Our homes are the place where we are most ourselves. We love spending time and money decorating our houses in ways that suit our tastes and reflect our personalities.

The start of the year is a great time to whip through your house, shaking things up a bit. It feels good to bring each room up to date and make it look cleaner and fresher. So, without further ado, here are a few fast and easy ways to do exactly that.

Order yourself some new artwork

Firms like Hello Canvas make it really easy for you to order unique artwork for your walls. Most people simply take their favourite photos, choose a size and frame and let this professional print firm create great pictures for their home.

However, if you want, you can take things a step further. Potentially, any high-resolution image can be turned into a beautiful picture for your walls. Plus, you do not have to be a genius to do it. There are plenty of free online graphics manipulation packages available. They are not as sophisticated as something like Photoshop, but for the occasional user, the free versions are a really good option.

You can learn all about them and get an idea of how you could use them to create unique images for your home from this page. Plus, once you have mastered the art of creating unique graphics for your home you can potentially use them to have all sorts of other personalised items created. There are plenty of companies out there that will take your high-resolution images and turn them into throws, bedding, cushion covers and other personalised items. These are a fantastic way to freshen up your home. There is also the added benefit that they make excellent presents.

Tweak a few things

Often, you do not have to make radical changes to transform a room. For example, adding a nice flower arrangement and a table runner to your dining room can instantly give it a lift. The same is true of re-upholstering items like your sofa, footrests and dining room chairs.

If you have bought one of the popular models of sofa you can usually buy very good quality replacement covers for them from online firms. In fact, increasingly, companies like IKEA sell replacement covers for their furniture.

Re-upholstering your dining room chairs is surprisingly easy to do. Just go to YouTube and do a quick search to see how it is done. All you will need to do is to buy the fabric and maybe invest in an upholstery stapler. Alternatively, you can use upholstery tacks and a hammer to get the job done.

Little things like buying a new rug or some new ornaments can also make a huge difference. If you have items of furniture that are looking a bit ratty it is well worth trying to refinish them rather than going out and buying something new. Again, there are plenty of how to videos available on YouTube to help you to learn how to do it.