The perfect home environment comes down to creating a space that feels safe, where you can connect with loved ones and kick your proverbial boots off to unwind and relax. Your home environment needs to be restful, creative, harmonious, and comforting. If your space is lacking in any of these elements at once, follow the pointers below to improve your home environment in five easy steps.
1. Make It Healthy
There has always been controversy around what “healthy” truly means. For some, it means avoiding microwaves and Wifi. For others, it means exercising regularly and only using a non-Teflon cookware set.
Decide what your values are, and become disciplined about implementing them in your home environment. Find a good balance between comfort and discipline. Too much comfort and the lack of discipline will make your home a frustrating place. Too much discipline, and it won’t feel like a sanctuary anymore. Decide how you want to honor your health, and then adjust the style of your home to suit.
2. Get The Layout And Design Just Right
The perfect house is set out and designed for the lifestyle you live. Are you a keen gardener or beach lover? Have an outside tap near the door to rinse off muddy boots or sandy feet. There are a million small ways to customize your home to fit your unique needs. Take the time to think about the small ways in which you can make the everyday tasks you do at home simpler and easier to accomplish.
3. Make It Happy
Happiness is the key to having a good life. Home should be a place you can retreat to when you need to connect to your own joy and purpose again. Improve your home environment by getting everyone who lives there to agree to a certain way of communicating with one another. If you are a family, ensure the children and the adults are respectful and considerate of each other.
If you live alone, focus on creating a warm, inviting, clutter-free environment. Include only those items that make you happy to look at – this might be framed photos of family and friends or keepsakes from memorable vacations. A carving from New Zealand or a bottle of your favorite gin from Spain can trigger a rush of happy brain chemicals every time you look at it.
4. Share The Load
It’s never a happy home when one person carries all of the duties. It is imperative that everyone shares in the housekeeping chores. Young children can carry their weight by doing easy chores, like feeding the pets, taking out the trash, raking up leaves outside, and tidying away their own toys. It might feel like extra work for parents that have to enforce the chores, but in the long run, your children will grow up understanding that they need to help out.
5. Create A Space For Connection
Home is where the heart is, so create a home environment that reflects something of your heart. Make it kind, make it peaceful, make it happy. If you share your home with others, lay down gentle rules that will make it a positive place. Humans are pack animals – we thrive in groups. The trick is to create an environment in which everyone is able to express themselves comfortably, knowing they will be treated with respect and kindness.
Make Your Home Unique
Are you artistic, do you have interesting taste in music, have you traveled a lot, or do you cook well? Think about what makes you special, and find a way to leverage that so your house becomes a beautiful reflection of you.