Home is about creating the kind of space you want to be in. It’s realizing that maybe you can’t control the events and feel of the world around you, but you can control the events and feel of your own domain: your home. If you want your home to be a place where you feel encouraged, you want to create a happy home. You want to create a healing home. Everyone’s version of this will look somewhat different, but there are three As to remember: it’s All About Atmosphere. You can create a home atmosphere that supports a healthy, thriving mindset. You may have heard the phrase ‘happy home happy life’ in reference to a functional family life. It is important to maintain healthy relationships in the home. In addition to that, the look and feel of your home can be made especially to support your well-being.
All About Atmosphere
We do well to surround ourselves with things that make us happy. This is a given, but people too often decorate their home on autopilot. Maybe you think your home should look a certain way because of what you’ve seen elsewhere. Maybe you automatically decorate with whatever paintings or tchotchkes given to you by relatives. Or maybe it’s just convenient to throw up everything you’ve always owned. Something liberating I learned a few years ago is that you don’t have to find a place for every decorative (or even functional) thing in your home just because you own it. Even if you like something enough to keep it but are tired of trying to squeeze it into your current home’s layout, it’s absolutely okay to store your items appropriately. Look for decor you truly love and display that. Don’t try to include things if they aren’t things you’d buy now!
Happy Home Happy Life for the Entire Household
By creating a space that lifts your spirits, you simultaneously set the stage for your children. This works twofold: for one, you impact all those around you. Even if you aren’t a parent or caregiver but live with other relatives or roommates, your vibe does impact others you live with. And so by setting up your space (or as much of it as you have autonomy over) in a way that serves you and makes you happier, you are automatically sharing happy vibes with others. And this is especially beneficial for children. Whatever we can do to make ourselves happier, our children benefit as well. They soak up our energy. At the same time, creating a space that encourages your happiness likely works similarly for everyone else. The gentle touches you’ve put here or there, the encouraging phrases, cheerful colours – these work universally to comfort and inspire.
The Things That Contribute to a Happy Home Happy Life
While this is a highly personalized pursuit, there are some general universal ways to encourage and cultivate happy vibes in your home!
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1. Plants
Aside from another person or animal’s affection, nature is the purest form of tangible therapy. Besides being gorgeous, plants are age-old living, breathing companions to humanity and have a very soothing and grounding effect on our well-being. My dream would be to live in a house with a giant live tree growing through the center of it in a sort of indoor/outdoor home. Said tree would also be magically void of termites and ants and other bugs that I don’t want inside. Thankfully, potted houseplants can serve as a more realistic (if smaller) alternative! Houseplants allow you to bring the outside in, to share the uplifting energy of nature behind closed walls.
There are many beautiful varieties, but it can be hard to crowd all your plants around limited windowside table space. Low-light plant varieties are great options that can do well in rooms with less-than-optimal light conditions. I have found snake plants to be the hardiest. They do well with infrequent watering and are not as sensitive to light conditions as other plants. While they thrive the most in tons of sun, they seem to do just fine in dimmer spaces as well. A good trick is to occasionally switch out your plants. So if you have one snake plant in a well-lit room and another in a darker corner, every couple of weeks (or months, for that matter) you can switch the two spots so they each benefit from more light at intervals. This goes for most any plants with a more flexible range of light tolerance.
2. Colors
Which colors make you happy? Whatever they are, by all means, surround yourself with them! There are many ways to add your favorite, happiest colors to your space. Colors have a profound impact on us, so it serves us well to use them to our advantage in our home.
Walls:
A fresh coat of beautiful paint is the most impactful way to saturate your space in any given color. If you cannot paint the walls of your home for any reason, hang large, light blankets or tapestry-like pieces on your walls to maximize the color impact in a room. Or, for a little more effort, hang peel and stick wallpaper! It’s a great way to temporarily change your wall color without the commitment of regular wallpaper. It takes some patience and care, but it looks fantastic when completed.
Furniture:
Quality furniture is costly because it’s meant to last many years, if not generations. That said, when you really, really love a color, it’s worth going after a piece of furniture that comes in that color or can be painted to your taste. The idea is to make sure anything expensive looks that way you’ll want it to look for a long time (unless you’re confident it can resell well). For cheaper non-upholstered furniture, such as small tables, the world is your paint can. Go at them with your favourite paint color and watch that simple transformation light up your room!
Couches and other upholstered furniture are trickier to find in any diverse array of colors unless you shop from a boutique or specialty provider. But there is the option to have a favourite old comfortable couch re-upholstered in the colored fabric of your choice. I have not done this myself, but it may be a more affordable alternative to purchasing a new couch (for purely aesthetic reasons) and is worth looking into!
Rugs:
If you have hard floors (or even carpet), rugs are a great way to throw down pops of color. They come in so many sizes and patterns; you’ll likely find just the color you love! Just be sure to lay down a non-slip rug pad underneath so you avoid annoying rug migration. The larger you go, the more expensive, but the more of an impact its appearance will have on your home. As with furniture, be sure that you truly love any larger, pricier pieces enough to display them for a long time. Large rugs aren’t the easiest to store, so they aren’t ideal for switching out every season! Smaller ones in front of a door or sink are perfect for a smaller budget and for easily switching out. Go as big and bold as you want, but think of the long-term picture in your design efforts.
Accent Pillows and Throws:
Pillow covers are the easiest and most affordable way to change up the colors in a room. Simply buy pillow covers in your favourite color to fit your cushions and arrange them wherever – on a bed, on the couch, a chair, or a cozy nook on the floor. Throw blankets are also easy to find in various colors and patterns and are easy to store. And you can do whatever you want here! Many come with positive (or funny) phrases or images. Whatever makes you laugh, whatever makes you smile, whatever makes you grateful – throws and cushion covers are where you can go wild. These things suit all budgets and storage criteria.
Art and Decor:
Of course, you may find (or make) beautiful artwork to display on your wall or on a shelf or table in stunning colors. Sometimes, it is just such a piece that art-directs the rest of a room’s furnishings! You may love something so much that you color everything else in a space to match it. If there are any art or accent/decor items that really light you up, by all means display it. You don’t have to go all out with color in any given space. Sometimes it just takes one statement piece in a gorgeous color to dazzle a room, and everything else can be a pleasant, complementary background.
3. Crystals
Crystals are beautiful products of the earth that make lovely decor. Some are in fact created in a laboratory, but are otherwise chemically identical to those of the same kind from the earth. Depending on the source, type, appearance and size, the cost of crystals vary dramatically. You can buy them online from various shop collections, or you can find them in specialized stores and other places.
Just as plants are living, breathing components of our natural environment, crystals are likewise linked to the earth (and therefore also to people) and so are considered to have a great many positive, beneficial properties. So they not only look beautiful, but they foster positive feelings, relaxation, clarity, and a host of other benefits. And regardless of whether you definitely believe in such claims (after all, few authoritative sources with sufficient funding to undergo rigorous scientific testing and data collection are studying and publishing the metaphysical properties of crystals for mainstream media consumption), at the very least crystals are gorgeous specimens to display as natural decor, even when created in a laboratory to mimic their naturally occurring counterparts. As with all beautiful things, simply seeing crystals for each room may be enough to make you happy – and that is the point!
4. Encouraging Affirmations
Focusing on positive affirmations each day is a powerful way to (re)direct your mind. Thankfully, there are a number of creative ways to literally spell them out in plain sight! While there are plenty of affirmation decor items such as pillows, wall art, and general decor, there are also options to customize affirmation decorations. Your affirmations may be focus points for inner healing, perhaps to embellish a healing space. They may be reminders of that for which you’re most grateful, as gratitude decor generates joy for who you are and what you have in this life. Your affirmations may be light-hearted and silly, something that brings a smile to your face and reminds you to not take yourself (or life) so seriously. To remind you to enjoy yourself, have fun, and celebrate the now. It’s whatever you can read that makes you truly happy.
If you have enough spare time to make something yourself, creating your own affirmation decor is a great way to exercise your creativity to produce a positively impactful piece! Visit any craft store for a canvas, or scavenge a second-hand shop for a plain piece of wood or anything you can work with. Or buy any frame you like from a dollar store (which you can paint in your favourite color) and insert a piece of paper with your affirmation. Use paint, markers, or whatever you please to write out what you know you most need to hear/read each day. And of course embellish however you choose – with colors, sequins, magazine clippings (à la vision board), or anything you love.
5. Play Music You Love in Your Happy Home Happy Life
Hearing inspirational music is a powerful way to lift your mood. Inspirational is an entirely subjective term and will sound different for every person. One person may love classical music; another religious music. One may love musical theater; another electronic; yet another, folk. Whatever music puts you in a positive mood can contribute to your happy home happy life. And certain occasions or times of the day may warrant different songs or tracts for you. I generally like to play jazz during winter, island pop in the summer, and pop/rock in the fall and spring. Perhaps you like music with a more lilting beat in the morning and a calmer melody in the evening. Perhaps you rock sensual tunes at bedtime, or bump up your favourite hip hop while tackling chores. This is all easiest when you have a way to hear music anywhere you spend time in your home.
If you don’t have the liberty to loudly blast happy tunes from one central location while going about your house, an easy way to hear those tunes wherever you are is to install Bluetooth speakers that connect to your electronic device/music source. I don’t use Bluetooth or Alexa so I currently go with the former option (bumping up the music to hear across most of the house). If you have a larger or two-story house, though, you’ll probably want to opt for more localized music output.
Other Audio Options
An easy way to bring your music with you without Bluetooth is to just play it from your phone and carry it wherever you go. The main drawback is that the sound quality is limited to your phone’s speaker, but this is otherwise a totally viable option so long as you aren’t trying to also do other things on your phone that pause the music by default. To provide a better audio experience, you can easily find affordable wired speakers to connect to your laptop or device and keep them in whichever room(s) you spend the most time. That way, you can plug in your device where you are. You’ll just need a little table space and electrical outlet to create such an audio source in any given room.
Keeping a small CD player stocked with CD(s) in any given room is a reliable way to keep a permanent music source at your fingertips. The only drawback is that, if you’re like me and quickly tire of the same music, you’re limited to whichever CDs you have on hand. But if you have at least a small collection of ultimate CDs that you really love, this is a good option! Keep in mind, too, that your local library can be an excellent source of free music. I used to get all kinds of books, CDs and DVDs from the library. Because who hasn’t wasted plenty of money over their lifetime buying CDs for one good song, only to find out the rest are duds? Borrowing CDs allows you to sample music to see if you really like something. Just be prepared for occasional scratches. Not everyone respects borrowed materials.
6. Diffuse Essential Oils
Scents can make a huge impact on our mood. Whenever we’re forced to breathe an offensive smell for more than a few seconds, it’s never a pleasant experience. We might get a little grumpy about it. Unless you work in a fishery or wastewater treatment plant where you become accustomed to certain smells, you probably aren’t too pleased when any given environment (or person) stinks. The same holds true for pleasant scents. We are attracted to smells that we deem pleasing. Of course, what makes a smell good or not is subjective to every person. But we each know a good scent when we smell it, and pleasing smells contribute to your happy home happy life. Yet, many ‘air fresheners’ emit toxic endocrine disruptors (chemicals that alter your hormones and are linked to cancer). And while fresh cut flowers are natural and lovely, they require a weekly disposable expense.
If you don’t want to spend money every week on something that inevitably dies and you don’t want to fill your home with toxins, you can create pleasing scents in your home by diffusing pure essential oils. So long as the essential oils are definitely pure (that is, no chemicals or additives mixed in), properly diffusing them is a healthy way to surround yourself with good smells. I actually only recently started diffusing essential oils after asking for a diffuser for Christmas. My essential oil diffuser also serves as a cool-mist humidifier (which your house plants will also love!). Be sure to follow the (simple) directions and add the recommended amount of oil drops to the full water tank and operate as instructed. And I learned from experience to make sure you clean it regularly!
7. Cozy Spot(s)
Maybe you spend most of your time engaging in work and different activities around your home, without much time relaxing. If that’s the case, then you will still love and appreciate creating a happy home! You will notice your environment no matter what you’re doing. But if you do carve the time to relax every day, to curl up alone or with your loved ones, then you need cozy materials and spaces for a pleasant tactile experience. You want a home that feels accessible, with spaces that easily invite you to plop down and lounge. A truly comfortable spot will leave you not eager to get up.
To create your happy space, whether strewn across furniture or on a rug, gather some cushions and blankets. Maximize the happiness with fun colors as mentioned above in Point #2. Be sure to have a safe and convenient place (i.e. accessible hard surface like a small table or tray) to set your tea, snack, candles, book, or device. Cozying up with comfortable pillows and perhaps also refreshments is a happy way to end (or begin) a day. It is like a warm, soft hug that invites you to relax.
The Takeaway: Customize Your Happy Home Happy Life to Your Own Taste
If you live alone, then you have the liberty to do whatever you please with your home. You could turn it into a giant gamer’s paradise if you so choose. I may not like it, but my own preferences are irrelevant to how you choose to create your home. The point is that you get to decide how your home can make you the happiest, based on your interests, needs and personality. Of course, living with family or roommates requires us to negotiate and craft our home in a way that makes everybody happy. But there is at least some universality to general design principles governing positive impacts on our mood. The idea is to intentionally design in a way that cultivates joy for all in the home. Most likely, if you assume the role of design captain of your household, others will find most of your choices agreeable.
If you want a happy home happy life, then seize these ideas and get to work (in a fun way)! And don’t overwhelm yourself with a total house upheaval. Just make small changes as you can. Remember the little things add up and positively impact your mood in subtle ways. And small decor improvements, especially when made intentionally to cultivate more happiness in your home, can work marvelously. Make this year all about making your home happy. More specifically, make this year all about making your home make you (and your family) happy. Home is where every day begins and every day ends. Happy home happy life to you!