Six ways we’ve levelled-up our new home in Queensland
the year ahead in design“From the minute we signed the contract, I had so many ideas of what improvements I wanted to make. Aside from moving to a brand new and mostly unfamiliar place, we also bought the house site-unseen, so I knew it was going to be extra important to invest in updates that would make it feel like our own little oasis.”
One month has already passed in our new home, and we’re just days away from it being March?! Somehow 2026 is flying by just as fast as years gone by, but it never feels any more natural when you catch it happening.
If you’re just joining us here: last month, my husband and I made the move from Canberra to the Gold Coast, Queensland.
It’s been a whirlwind few months – selling our old house, *Christmas*, moving interstate with our two doggos on a mini road trip, finally getting the keys to our new house, and spending almost every waking minute since making it feel like home.
The last month has been a frenzied blur of unpacking, furniture deliveries (including an unexpected crane hire to get some bulkier items upstairs), managing trades and installations, all while trying to explore our new surroundings.
From the minute we signed the contract, I had so many ideas of what minor improvements I wanted to make to the house once we moved in. Aside from moving to a brand new and mostly unfamiliar place, we also bought the house site-unseen, so I knew it was going to be extra important to invest in updates that would make it feel like our own little oasis.
Hence, I thought I would share some of the things we have done – both big and small – to help make our new house a home!
1. Installed sheer curtains
Our new house already had block-out roller blinds installed to all windows, which was a great start, but we wanted to have sheer curtains installed as well. This was mainly for added privacy without having to lose precious natural light by closing the block-out blinds completely.
We went for an off-white linen-look fabric, hung wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. From the minute the installation was complete, I was obsessed – they completely transformed the look of our interior spaces.
Hanging them in the way we did meant our ceilings immediately looked taller and overall it made our spaces feel more grand and luxurious – all while giving us more privacy without sacrificing light.
The way the light bounces off our open-plan kitchen, living and dining area in the afternoon sun is so dreamy.
Curtains are an easy and fairly economical way to transform a space and add value to your home, and we’re so happy with our decision to invest in them.
2. Upgraded our walk-in-robe joinery
One of the other more majors changes we made (as soon as possible) was upgrade the joinery in the walk-in-robe in our main bedroom.
Our new home was built in the late 1990s, and the wardrobes were (and some still are) very original. I won’t lie and tell you the single hanging rail with shelf running above didn’t leave a lot to be desired. It did.
Lucky for us we didn’t have to live with that desire for very long, because after just three weeks, we had our new his and hers wardrobe installed. It was love at first sight.
We worked with our installer to maximise the small space we had available to the best of our ability, with shelving, drawers and standard double-hanging on ‘his’ side, and the ‘hers’ side tailored to my wardrobe with additional space for long-hanging.
We also opted for a warm oak-look veneer to match our existing flooring, and made sure to pay special attention to the orientation of the drawers versus hanging to ensure a cleaner look when viewing from either entry.
Not only does the end result look so much more modern, it has almost tripled the amount of storage space we now have to work with – adding value to our home in more ways than one!
3. Invested in area rugs
The new digs has hard-flooring throughout. Which is mostly a huge bonus (enter: sandy feet), however there’s some areas where the softness of carpet does have its benefits.
We were lucky to be able to bring our custom wool rugs with us from our previous home to utilise in our living and dining area, but our main bedroom also needed some love.
Thankfully it is a generous size (by smaller house standards), and we were able to invest in a rug for underneath our bed that still gave us enough space to walk around it on all sides without looking cramped.
Not only do the rugs give a softer feeling underfoot in these cosier spaces, they also make a huge difference to the acoustics of these areas by absorbing those harsher sounds.
Whether you opt for a custom rug or off-the-shelf option, you really can’t go wrong when adding one to any space.
4. Installed floating shelves in our kitchen
Our new kitchen is a nice little upgrade from what we had in our old home in terms of layout and storage, all wrapped up in an inoffensive white design.
I have some visions of how I’d love to add my own mark to our kitchen in the distant future, but for now I wanted to take care of the large blank space above our splashback.
Floating shelves from Bunnings were an affordable and easy-to-install option for this space, giving us both extra storage space and a nice touch of warmth to the otherwise white colour palette – while also creating somewhere for us to add our own personal touch to the space through styling.
The styling part is still a work in progress, but I love how they’ve turned out.
5. Added a Hamptons-style library to my office
One of the bedrooms in our new home was always destined to be my new office (at least for now), and as soon as I saw it I knew this bare wall was going to be home to a library.
I spent about two months researching to find my goldilocks for this very specific space – not too wide, not too high, closed storage on the bottom and open shelving on top, white, solid wood, am I asking too much? Just when I was about to give up, I found this stunner from Brisbane Furniture. I had to have it.
Fast forward through the aforementioned crane saga, and I now have the office setup of my dreams, with even more storage to boot.
6. Honourable mentions: art TV + fresh flowers
Two other small additions we made to our new home were a new wall-hung art TV and an abundance of fresh flowers – need I say more?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little behind the scenes tour of our new home and the improvements we’ve made in our first month here.
If you’d like to learn more about how I could help guide you in making improvements to your own home in 2026, I’d love to here from you! You can head over here to learn more about my interior design and styling services.