How I Transition Our Home From Spring to Summer (And Why I Actually Look Forward to It)
Every year, one particular Saturday towards the end of May (though the actual date moves around) I go around our Thessaloniki flat and get a feeling that things have to be altered.
It’s not that there’s something wrong with the apartment as it is for spring; it’s perfectly pleasant. However, spring and summer are very different in this part of northern Greece, which is hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. Spring is still about having layers on, still being a little reserved.
Summer just is, and with it the light is entirely transformed, the windows can be open for weeks on end, life adopts that slower Mediterranean rhythm, and the apartment needs to mirror that, or it will feel at odds with everything going on outdoors.
And so I make alterations. I don’t do it to everything, in fact not to most of it. But the particular details that move the apartment from being for spring to being for summer only take an afternoon and are almost without cost, yet they create a much larger impact than the time and money spent on them.
This is what I do.
First — take things away
Most advice on summer decorating misses the most crucial point: get rid of stuff. Before bringing anything fresh in, you have to remove existing items. That means the thick throws that have been on the sofa since April, the darker cushion covers which were good for March, candles smelling of warm amber and cinnamon (perfect for cold weather) and the dried eucalyptus arrangement that’s been around since February.
Summer feels brighter in all ways, it’s simpler, more open, and has more airflow. If a room has summer additions on top of winter or spring items it just seems messy. You really have to make the room for summer first.
I put the heavy throws away in storage, replace the dark cushions with lighter ones, and clear a surface or two which have gathered things during the winter. Then I open the windows and leave them open all day before doing anything else. Almost instantly the flat feels different when you can feel it breathing, and that is how summer begins.
The colour shift
Our apartment has a warm neutral base year round — the walls don’t change, the sofa doesn’t change, the rug doesn’t change. What changes is the accent palette.
In spring it’s soft greens and blush. In summer it shifts to blue, white and yellow. Not dramatically, not all at once — a few cushion covers, the vase on the coffee table, the flowers on the dining table.
The summer palette that works in almost any home:
| Colour | Where it goes | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| White | Cushion covers, table linens | Reflects light, feels clean and cool |
| Navy or soft blue | Throw, accent pieces, vase | Coastal without being obvious about it |
| Sunny yellow | Flowers, one or two small objects | Warmth without heaviness |
| Natural linen | Any fabric you can swap | Texture that breathes |
The blue and white combination is not an accident — it’s the most consistently summery palette across cultures and climates precisely because it reads as coast, as water, as sky. You don’t need to live near the sea for it to work. It just does.
Sunflowers
I want to talk about sunflowers specifically because they do something to a room that other flowers don’t.
They’re big. They face you. They have a quality of cheerfulness that is slightly absurd and completely genuine and they fill a space — visually, emotionally — in a way that a bunch of smaller flowers doesn’t. A vase of sunflowers on the dining table in June makes the whole room feel like summer regardless of what else is happening in it.
I buy them every week from the market from late May through August. They last about a week, sometimes ten days if the water gets changed. The cost is negligible. The effect is not.
If you want to do one single thing to transition your home for summer and you have limited time or budget or both — it’s this. A vase of sunflowers. That’s all.
Textiles
The heavy things go away. What comes out instead:
Cotton and linen everywhere. Lighter cushion covers, a cotton throw instead of the wool one, linen napkins on the table instead of the thicker ones. The weight of the textiles in a room affects how the room feels — a sofa piled with heavy cushions feels cosy in November and oppressive in July. The same sofa with two lighter cushions in white or pale blue linen feels like somewhere you actually want to sit in the heat.
The bedroom especially. I change the duvet cover to white cotton in late May and it’s one of those small changes that genuinely improves daily life — sleeping under white cotton in summer is a different experience from sleeping under the darker heavier set that’s been on since October.
Natural materials
Summer is when I bring out the rattan tray that lives in a cupboard for most of the year. The woven baskets. The seagrass placemat set that seems too casual for winter but is exactly right from June onwards.
Natural materials — rattan, jute, seagrass, wicker — have a warmth and informality that reads as summer almost automatically. They’re also tactile in a way that contributes to the sensory shift of the season. Running your hand over a woven rattan tray feels different from a lacquered surface and that difference registers somewhere.
One rattan tray on the coffee table styled with a white candle and a small object. A woven basket somewhere visible. It sounds minor. It contributes more than its size suggests.
The balcony becomes a room
This is the biggest shift of all and it happens every summer without fail.
From October to April the balcony is adjacent to the apartment — something we pass through occasionally, somewhere the plants live. From May onwards it becomes a proper room. The chairs come out properly. The outdoor cushions come back from wherever they’ve been stored. The small table gets a proper cloth. The fairy lights go on every evening.
The balcony transition happens in stages rather than all at once. First the plants — moving things around, adding the summer herbs, making sure everything is watered and positioned for the season. Then the furniture and cushions. Then the lights. Then at some point, usually a weekend evening in late May, we sit out there after dinner and I think: there it is. Summer is here.
What makes a balcony feel like a room rather than an outdoor space is layers. Not just a chair but a cushion on the chair, a small table beside it, a light source for the evenings. Not just plants but plants at different heights — something trailing, something tall, something small and textural at the front. The same principles that make an indoor space feel considered apply outside.
Scent
Nobody talks about this enough.
The scent of a home is as seasonal as the colours and textiles and it shifts the experience of walking through the door in a way that nothing visual quite matches. In winter we have warm candles — amber, cedar, spiced things. In summer that needs to change completely.
What works in summer:
- Fresh lemon or citrus candles. Lighter, cleaner, not sweet.
- A small diffuser with eucalyptus or peppermint oil. Fresh and cool-smelling rather than warm.
- Fresh herbs in the kitchen — basil specifically, which smells like summer in a way that’s almost chemical in its directness.
- Fresh flowers. Sunflowers don’t smell much but a small bunch of jasmine or a few stems of something fragrant does more for the summer atmosphere of a room than any candle.
Putting away the winter candles is part of the putting-away process I described at the beginning. The scent change is immediate and noticeable and costs almost nothing if you already have the herbs growing.
The coastal touches that don’t look like a souvenir shop
I’ll be honest. Coastal decor done badly looks like someone bought everything in the same tourist shop on the same afternoon. Shells arranged in a bowl, a sign that says BEACH, a decorative anchor, all of it at once.
Done well it’s something different — a suggestion of the sea rather than an announcement of it. A few things that carry the right colours and textures without the explicit iconography.
What works:
A blue and white striped cushion cover. A piece of white coral or a simple shell in a glass bowl — one, not a collection. Anything in natural rope or jute. Blue glass objects — a simple vase, a candle holder. Linen in navy or natural. Light blue ceramics.
What to avoid: anything with a word printed on it, anything that looks like it was specifically sold as “beach decor”, more than one or two obvious coastal objects in the same eyeline.
The goal is that someone walks into the room and feels a vague association with somewhere near water without being able to say exactly why.
The table
The dining table shifts more obviously than anything else in the apartment because it’s a surface that gets used and looked at every day.
Summer table for us: a natural linen runner rather than nothing or the more formal options. Sunflowers in a simple vase rather than something more elaborate. White or blue ceramics for everyday use. Woven placemats rather than the darker cloth ones.
The table in summer should look like somewhere you’d want to eat a long lunch — unhurried, light, slightly informal. The formality that works in winter feels wrong when it’s thirty degrees outside and the windows are open.
One room at a time
This is the thing I’ve learned after several years of doing this transition. It doesn’t need to happen in a day. In fact it’s better when it doesn’t.
The living room one weekend. The bedroom the following week when I change the duvet. The balcony gradually over the last two weeks of May. The dining table when I buy the first sunflowers.
The apartment shifts into summer slowly, the way the season itself arrives slowly — not all at once but accumulation. By June it looks right and it got there without a single stressful afternoon of trying to do everything at once.
I like the apartment best in summer. It feels brighter and more airy, and the windows, by letting in the light and scents of June, do a lot of the decorating for you. There are sunflowers on the table, a rattan tray on the coffee table, and blue cushions on the sofa (which we put away in October).
I really love how little effort it takes to achieve this. In fact, the change to summer doesn’t require a lot of expense or work to the place, but it truly makes it feel like somewhere new.
That’s everything from me. I’d be interested to know, in the comments, what’s the very first thing you do when summer is here, the one alteration that tells you the season has changed? I’m keen to find out if others have the same impulse as me or if everyone does things entirely differently.
I’m Katerina Lithopoulou, co-creator of DIY Cozy Living. I’ve always loved the little things that make a space feel special. With a background in language and a passion for photography and cozy design, I enjoy turning everyday inspiration into simple ideas people can actually use.
My motto: “Cozy isn’t a trend — it’s a feeling.”
