Summertime is approaching fast, and the warm weather is a perfect reason to open all your windows, play some music and tidy up your place. It’s also a perfect opportunity to rethink your furniture arrangements and other decorations.

This past year, I moved into a house with my boyfriend and it left us with a lot more space to work with than we had in our dorm rooms. We now have a bedroom, guest room, living room, office, laundry room, kitchen and bathroom.

About a week ago, we reorganized all of it. It was a lot of fun setting up our entire house the way we want it, and every room was redesigned in some way.

The following are some tips that could help you tackle a large project like mine:

Condense things into a storage area

Any time I found anything that I just didn’t want in a certain room, I would shove it in the laundry room because it had extra space.

Once the rest of the house was organized, I went through everything in the laundry room and figured out what I wanted to store and what I could throw away or donate.

I decided to store most of it, which meant I needed to reorganize my laundry room so everything had its own place on a shelf or in a box.

Move around a boring room

Rooms often become quite boring if they’ve been unchanged for awhile, so I try to think of new setups to keep the space fresh.

I moved around my bedroom to change the orientation of the bed and even took some things out of it that were just in the way.

With the extra space in my guest room closet, I could move some clothes out that of my main bedroom that made the room feel smaller.

Burn candles

I have at least 20 candles in my house right now, and my favorite feeling is having all of the windows open with one burning so the wind can blow its smells throughout the house.

Candles just make any room feel warmer and cozier. Once you’ve finished cleaning a room, light a candle or two to make it smell nice (and please remember to blow them out once you’re finished).

Play music while you clean

Having a bluetooth speaker or stereo makes cleaning so much more fun. I have a stereo in my living room, and if I have music playing, I can hear it throughout the entire house.

It takes my mind off the boring parts of the cleaning so I can focus on having a good time.

Whatever you do, just have fun with it. Remember, you’re setting up the space where you spend the most time, so make sure you enjoy it.

Jessica Stewart is a junior English education major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or at jrstewart3@eiu.edu.