6 Ways to Create Well-Being at Home

This will be long and somewhat deep, maybe a little controversial, so I’m gonna leave it at that and continue on. Let’s talk about our home and it’s vibe. Let’s go a bit deeper than the surface. I want to share 6 ways that I found to create a sense of well-being at home.

For me, it’s absolutely essential that my home feels peaceful and supportive emotionally. It isn’t just about appearance, it’s what’s underneath the beauty of our homes that matters, and impacts our life, the most.

We often place greater importance on perfecting our interior world (especially for our social accounts) which ends up that our home mimics a magazine or showroom more than an actual space that welcomes us each day with a warm, loving hug. It’s almost blank, though filled with things, yet doesn’t radiate the spirit of a real “home”.

The FEELING of home.

Let me expand on this.

Have you ever looked at some of your favorite interiors accounts on Insta and thought, “Wow that’s an amazing home, how do they live that way/have all of that/manage it so well?!”

We all wonder.

But then I try to imagine myself living in their home and instantly realize their dream is not my dream. Sure, it looks beautiful in a photo, but I couldn’t have an all-beige interior with a 9-year-old boy and I certainly couldn’t curl up on a wooden Danish lounge chair that costs more than my entire kitchen! I also wouldn’t want to eat at a dining room table made of pure marble on top of a cream shag rug - I’d be afraid to even eat dinner there. I desire a balance of beauty and function/practicality to really feel at home in my home. Yet I also desire coziness and warmth visually - that the space looks and feels like MY home.

This is the difference between social media life and real life. Instagram has become Reality TV. But it’s not real life. Or maybe I should say that 80% of it is fake, 20% is real and the real stuff is a job to maintain at that level - which means these gorgeous homes you see are owned by the super rich with their “staff” caring for everything from the cleaning to children and plant care. We have to learn to see those homes in the same light as we see models in fashion magazines. It’s a business. The model spends a lot to look the way she does to make the money and have the fame she has. The design author or interiors guru spends a lot to have that perfect home because that is their job - everything is for “show” online to earn a living.

Instagram interiors influencers (which are a dying generation) are purely showing us a lifestyle so we buy into it and hopefully, buy from them. They are photo perfect after hours of prep and great lighting. They make us drool.

But when the camera goes away, real life begins. The kids enter the room, the dog pees on the floor, the husband walks in wearing only underwear asking where his jeans are, the teenager lounges on the sofa in his grubby sweats, the baby spits up on the chair. And that’s real life. That’s what we don’t see.

Or when the camera goes away, real life really is living in a museum home. The influencer is living a sort of anxiety-driven life to maintain the beauty all around them. If they have kids, it means not allow them an ounce of self-expression to buy toys or clothes or anything in colors that don’t match the home theme. I knew a homeowner that only allowed her children to purchase pets that matched with her very minimalist home - so no bright orange cat or colorful parakeet - only black, grey, and brown/beige animals were allowed.

If not parents, they may be single - and they sort of drift from room to room, perfecting their flower arrangements, latte art, and fluffing their pillows because they take a lot of enjoyment from it but also because they are perfectionists (and maybe even a little more but only a psychologist would truly know). I had friends like this, I know they exist, and they are not fun to visit because it feels so lonely and shallow. Everything is a brand, everything must be gorgeous, everything is ultimately for show.

Most of us in the interiors world know that what we see is smoke and mirrors for the most part. And though some people really do have perfect homes even without a camera on, that percentage again is relatively low.

The real point of my essay is not to cast judgement but to explain how to bring love, peace, support and comfort to our home. Not just to make it look good but to feel good. We all know by now what spaces look great and which ones don’t. Gorgeous images abound online and off. Interior Design is no longer something beyond the reach of the average person as it was in 2005 when only the wealthy could afford interior designers and experts to help them create the perfect interior environment. Nowadays, great design is democratic and attainable for all - at all price points. You almost have to TRY not to find great stuff.

So, how do we bring peace, love, support and comfort to our home amidst all of the “things”?

Pretty is great, but the FEELING our home gives us is the ultimate reward for the effort we place in creating a nice interior world for ourselves.

Photo by Svitlana on Unsplash

WHAT MAKES A HOUSE A HOME?

What makes a house a home? Many say, “It’s all about the people who live there”, and yes, that can be the case.

But what about if you live alone, or with only pets, are a single mom or dad, or you have a huge rambunctious family that is always on the go? Or perhaps it’s just you and your partner? Or you and your roomie? I mean, there are so many types of families out there and some families are a mess, some are stable, some are dysfunctional as hell, but even those homes can be somewhat better if some focus is placed on the design and vibe of the overall space.

No, I’m not crazy.

Your environment plays a huge role in your mental and emotional health, even your physical well-being. It can play tricks on us, for good or bad. If it’s a big, chaotic mess, our family problems will only increase. If we try to tame the chaos of our immediate environment, there is greater chance of you and your family feeling a bit more calm and at ease even amidst some genuine dysfunction or family problem.

Photo by Emma Dau on Unsplash

BE A ROLE MODEL (GULP)

Humans ultimately look to everyone else first to give us emotional strength, comfort, love and support and we blame others the moment our lights go out. Yet the REAL core of all that “energy” needs to come from the core of us.

WE are responsible for our own happiness, and once we have a good amount of inner comfort, we can start to create a better energy that cycles around us, and that energy has a real chance of getting stronger, growing, and influencing others in a positive way.

I read a lot about kids and screen time for obvious reasons, I have a young son. A New York-based therapist wrote an excellent article a few years ago on the HUFF POST about it. I can’t recall the date or name of the article but I remember his suggestion. He suggests no screen time during the week and only 2 hours total on the weekends. Even for teenagers.

And I found that a bit, well, impossible.

But I’m sure he’s right and that it would be the ultimate scenario to have our child only consuming 2 hours A WEEK of screen time. I mean, that is less screen time than I had in the late 1980s when I came home each day and watched about 2 hours of MTV while I did my homework. I grew up with about 10-12 hours of screen time a week, and I turned out okay.

Yet, still.

The key point I took away from his expert advice was in the closing paragraph of his article, which was also the hardest truth to swallow as a parent.

He said that if you want your kids to have less screen time, THEN YOU NEED TO SET THE EXAMPLE and get off your phone and show them you practice what you preach.

This is always what it comes down to, right?

OUR EXAMPLE.

What we do.

We are responsible for setting an example, taking the lead, creating good energy inside and around us that can positively impact others, especially our family and home life. Even though “the people who live there” in our home can and do help to create the overall feeling of the space, it is up to us to decide how that space should look and feel and what we need to do exactly to get it there.

So let’s go through 6 steps that can help us create a home that feels good.

1. WHAT FEELING DO YOU WANT TO CREATE IN YOUR HOME?

This is not as easy as you may think. Because perhaps you never thought of it until now, and that you had so much control firstly, and next, that you have so many different “feelings” in which you’d like to experience in your home. Maybe you want it to feel happy and playful. Perhaps more calm and centered. You may crave feelings of crafty/artsy and a bit “busy” with kids and dogs circling around you. It could be that you want your home to feel comfortable and safe.

So write down maybe 1-5 “feelings” you want to FEEL when you are home for the most part.

If this is hard for you to imagine, think about how you’d like your guests to FEEL when they enter your home.

This can give you a better clue of your desires.

2. ASK YOUR FAMILY WHAT THEY WANT TO FEEL

Don’t forget the others who live in your home. How do they want to feel? I was reading a book recently where the mom said that she doesn’t have a colorful Christmas even though her children like it, because she doesn’t like a lot of color around, it is one of her quirks, and her children have learned to live with it. But this made me instantly very sad for the kids.

They have to have a monochromatic Christmas just because the mom doesn’t want red and green or whatever?

Perhaps we can pick up the mood of the home by carefully and considerately picking up the mood of our family members and ask them what feelings they want at home.

Think of ways to find a happy “middle” point. Then children and parents have harmony, it’s not about mom and her design sense, it’s about her partner, their children, what everyone wants to feel at home.

Note: I know some of us are real heavyweights in the design industry and we often push our families out when they want to get involved in the interior design of the space because we “know what’s best”, or we simply have our quirks and want others to live by them. Yet, it’s important to step back and think about how this is impacting our family life as a whole.

Will the kids grow up and think of how selfish we were, how they couldn’t express themselves openly and safety in their own home, they couldn’t really be creative under the watchful eye of design-mama?

Or will they grow up and say that their home was open and full of exploration, love and a good spirit?

I am sometimes design-mama so I understand how sensitive this topic can be. Since having a child, and watching him grow from day one to nearly 10 years old, I’ve had to make adjustments in my home aesthetically and functionally speaking to meet his growing needs.

What I’m saying is simply this: RELAX and take some of the pressure of perfection off of yourself. This can breath in a fresh new vibe of creativity and joy into your home because maybe to you, everything feels well but to your family, they may be too shy or scared to tell you the truth: they feel stressed and/or devalued.

3. HOW CAN YOU ACHIEVE THOSE FEELINGS?

Okay, onto a less sensitive topic. The next step is HOW can you get all of those feelings into your house, el pronto? Not tomorrow or next week, TODAY, or even more, the moment you finish reading this post. Write down 5 ways you can imagine bringing those feelings to your space.

For instance, I love it when my home feels positive, happy, alive but also when it feels balanced and clean.

The way I would immediately be able to “freshen” the vibe in my home is to burn a candle in a favorite scent, put on a really powerful, motivating playlist, and organize my shoe chaos near the front door. But there’s much more…

4. FIND WHAT DOESN’T WORK

Find what doesn’t work. I think of it like this: when you go to a doctor, it’s usually when you’re sick, not when you’re feeling great. You want to know what’s not working so he can help you to fix it. This is the first step to good health.

For our home “health” it’s the same, look around with a super critical eye and find what doesn’t work.

• Do you repeatedly lose your keys?

• Are you consistently sleeping terribly?

• Does the wall color in your dining room bring you down?

• Is your bathtub in need of replacement?

• Does your faucet need to also be replaced? How about your sofa, could it use reupholstering?

Don’t worry about how long the list becomes. But definitely make one. I suggest going through each room with a notebook. Each page is for each room, and each page has two columns - To Do and To Dream.

The To Do column is where you write down what needs done within a reasonable time period. Fix the broken shower head, for instance. The To Dream list is for when you’re standing in the living room and you want to replace your boring lounge chair with the TOGO from Ligne Roset but you know that’s not something you need to be happy nor is it something you need today.

However, it’s nice to have a dream list because it gives you something to aspire to.

When your lists are finished, then decide which room gets attention first. Often, it’s a “wet” room like a kitchen or bath, since these are used the most. As you determine where the attention goes, flow your energy (and money) there. Solve those problems one by one. You’ll immediately feel your stress level lower when things start to work better in your home - because things will also start to FEEL BETTER.

5. DE CLUTTER + DEEP CLEAN

I don’t care who you follow, Marie Kondo, The Home Edit, Martha Stewart - just find an organization role model and learn from them. Study everything they do. Try to get your home together so that you can easily take a full inventory of anything in less than a minute. Do you need Q-tips? Do you need more laundry detergent? How many vacuum bags do you have left? There is a great feeling in having so much knowledge about your home.

It may sound petty, but being in control of your environment can make you feel like a goddess. We crave control, let’s face it, but most of life is out of our control. Your home is the spot where you can be a control queen. Organize well, de-clutter, donate, sell, up-cycle, give-away. It’s all going to play into your overall feeling at home and trust me, no one feels good when the house is a disaster and clothes are piled to the ceiling.

Also do a deep clean once a year at least - Spring is best. So much grows around and under and over us in our space - mold, mildew, bacteria, dust, so keep the space clean - especially the wet rooms and the sleep rooms.

I actually deep clean my bedroom every other Sunday, it has improved my sleep quality and I feel calmer and more relaxed in my bedroom since I de-cluttered it and then, decided to really give it a deep clean regularly. I think bathrooms, bedrooms and kitchens need deep cleaning more than living rooms and dining areas, for obvious reasons. So you can deep clean those rooms less frequently, maybe every 6 months or so. As long as you dust and vacuum weekly, you will be fine…

and finally…

6. GET A GRIP ON YOUR INNER WORLD

I can’t stress this enough. Get a hold of your inner world so that your outer world can mirror something that you’re proud of. Usually people who are stressed, constantly late, rushed, have health problems… Are all suffering somewhere on the inside, and a lot of times it’s the emotional state.

Try to self reflect and really get to the core of who you are.

It’s okay that you may be a hot mess right now, no judgement because I’ve had those times too, but you will feel so much better once you find some peace inside.

Think about what’s broken inside of you.

Hire a therapist. See a doctor. Join a mastermind. Hire a coach.

Go away to a quiet little cabin in the woods and cry for a few days and journal.

Whatever works but do something.

Because we can’t save anyone else or even create a home that feels peaceful, happy and good, if we are deeply hurting or unable to cope with our life. I have dealt with some really hard times over my life and I’m still fixing, digging out, and trying to relax more. And from this life experience, I’ve also seen how my home feels better when I feel better. You just process everything on a higher level when you work on yourself.

So, I hope these tips help you and give you some guidance as to how to create a home that feels good to you and your family. I write it all out of experience and love.

Please share this post if it resonates - others may also enjoy reading it.

-Holly