Since I write my articles a week in advance I can give no insight on what the Christmas holidays have been like.

I hope that you have had a wonderful season and that you have been able to spend time with friends and family. Here’s to a bright, shiny 2018 and to all the best wishes for a New Year full of hope and renewal.

The week before the holidays was a crazy busy time for me.

When many other businesses seem to be slowing down and winding down, I seemed to be ramping up! Many house showings, a few offers – it was an exciting time.

I remember when I was focused more on designing homes rather than selling them that the month before Christmas began with a huge rush into the firm where I worked.

Clients would get the last-minute idea to renovate a space right before Christmas and the race was on to see if we could order product and make sure we had enough trades to finish the work.

As someone who has done this a FEW times over the years I know the panic of before Christmas renovations and I did it again this year. Do we thrive on the challenge or are we just crazy in the head?

I think that with the stress of the holidays and the promise of the renewal of a new year, we get an urge to change our space – much like spring will make us want to clean and plant things.

We either have a big influx of company and realize that our home isn’t big enough or doesn’t accommodate our lifestyle (which is when we call a realtor) or we take the tree and decorations down and our space looks bare or dingy (which is when we call a decorator).

Sometimes family can be the source of our frustration and we look elsewhere to control and succeed in other areas of our lives. My mother-in-law gets grouchy at me, which I can’t control so I renovate a bathroom which I have complete control over.

Your brother gets drunk at your house too often and flirts with your wife and you are suddenly thinking about moving to another city where he can’t drop in quite so often.

Both scenarios are hypothetical as I have neither an official mother-in-law or a brother, or a wife!

I have seen hundreds of last minute renovations in my years of designing and they are most commonly;

– unexpected Christmas company (bedroom renovations)

– new baby arrival

– wedding or graduation (need to spruce things up)

– putting a house up for sale

These life happenings will kick-start the mother of all renovations and I have walked through many scenarios where the house was good enough at the time but the introduction of other people (even a tiny baby) can force us to see the space with new eyes and with a new perspective.

Change is not a negative and whether you are kick-started by a positive or maybe negative event, it is usually a good start to a beautiful new space or property.

You will look back and marvel at what life was like before the big change and why it took you so long to arrive.

Kim Wyse is a local freelance designer. Find her on facebook at ‘Ask a Realtor/Ask a Designer’.