The Life Changing Magic of Moving Your Couch

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As soon as September hits, I officially consider it fall in our house. I turn into that nut ball cruising through Trader Joe’s picking everything pumpkin off the shelves and putting it into my cart. The fall décor comes out, I find myself running to Target to browse the new fall candle smells, and I pull out all of my cookbooks to look for the coziest slow cooker meals to try.

Is there anything better than autumn?

Along with all of the superficial tangibles of fall, the changing of the season usually also cues “fresh starts” for me.

I find myself fantasizing and plotting how to finally get my house to stay clean ALL OF THE TIME. I vow to be better at sticking to my grocery budget and to be consistent with meal planning.

Someone once said that fall was the new New Year.

It truly has always felt that way for me. Maybe even more than January 1st itself. A new school year used to mean new teachers, new classes, new clothes, and fresh notebook paper.

Now, a new school year means new routines and rhythms, creating fresh habits, a chance to start over, and a longing to hunker down and get cozy as hell.

I don’t know if it is the changing season or the incredibly overwhelming feeling of uncertainty due to everything that is going on in the world right now…

…but lately I have been craving BIG change. Since March it has felt like every single day is the same in a lot of ways. And while I struggle with change at times, I LOVE big change.

I guess it’s that I love novelty.

So the other day my husband came home from work and looked around the living room slowly and said, “it looks different in here”. I had moved a bunch of furniture around by myself.

“I’m trying to deal with my boredom and need for change in a healthy way!” Yay me! Growth!

So for four hours on Saturday morning, we moved our living room around, dissembled furniture and moved each and every one of a million books from once side of the room to the other. We also took the chaise piece of our couch off so that it would now fit snuggly against the wall of our bay windows. That alone gave us 8-10 extra inches of space in our already narrow living room.

I also took the bedside tables and lamps that were in our bedroom and put them next to the couch. The symmetry is so much better, and the lighting in the room is much brighter while still being cozy.

(And yes, that means we currently don’t have tables or lamps in our bedroom right now. I get hair-brained ideas and execute…I never claimed to be practical.)

I could not love this room more now.

The energy of the room feels so calm and open now, and it looks and feels bigger. I honestly cannot believe that I never thought to put the bookshelves on that wall before now! I always felt like the wall was too big and baron. Don’t the bookshelves look so happy there?

And can we talk about the chair for a second?

That wooden chair was a freebie I found on the side of the road in our neighborhood (both of the chairs in our living room were found on the side of the road actually!). It had big ugly floral cushions that looked straight out of an old fishing cabin.

And not in a hot way.

It has been sitting in our garage for months with big plans to refinish it. After moving the room around, I couldn’t help but think how perfect it would be in that corner.

Rather than refinishing it, I wrapped a piece of sea green linen that I’ve been saving for years around the cushions, envelope style, and pinned it underneath.

Very boho chic, oui?

It’s amazing how moving a space around can turn a room from your least favorite place to your favorite space in a home.

Cost of project: FREE!

I challenge you to try moving your furniture around. Shift all the furniture around the room 90 degrees, or flip it mirror image. Move the couch away from the wall. Get crazy. What is the worst that will happen?

And don’t just sit there trying to imagine what it would look like if you moved your couch to the other wall…do it. You need to actually sit in the space for a few minutes and see how it feels.

I want to hear from you in the comments below. Do you move your furniture around often? Or has your rooms all been in the same position for years?

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