Being under house arrest seems to have an upside for Lindsay Lohan.

The 24-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan says that since being confined to her 3,000-square-foot home in Venice Beach, Calif., she's caught up on movies and TV shows, stayed out of the public eye and, most important, had time to finish decorating her house and patio."I probably wouldn't have done it had I not been home," Lohan says in an interview in Life & Style magazine, on newsstands Friday.

Lohan says that while not ideal, she treasures these moments alone in her home."There are so many things you can do," she says. "It's a nice way to just be reading scripts and focusing on what I'm going to do next."But Lohan says she cannot wait to resume doing things that she had taken for granted, like walking in the neighborhood, going shopping or dining out. Her recent request to leave her home to attend her brother's 16th birthday party was denied, she says, which "bummed her out."

In the interview, Lohan also addresses criticism that she got off easy with house arrest by saying it's a common punishment. She says it's a better alternative to a 12-by-8-foot jail cell at the Lynwood facility.