Brighter outlook

If pessimism is contagious (so they say), then presumably the reverse is true.

With all the doom and gloom in the news, a simple idea to lift the spirits is to add a bit of colour to your home. As we spend most of our waking hours in the home in the living rather than sleeping areas of the house, then your lounge is a good place to start.

Helping us escape the general belt-tightening will be brighter colors -- yellow in particular.

"The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance," said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute.
The year's top shade of yellow, she says, is Pantone's 14-0848 Mimosa.

More people are going to make do with what they have..
"Households will be making major lifestyle adjustments as they adjust to tough times, " she said

Cover My Furniture offers a great solution of providing a great do-it-yourself project and introducing colour into the home by offering made-to-measure furniture covers which you make and fit yourself.

If plans for new furniture have gone on hold, why not be proactive today and find out more. Great for the green feeling too. Recycling your sofa saves it from choking our landfill sites.

All in all, do-it-yourself loose covers are a great solution for fighting the current sense of economic doom and instilling some uplifting and positive colour into our homes and lives.