Your home has the ability to support and revitalize or drain you.
- When the home is well
planned, beautiful to your senses and nicely maintained it adds balance, support and so much
joy to your life.
- Or conversely speaking, when
it’s worn, dysfunctional and dirty it has the ability to drag you down and
discourage you, lending to disorganization, depression and apathy not only in your surroundings but in you, you precious gal.
To get you started I’ve
prepared a list of action steps below!
The
Pain Free Design and Wellness Clean Sweep
Identify the 10-25 things
that really bother you about your home. Write them down and save them, then one
by one address the items that you can address. For instance, organizing your
kitchen is probably doable in a day or two. But replacing a sofa may not be
doable for a year or more. So save the list and keep it handy and address just
the things you can right now.
Play
with Floor Plans (Furniture Arranging)
There is one and only one
ideal furniture arrangement (or floor plan as designers like to call it)for
each room. You can use a floor plan app like mine from Chief Architecture or by
moving things around until you get them right.
Observe where the fireplace
is. Observe the doorways and general foot traffic. Place the largest pieces first.
Add
Scale
Scale refers to something
that is large. It could be an armoire or an entertainment unit or a large set
of built in bookcases. Scale is important to your floor plans because it adds a
sense of permanence and stability. The rest of the room must be planned around
that large scale piece. It is the room’s anchor.
Housekeeping
Give the house a good
cleaning and keep it that way. Very few people realize how noticeable dust and
dirt are because our conscious eye is accustomed to seeing them. But your
subconscious picks up on it and realizes something is uncomfortable.
Open the curtains and clean
the windows. Enjoy the views if you’re lucky enough to have them. Open the
windows and let fresh air in.
Accessories
Being a designer and owner of
a design store for years, I always realized how big of an effect accessories
have on our homes. But when it really became evident was when I updated my own
home with just accessories. I spent around $2,000 US dollars on accessories in
2012. The home was already lovely but moving my existing items around and
adding these new accessories updated the style and lightened the mood quite a
lot.
If
Your Home is Missing Something
If your home is missing
something and you don’t know what it is, it’s likely scale, texture or
greenery.
Texture can come from woven
baskets, textiles, cane or rush seating, some wood and stone surfaces, and
rugs.
Scale can come from large
pieces of furniture, like an armoire, an entertainment unit (to house the
tellie), or large built in bookcases.
Greenery is obvious. Any
indoor plants. I like a pair of topiary in the dining room at the least. And
numerous pots of flowers and house plants (3-5) in the living room.
And if you’d like even more help getting started, look at my Pain Free Strategy Sessions where together we develop an comprehensive plan for your most important home project, face to face via Skype or Zoom. It has an affordable, set price tag and clear steps to get you from where your home is now to where you want to take it.
Live beautifully. Eat beautifully, Shiree’