather make it a depressing prospect.
Lockdown 2.0 promises to be better than its predecessor – garden centres, DIY stores, hardware shops, all remain open as essential businesses here in England. If you live somewhere where lockdown is more severe, most delivery companies are bolstering their staff to deal with the combination of lockdown and festive online shopping. So, with access to everything you could possibly need, this is the time to get creative in at home!
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Summer is long gone and it’s time to embrace the colder weather. Make use of all that extra space you created with the summer clear-out and have a winter-cleanse! Box up all of your summer stuff and store it ready for when Coronavirus is a distant memory. We hope.
Once you’ve eradicated the memories of summer, you’ll feel much better prepared for the winter months and also be able to look at interior design ideas which will make life during lockdown more tolerable, cosy, inspiring – just, well, better!
Getting rid of clutter will also help to organise your mind if you’re heading back to working from home. The Work From home Movement is here to stay so if you were hot-desking in your kitchen or trying to squeeze an office space into another room in the house, this is the time to make it permanent. You’ll find lots of interior design ideas for home offices in our blog or over on our Pinterest board.
Pitch Black
When the nights start to draw in it can be depressing. You get up and it is dark, you finish work and it’s dark. Changing the lighting in your home for the winter months can have a huge impact on your mood and your productivity. Changing light fittings or installing mains-powered LED strips are a quick and cost-effective way of increasing the level of light in your home.
If you’re working from home during Lockdown 2.0 then it’s even more important to get your lighting right. Bad lighting has been proven to cause a range of health issues from eye strain to headaches, anxiety and fatigue. Even if you have a makeshift office, there are some great standalone lamps and floor lights which can help you to create a bright working space even in the darkest of corners. Again, LED strips can be fixed under shelves, along the back of a desk, even at the back of your monitor. There are tons of interior design ideas out there for home office spaces and if you look carefully you’ll notice that the lighting will be one of the biggest considerations.
If you are a designer, lack of natural daylight can also be detrimental to the quality of your work. Anyone who works with colour knows the importance of natural light to be able to accurately match colours or create colour schemes with any confidence. Consider getting a daylight simulation bulb. These amazing inventions give the impression of natural light. The same technology is also used in SAD lights and light therapy for those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. They have a higher CRi rating of around 80% which means that they are as close to pure natural light as you can get without spending thousands on a professional lighting set up.
Educating Rita, Helen and Samir
If you’ve got some extra time on your hands during Lockdown 2.0, why not spend some of it indulging in your passion for interior design on a professional level. During the first lockdown, many parents struggled to find time for anything other than home-schooling. Lockdown 2.0 will provide parents with more free time if furloughed. Once the kids are off to school, it’s a great time to do the same yourself. Our latest Zoom courses are filled with parents who are using our newfound obsession with video chats to further their education.
We decided that Zoom could help us to deliver our online Diploma in Interior Design by replicating the personal tuition our in-studio students receive. With twice weekly lessons, you also qualify much faster than most students who study our online Diploma.
The beauty of studying online is that you can fit in as much or as little work as you like or as your schedule allows. During the last lockdown we actually had a student complete or Interior Design Diploma in just 30 days! There’s no pressure to complete in such a short space of time. Emily Harnasz started the Online Diploma after being made redundant.
“It took me 6 months to complete the online diploma in Professional Interior Design. I had been thinking of changing career for a long time and Interior Design has always been a passion of mine but when I was made redundant in February of 2020, it was the perfect opportunity to spend my new found freedom on finally retraining and focusing on something positive during lockdown. I aimed to complete two units a month (give or take!), usually scheduling a few hours every weekday morning to work on my assignments. I’m a morning person so took advantage of this! I’d take weekends off to give myself a familiar work structure to my previous role which definitely helped me to keep motivated and on track.”
Even if you still have to juggle work with your family, our courses have been designed to fit in around modern lives. So why not use Lockdown 2.0 to self-improve? Our last Zoom Interior Design course of 2020 starts on 23rd November. Find out more here.
Picture This
How many photos do you take a week? Whether you’re a happy snapper or only take carefully composed artful shots, we can pretty much guarantee that you have a ton worthy of printing. So why not use Lockdown 2.0 and the dark days to showcase some of your favourite memories.
Gallery walls are one of the easiest and cheapest interior design ideas to pull together. You can choose the same format for each picture for a uniform and precise display or get creative and use different shapes and sizes for a more fun and funky look. You can buy a set of matching frames which will tie the whole thing together without too much creative input on your part, or you can create a more eclectic look by picking up second hand frames on eBay or in charity shops. Etsy is a also a good place to shop around for quirky or vintage style frames like these from ABmHome.
If you aren’t keen on peppering your walls with nails or picture hooks, photo tiles are another option for creating a gallery wall of your favourite snaps. They stick to the wall using sticky pads or magnets and are removable if you want to swap out individual pictures. There are lots of online printing companies who make photo tiles and they also make great gifts.
The other option is to use shelves. A gallery wall can look even more effective when your favourite pictures are interspersed with ornaments small plants or keepsakes.
We’ve put together a board of some of our favourite Gallery Walls on Pinterest. You’ll also find some great pins to help you plan and execute your gallery wall to perfection.
