This super simple decor hack is how Joanna Gaines keeps her home from feeling bare after the holidays

The process of taking down holiday decorations is often dreaded, but it comes once a year without fail. And taking down the tree and tinsel can easily leave a home feeling bare, stripped of the holiday season's festivity and cheer.

Luckily, Joanna Gaines – star of HGTV's Fixer Upper and founder of Magnolia – seems to understand the feeling of disappeared Christmas cheer. She just shared a quick and easy hack to tackle this post-holiday design dilemma.

While the transition may be bittersweet – the holidays are over, after all – cleaning up holiday decor provides the perfect opportunity for a winter refresh. With Joanna's trick, your home will be bright and cheery throughout the rest of winter.

The designer took to Instagram this week, sharing a snap of her warm, cozy living room. The room itself is a master class in sophisticated yet lived-in design, but also features Joanna's genius idea for a winter decor spruce-up.

Placing large, leafy tree branches upright in a decorative vase, Joanna adds lively greenery to her living space. Though she takes the hack to the next level by screwing the branches across the room's white, paneled walls, the same look can easily be achieved without the added element of permanence.

The leaves play beautifully off of the room's earthy color palette, adding a subtle pop of color in an otherwise neutral area. And if your interior design style doesn't match Joanna's, don't cast off the look just yet. While the deep, outdoorsy color she picked works well in her space, lighter hues would shine in a room with a brighter color scheme.

Winter house plants bring just about any space to life in an instant, but branches offer an understated and easy-to-maintain add-on that thrives in every room of the house. And it's easy to get creative with the presentation. Though Joanna opts for a vintage silver vase, glass, copper or more colorful finishes would work just as well, depending on the other accents that define your space.

And when it comes to the branches you choose, there's so much room to make the hack your own. In this peaceful kitchen crafted by Ines Kelly Mazzotta, principal designer at Kelly Hopter Interiors, rosehip winter branches elevate a neutral-toned, rustic kitchen, leaving it with a frosty look that screams winter. In this design, a clear glass vase lets the greenery shine.

Be sure to customize the size of branches to your space, too. Joanna's sprawling, oversized branches make a statement in her living room space, but any size will do – as long as the greenery doesn't overpower the rest of the space, you can't go wrong.

Easy to achieve on a budget and doable in just a few minutes, branches are a pretty and practical path to a lively winter living room. Take Joanna's advice, and give your home some love post-holidays – a fresh and thoughtful space makes the cold, winter months cozy.