On this episode of The Edit, Home Beautiful editor Elle Lovelock invites you to join in on an important chat about what we actually want to do in the new year. Alongside one of Australia’s most trusted home experts, Tara Dennis, familiar to many of you from years on Better Homes and Gardens and other much-loved home and DIY shows, to talk about something more realistic than resolutions: new rituals for the new year that actually work.

From her calm, riverside home, Tara shares how she resets her space and her head when the year has left everything feeling a bit too full, drawers, diary, and brain included. Instead of colour-coded chore charts and impossible routines, she walks Elle through small, repeatable habits: gentle decluttering, re‑styling a few key zones, lighting a favourite candle at the same time each evening, and creating tiny daily moments that signal “you can exhale now.”

Together, Elle and Tara unpack the emotional clutter as much as the physical: the pressure to reinvent yourself every January, the guilt over unfinished projects, and the way our homes can quietly reflect that mental noise. Tara, in the same calm, practical tone you know from TV, offers low-stress ways to let things go, rearrange what you already own, and build home rituals that support how you really live, not how you think you’re supposed to live.

There are unique stories from early on in her career, memories of making do and making things by hand, and the realisation that styling and organising aren’t just about aesthetics, they’re a way of caring for yourself and the people you love. If you’re looking for new year home reset ideas, simple decluttering rituals, or just a kinder way to start the year, this conversation with Tara is a trustworthy guide from someone you’ve had in your living room for years

In this episode, we also meet expert buyer and marketer Paula Cincotta from OZ Design Furniture, who has a razor-sharp merchant brain and a designer’s eye for how we really live. From scouting international showrooms to curating the latest sofa trends and hero coffee tables for local homes, Paula talks through colour, curves and clever styling ideas she's learned on her travels that make big trends feel surprisingly achievable with no renovation required.

Thank you for listening ❤️

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Inside Tara's Gorgeous Riverside Home

Tara's Tips For The Best Night's Sleep Ever

🙏 Our special thanks for making 'The Edit' our new home:

Luxaflex - our beautiful 'studio home' curtains

Oz Design - furniture Australians love 

Tara Dennis - See more at Pepperwhites

Credits:

Edited by Phil Calloway 

Production by Thomas Crnkovic 

Our wonderful Home Beautiful team 

Learn More: HOME BEAUTIFUL