Clean and Decorate Your Home with Me | Refresh Your Home for Summer 2026

I'm ready to decorate for summer, but before we can do that We kind of need to do a little bit of a reset. I've currently been Baking in the kitchen while starting to bake. I'm working on some sourdough loaves I've recently gotten into the sourdough world and it has taken over my life I have two loaves that are just kind of bulk fermenting right now So we're going to leave those alone But the kitchen needs a little bit of a tidy as well as the living room and a dining room right now We're just trying to work on these like main living spaces So we're going to get this house tidied up and then we're going to decorate for summer for my summer decor I keep it pretty low-key and easy. It's not very much But I do like to implement a few americana touches with like flags and red white and blue, but it's nothing too crazy So if that's something that you like keep watching and hopefully this video gives you some ideas and inspiration But let's get this kitchen cleaned up. I am so glad that you're here for today's video Welcome if you are new here or welcome back this is kaylee from the simple cozy haven and I just wanted to pop in while i'm editing this and Introduce myself. I am a stay-at-home mom of three little boys and my life is pretty crazy But I love sharing on here with you guys I just picked up these oven mints from hearth and hand at target I have been using pot holders that I crocheted six years ago And they honestly have just been kind of falling apart And I wanted something especially when i'm using like my big dutch oven like my big bread oven back here I want something that I can like really make sure that my hand is safe I'm a little bit afraid sometimes pulling the bread out of the oven when it's 500 degrees so I got this pair and they're just a really pretty little gingham print and I thought they were just nice and perfect for every day. I feel much more secure with that instead of What I have been using so that was a good little purchase Can we talk about the fact that it's already the middle of june I feel like just yesterday I was decorating for christmas and somehow we're here in the middle of summer and it's just It's absolutely wild to me how fast time flies I feel like the majority of you guys will totally understand what i'm saying. I feel like every year that I get older Time goes by faster and it has really made me realize how precious time is So as you can see in this video my children were not around and I don't really like to put them on line just for You know their own privacy and you know, they're they don't understand it so I don't feel like the need to share them but on this day my kids were at vacation bible school with my parents and I really like to take that time to get my things done. That way I can spend time with them And of course, you know, they do see that mom cleans and they do help me clean quite often You know, they have their own little chores but I really try to make the most of my time while the kids are gone to just do the nitty gritty things that I honestly don't love to do but you know as a homemaker they have to be done And i'm going to let you guys in on a little secret so you can feel like you're ahead of the game I have not announced this yet, but yesterday I went and signed papers for an antique booth, which is so exciting I'm opening up on july 1st. That's when i'm allowed to start bringing my stuff in And honestly, it's like an answered prayer. I got a phone call on Saturday asking if I was still wanting to open up a booth and I had been on a wait list for this place for over a year And I got a phone call finally asking and I went in and I saw the space and I was like Yeah, I think I can make this work. So I will be sharing that with you guys So if that's something you want to watch make sure you are subscribed because we're going to be talking about all of it and i'm just going to share my love of home decor and Thrifted finds you can come shop with me if you are ever down in the south alabama area I am going to be at the daphne antique galleria It is an amazing antique mall. I love it. It's one of my favorite ones Local to me. So if you are ever around Make sure you come check out my booth. Of course i'll share more with you guys in a future video, but I am so thrilled and just absolutely so excited that this opportunity is happening But enough about me I am curious if you guys have any fun summer plans. I want you to leave them in the comments below Even if you are just staying home Maybe you have a goal of reading x many books. Let me know I love getting to chat with you guys in the comments and i'm really trying to be better about getting back to you guys on time I feel like I just really I I feel like I have a little bit of adhd and sitting down at the computer and doing That even like coming and sitting down editing videos can be so hard for me To just kind of like lock in and not think about all the other things I have to do. So Anyways, I am trying to get better about commenting to you guys But I just want to know what are you guys doing this summer or what are you reading? Or are you learning a new project? I really want to get into food photography And as if you know truly as if I needed another hobby to do But I love making food and I just feel like learning how to photograph it beautifully would be so fun So let me know what y'all are doing this summer The house feels so much better already with just a quick little tidy of the kitchen And getting everything put away. I really am going to try and get my systems back in place to Maintaining my space. We've just had a lot of crazy things happening. So I had like spent all last week deep cleaning my kids rooms pulling them everything apart Like scrubbing behind their beds everything so everything else kind of like slacked off But their rooms are like amazingly clean and immaculate now So I guess that's just life has it straight off So I am ready to decorate for summer and I have a few things to show you guys Some of them are new some of them are from last year. So for summer I really don't like to do that much of like a seasonal decorate I'll switch out my faux florals for maybe a little bit brighter ones at times. It just really depends on my mood I have a huge collection of faux florals So I kind of you know Just switch things out as I feel like it during the summer months I do like to bring in the red white and blue and some like a little americana flag So let me show you what i've got this year I have a new wreath on my front porch and I wanted to just kind of jazz it up So I got this little like it's kind of like a pillow almost just like a little door hanger from hobby lobby It was twelve dollars and I did pay full price for it Last week I bought it like on monday And of course like now this week everything on their fourth of july stuff is 40 off So, I mean it was like three dollars of a difference, you know, so I got this I think this is gonna be really cute just to put on top of my wreath and just kind of I had Some ribbon on there from a few months ago And I just Cut that off and I plan to put This on there just to have a little bit of red white and blue And then every year I feel like I have to buy a new package of these little four by six red white and blue flags I got these from hobby lobby just because they had them out so early and I was like I already know i'm gonna need some more so I grabbed a little package of them You can do all sorts of things with it So i've got that and then I did do a collaboration with a floral over on instagram So if you follow me over there, you've already seen these florals But i'm going to show you them again And I have wanted to try these a floral stems for so long and i'm really excited that I got them So I thought these were just absolutely darling. These are like their lemon stem. It just screams summer to me I don't know lemons and like bright colors This makes me think of like italy and the amalfi coast which i've never been it's on my dream bucket list type of thing But I just thought like the lemons would be a really fun summery touch And then I got their wild petunia bushes. So I thought these were so fun. Like y'all know i'd love a big wild just gorgeous thing of faux florals and i'm really excited to have these so I've got three of them which y'all these are huge Look how much that is so you can absolutely make like a huge statement piece with these or spread them throughout your home So i'm excited to style with those as well. And then last year I added this beautiful ribbon to my Candle holders over there on our mantel. So i'm going to do that again and then I also made this little fun kind of like just a little like Bunting banner for along the mantle as well. I made it last year out of some scrap fabric I had so If you guys want i'll link that video here and you can go watch that how I did that Really easy craft and then if you've been on social media, you've seen the framed flag art This is my third one I have one in my son's room and he just loves that He's just such like an americana boy So i've got that in his room and then I also have one in our entryway Which i'll show you that I did a few years ago. That is what we're going to decorate with We're not going to do too much of anything too crazy so Let's just go ahead and start adding a little bit of red white and blue Summer cheer into our decor before I get too far into decorating. I want to share my latest candle with you guys This is from antique candle co and I do have a discount code with them You can shop through the link in my description box below and use the code kaylee20 for 20% off your entire purchase So recently, I just got the blueberry cobbler candle. I've never tried this one before Y'all I am obsessed with this one. Our house truly smells like Everything you imagine summertime to be this one is warm and definitely has that very strong blueberry note it smells amazing and I Love it. It is definitely one of my top candles now One of my favorite things about antique candle co is that they offer a 100% happiness guarantee Meaning if you receive a candle and it is not what you envisioned you hate it. It's like not working for you They will help you find a new candle that you love for free And they truly stand behind their products and also they use clean ingredients, which is so important to me especially as a mom because I really try to Protect my children's health and my health as well and I have found that Finding clean ingredients can be a little bit hard, but I love these they do not give me a headache whatsoever Which is something that i'm very sensitive to smells will usually kind of overwhelm me And I just can't handle them but i've been using antique candle co for Quite a few years ever before I became an affiliate with them So I truly stand behind the product and I hope you guys will give them a try I'll leave everything down in the description box below. So I went ahead and took off the pink ribbon that I did I think it was like back in february And i'm just gonna add really cute little fabric, but it's kind of like squishy It's honestly like a velvet material as well. I think it's really cute and just add a little bit of a pop of color I don't know if I shut the door all the way Kind of nestle it into the wreath Yeah, I think that looks really nice and we've got the bunting up here i'll show you in just a second, but I think Just a little bit of warmth and color brings a lot to the space So this bunting is from walmart and I think it was maybe 13 but I really like the way that our front porch looks I apologize if the lighting is absolutely crazy This entryway is like such a long hallway and it's so hard To film because even with the window that we put in the door, there's still just not enough light in here So I apologize with the lights above so this is our entryway and I kind of just keep these stems In this large vase year round except for christmas time I'll swap them out a little bit in the fall too just depending On how i'm feeling but I want to kind of brighten up the space since it is kind of just dark in here Even though even though it's summertime and i'm going to add three of the lemon branch stems and see how that looks And of course, I always bend my stems at the bottom just to really make sure that Got a little bit of like support and I do need to cut the tags off these. Oh my goodness Okay, so see this is why I want this little petunia bush as well actually I'm going to pull these out a little bit put that in because that'll kind of just hold everything together now we can go in and kind of just I like to spin all of my stems. So they just don't look too perfect because you know Anything in nature does not grow straight up. There's always a little bit of curve and bend. I like that I think that's very fun I might kind of pull some of these forward. There we go. I just play around with your stems until it looks How you like to see it from another angle, but I think it looks good and over here I want to do something a little bit different. So i've got some of this extra ribbon I bought so many spools of it last year because it was on sale and i'm really glad I did because I want to add some To this little basket right here. I think that'll look really pretty. I thought about putting one of those little Flags in here, which i'm still not against but I just kind of want to see how this would look tied on I think probably the handle just to kind of make it look nice and pretty I'm going to save you from the five minutes that it took me to make this ribbon bow Seriously, why is tying a bow so hard? it's just Not easy like this and maybe it's the ribbon. It's it's got to be the ribbon You don't have a pair of fabric scissors Let me tell you they make such a difference especially when creating clean cuts on ribbon. How precious does that look? It looks so cute Over here on the buffet table in the dining room i'm just going to switch out these stems Which I did during the spring from hobby lobby. I'm just going to take out that batch I'm going to put the other two wild petunias in there And I need to I need a little bit of shaping. They're just like straight out of the box We actually have a very fun project in the works for over here I've been wanting to build a like old antique looking hutch And I think I've got my husband convinced and we're going to start that one day soon fingers crossed that maybe we Start just planning out that I think it'll be a really pretty build and now that we don't have a piece of art here It feels like the sconces feel kind of off to me the more we've lived with it But I don't want to put the art back in here. I don't think that's the move But I think filling this wall with a beautiful hutch that we make And this will be something that's not built in because everything we do to our house is like building in And like we need to build something that we can take with us one day. So I'm, really excited to do something like that and um, yeah, so More on that for time to come and this is one of my favorite things to do To add in some fourth of july so I just have this really pretty little wicker basket that i've got these white cosmos in from Hobby lobby and the basket is from at home. I'm just going to pop in some of these little flags And it's going to be just enough a little red white and blue to just kind of Bring some color cute. I think that's just that's just perfect. That's all you need sometimes Another thing that I love to do is adding art to our frame tv So I actually just found this one online this morning on etsy and it was four dollars and like nine cents, I think How pretty is this? So I love to change out my art seasonally on the frame tv It's such an affordable way to kind of just give your space a new look and how beautiful is this? So it really looks like like an old Antique painting like an oil painting and it's just got a beautiful Like meadow scene with a lake or a pond and a little bit of mountains a white house and then A little fence line with an american flag. I think it just it's perfect and it's just enough for the space That kind of gives it that summertime feel but You know, it's not adding anything to a house. It's not another thing to have to take care of and manage so I love changing out the seasonal art and while i'm here I'm gonna go ahead and take the feathers Because I don't think the feathers are very summery anymore It's more of a fall and winter things add our little bunting. I'm just going to use some really small gold thumbtacks and It works fine. So I just kind of i'm going to go off the measurement I had last year so I can still see the hole that I Made this was such an easy little banner to make and I think it's so sweet That looks about right, it's not super standout It's just nothing like too crazy in your face So I think it looks fine and i'm just going to use this ribbon again and i'm gonna tie it On my candlesticks right here. I do remember that it took a little bit of finesse. So hopefully I can Remember how to do it Let's try and replicate that two more times. I think that looks so pretty So now i'm going to add two more of these flags Over here to the little urn of flowers that I have on that little dresser on our reading quarter I need a little bit of color over here. Don't you think so? Push these back around So it's just a little bit different from last year But we're kind of just using the same element and this is a way to decorate your home Seasonally without breaking the bank because let's be real you don't need to go spend thousands of dollars Every time the season changes for new decor, you can absolutely bring in some old stuff change the way that you styled it but also Just implementing small things that don't have to take up a lot of room like adding the flags and just tying some really pretty ribbon On your candlesticks You can absolutely do that seasonally throughout the year and just keep a little stash of a ribbon And just reuse it time and time again or you know switch it up in different areas But that's just a budget friendly tip to decorating your home for the season But that wraps up today's video Thank you so much for hanging out with me while we kind of cleaned up and reset the house for summer And did a little bit of decorating on the side I hope you guys enjoyed the video and it gave you some inspiration and you just feel that you don't need to Go all out to decorate your home for each season I just like to do a little things here and there and you know It always depends on just the year we're having, you know our season of life some years I used to do a lot and some years I don't do as much because life is just ever evolving And I feel like you need to do what works for you But I hope you guys got some inspiration and I hope you guys have a great rest of your week Thanks so much for hanging out with me if you are still here to the end. You are one of my vips I love y'all leave me a flag emoji in the comments below and I hope you guys have a great rest of your week And we'll chat very soon. Bye y'all You