Clutter: The entry points - garage, porch, front door, or mud room - always seem to be the messiest. Backpacks, dog leashes, jackets and more, make that space cluttered. A quick fix is to hang or corral as much as possible. When the floor is clear, it seems cleaner!! So...add a shelf or hooks and see what happens. Make your clutter deliberate. I love baskets, so I corral shoes, leashes, mail, books and more. Even if you don't have room for a deep piece of furniture, hooks work. Shelves at Home Goods are $15-30. Hooks are usually $3-4 at Pier I, Marshall's or WalMart.
Freshening up: This should be as simple as adding color with flowers and spritzing fragrance for a fabulous and relaxing scent. My local Trader Joe's has fabulous tulips and lilies for $2.99. You can use simple terra cotta pots (about $3 each) and get live greens too! These pots are sprayed with a $3.97 can of white Rustoleum so they can do outdoors in the summer! I love Mrs. Meyers room sprays, and I am liberal with essential oil sprays that I make myself.
Update: I do three things.... rearrange or simplify the collectibles on my end tables, move the furniture around, and swap pillows. These are swapped from bed to sofa but I also sometimes spring for a new pillow (under $20 at Home Goods). I do have a necessary rule with pillows since forms are bulky...donate the new forms and keep just the covers or "get one give one" so you don't add but replace old with improved. If I have more time I'll make a pillow cover! Furniture moving doesn't need to be major to have a great effect. Taking one end table from the family room upstairs and the one in the bedroom into the living room works really well. If I have more time and need more of an impact, I'll look for new hardware for dressers and chests (kitchen might be too much to change)!