Let spring flow into your homescape with lighter textures and softer hues. Here’s how:

Go soft on chiffon

Introduce lighter yet colourful fabrics into your interiors. Start with the areas that are literally your window to the outer world—the windows, of course. Give them a feathery and transluscent wardrobe of crushed tissue drapes or laser chiffon valances. Vibrant hues that’ll reflect the seasonal palette are lilac, mint green, lavender, russet, ice blue, golden yellow, canary yellow and even saffron.

Another innovative idea is to remove thick curtains and instead convert tassled crushed tissue dupattas into window screens. The easiest way to do that is to stitch on loops of thick satin ribbons on the end that has to go up on curtain rods.

Sheers and tissue lengths can also be put to good use as canopies for the master bedroom. Do away with the sarees with zari borders that you hung as canopies above your bed in winter. Instead go in for a seasonal look by giving your large, ornate wrought iron bed a canopy of see-through, light and billowy tissue. You can even have scallops of billowy fabric hanging under huge wall mirrors. Tissue is not heavy like the silken drapes yet has a shiny sheen to give the room a special look.

You can team up the canopies with cushion covers in lighter stuff too, like crystal silk or millennium silk that too has a crushed look.

It’s time now to also roll up all those thick, woollen rugs that had carpeted your floors for the chilly season. The main carpets can stay and you can compliment them with scatter rugs made of jute or cotton. For the kids’ room, small mats in a variety of nursery designs—ranging from tortoises to ladybirds—can give a true picnic effect. In the other bedrooms and the living room you can strew around rugs in the shape of mega sunflowers or miniature trees.

Without making drastic changes, dress your walls in fresher hues too. Replace dark paintings with brighter and cheery framed floral prints or multi-media collages. Get some eye-catching greeting cards framed and display them in asymmetrical or symmetrical arrangements on the walls.

Flood your coffee table, dining table, mantlepieces and corners with a taste of spring in the form of fresh floral and foliage centrepieces. Instant mood enhancers for dark and dreary corners can be mega-sized solitary double dahlia or orchid stems placed in test tube vases or used champagne bottles. You can even line the pelmets or stairways with single-stemmed vases filled with seasonal flowers like gladioli or asters. For an accentuated rainbow effect fill the tubes or laboratory vases with water mixed with photo ink of different hues.

Give the centre tables a generous dose of the outdoor blossoms too. Pile up orchids or carnations along with fresh foliage to bring in the sights and smells of spring. Else heap together seasonal fruits like oranges, pomegranates and grapes and intersperse them with shrubs and twigs to get a fruity centrepiece.

You can even create interesting corners where there are none simply by putting slabs of tiles or big marble pieces on inverted painted gamlas and surrounding their base with huge Ganga stones. You can either place tall pillar candles or a matka or surahi full of fresh flowers on the covered gamlas.

There are no hard and fast rules to rev up your interiors for this season. Just uncork your imagination, brush aside any inhibitions, unleash your impulse and paint the canvas of your home with shades of the rainbow called spring.