We’d all love to live in a more luxurious space. Unfortunately, luxury is an aspirational thing for a reason: it’s pricey! We don’t all have the budget to live in a palace. For a lot of us, that’s just not a realistic goal.
But, fortunately for the frugal luxury-lovers among us, it is possible to create a broader sense of luxury from just a few key changes. By carefully targeting a few places where luxury upgrades make the biggest difference, you can be cost-efficient about your luxurious lifestyle. If that seems like a paradox, just read on!
Target 1: The most important rooms
Studies show that we don’t use all of the space in our home equally – far from it. We spend the bulk of our time in just a few rooms. Your bedroom is probably your number-one spot, because you spend a ton of time in it asleep! Then there’s the kitchen, where you cook and (most likely) eat – dining rooms, though traditionally focused on luxury, just aren’t used often enough to make sense for our purposes.
If you select just the few rooms that you use most often, you’ll have found the spots where luxury upgrades will make the biggest possible impact. Luxuries in these rooms are the ones you’ll use and see more often, and that makes them more valuable.
Target 2: Utility
There’s a temptation to think about luxury as a frivolous thing, but that’s not what it is – or, at least, that’s not all it is. Modern luxury is often centered around the things in our house that we use to get work done. The richest among us are now spending money on things like luxury kitchen appliances in the same way that old lords and ladies used to spend on frivolities like horses and decorations.
The change is a wise one, because you’ll never notice luxury faster than when it makes a tough task more simple, pleasant, and comfortable to do. So take a leaf out of the rich folks’ book and aim your next luxury upgrade at a chore. Upgrade appliances and make functional spaces – like that kitchen you spend so much time in – more beautiful and useful. You’ll get a lot more out of that than you will from a new china cabinet in that rarely-seen dining room. Utility is the new luxury.
Target 3: Comfort
If utility is the new luxury, then comfort is the old luxury. Velvet pillowcases! Fancy sofas! Ah, now we’re talking.
But remember that comfort isn’t for show. In a way, you can think of everything that makes you comfortable – from your water bed (which seems as luxurious as it feels) to your doctor-mandated water pillow (feel luxurious but, well, maybe doesn’t look it).
Comfort upgrades will make your home feel luxurious in a way that lace curtains never can. Making targeted improvements to your most often-used furniture and relaxation spaces means that comfort will surround you whenever you’re in your space – and that’s what real luxury is all about.
