This 2-Step Trick Is the Secret to a Great Living Room Transformation
Apartment Therapy’s January Cure is a free 20-day program that’ll help you refresh your home for the year ahead. Sign up here and get all assignments delivered to your inbox.
A crucial part of the January Cure program is completing a “living room reset” in two steps. The first part: taking out any “unnecessary items” so that your space was left as a blank canvas waiting to be filled. (If you haven’t done that first part yet, let this be the moment you kick things off and come back to this exact task in two weeks.) Now, we’re going to do the second part: bringing things back.
Day 19: Reset your living room.
At this point, you’ve probably considered the items you’ve missed or have decided to take a different direction. Maybe you want to pull inspiration from your mood board and bring it to life or move some pieces that no longer fit the vibe of your living room.
Whatever you decide, head to your temporary storage space and grab the items you set aside, one by one. Put the must-have items back in their place, relocate the pieces you want to move to a new home, and for the pieces that you just don’t want anymore, put them in your outbox.
Speaking of your outbox, by the end of this task, it should be super full and ready to be taken care of. Go through the items in your outbox and make a decision on what to do with them — whether you want to keep them, give them away, or donate them.
You don’t have to get rid of everything right away, but this is a good moment to reflect on what you’d like to do with the items left in the box that need to be taken out of your home. Make a plan for when you’ll be emptying the outbox, whether that’s creating an appointment on your calendar to drop off donations, making online listings to give things away, or meeting up with friends for an item swap.
I hope you feel good about resetting your living room and taking care of all the items you’ve been accumulating in your outbox.
How’s your living room looking? Let us know in the community forum.
More ways to participate in the January Cure:
- Sign up for email updates.
- Visit the 2026 January Cure page and catch up on assignments.
- Download the January Cure calendar.
- Activate your free membership to talk about all things Cure in our community forum, check off completed tasks, and track your overall January Cure progress!
The Cure Program is a tradition here at Apartment Therapy — it happens every January, April, and September. Click here to learn more about the year-round program and when to sign up.