Creating a Peaceful Home

If how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, then if we spend our days anxious, we’ll spend our lives anxious, too. Good design might not be able to intervene in a cultural existential crisis, but it can help build spaces that calm and restore us. Here are our five favourite tips for creating a peaceful environment.

1 – Good Lighting Is Everything
The value of natural light can’t be overstated. A quality source of light makes a space glow and lends a sense of serenity difficult to achieve in its absence. Consider installing dimmers to enhance your lighting all day long.

2 – Put Outdoor Views Front And Center
Nature is known to have a calming effect on mood—and although we spend much of our lives indoors, exterior environments still affect our experience of being, and feeling, at home. Orient your furniture around something other than your tv and watch how your mood improves.

3 – Choose A Calming Colour Palette
Colour helps create a mood that ties together a space and is one of the easiest tools for manipulating mood within a space in “obvious” ways. Bright colours are energizing, while muted colours are calming. Consider more than paint when establishing a colour palette in your home.

4 – Create Unique, Designated Spaces
As much as we love an open concept floor plan, we like doors too. Designated spaces can make a design relaxing, whether you require a home office, craft space, or meditation zone. It’s much easier to put the stress and commitments of the work day on hold if you can close the door to your home office and join the family in the kitchen.

5 – Avoid Seeking Perfection
When a space feels too designed, it isn’t homey; at the same time, a “homey” space can also signify homely, or not beautiful. Consider living with pieces that are worn and have patina, it can make you feel more at ease with how you move around your home. After all, you live in a house not a museum.