Last Updated on October 15, 2024 by SampleBoard
It is no surprise that our busy lifestyles mean that we want to come home to somewhere we can just cozy up and relax after a hard day at work or an active social life.
Our homes are where we can be ourselves and hide away from the rest of the world. This is easier said than done if you share your house or have a family, whereas living on your own means you have more scope to create a relaxing oasis just for you.
Nevertheless, there are things that can be done to transform your home into the relaxing space you crave, often using very simple and cost-effective ideas.
Perhaps one of the easiest and most effective ways of making a space more relaxing is to remove all the clutter. Most of us are guilty of buying things we don’t need or that outlive their usefulness and hoarding them in the hopes that we might use them. This is the time to be ruthless.
Go through your belongings, including home decor, toys, clothing, and kitchen equipment, and separate items into things that can be sent to the charity shop and things that need to be thrown away. You may well surprise yourself with how much there is. And, not only will this instantly make your rooms feel bigger and more relaxing, but it will also be therapeutic and good for your mental health too.
If you are going all out and getting rid of carpets, curtains, and furniture, you may consider recycling your waste or using a skip to make it easier to dispose of your items quickly and safely.
Painting your walls and upgrading your soft furnishings with neutral color palettes and textures will immediately bring a sense of calm to the space. Beige and taupe colors, light greys, and sage greens are all known to soften the mood of a room and create a relaxing aura.
Combine these colors with wood, wool, cotton, and linen for a cozy space that is warm in winter and cool in summer, for an all-round oasis of calm. Avoid harsh plastics and metals where possible as these bring more of an edginess to the room, which is something you don’t want.
It is well-known that adding houseplants to your interior design helps you to sleep and provides natural oxygen to the space, as well as bringing in natural colors. Getting out in nature is widely thought of as being a great way to relax, so letting nature inside your home enables you to benefit from the feeling without leaving your house.
If you can make the most of any windows and glazed doors to your house, allowing natural light to flood the space, you will feel far more relaxed than if you have to use artificial light to see. Opening up to an open-plan living area can also add to that sense of calm; but only if you are able to keep the space tidy and can’t see the dirty dishes in the sink waiting to be washed up.
If you don’t have the capacity to increase the natural light in your home, opt for lamps and lanterns and small pockets of light rather than relying on overhead and wall lights. This brings the room in and makes it feel cozier. It is also likely to be more energy-efficient too.
Many of us are guilty of having a spare room in which we just dump anything we don’t know what to do with. Or, we use each room in our house for several different purposes. If you are able to designate a specific role for each room, it will help you to feel calm when you are in that room.
For example, a dining room should be used only for dining, and not also as an office space or a children’s playroom. A bedroom should just be for sleeping in. Don’t try to section off a corner with a desk to work in. You won’t feel the benefit for either purpose and won’t fully be able to concentrate on either use.
Separate life and work where possible. If you do work from home, don’t let your home office space encroach into your living space, and vice versa. You may feel that you never leave your work behind, if your computer and paperwork are in the same room as you use for watching TV or cooking, meaning you are never really able to relax.
If you are trying to transform your home into a relaxing oasis, don’t skip any rooms. You should plan out exactly how you intend to achieve the transformation and use that plan in every room. Don’t leave one room where you just shut the door and try to forget about it. It won’t work. You will always know that it is there and won’t be able to relax fully, while one room is messy or unclean or just simply unloved – regardless of which room it is.
Bathrooms are often guilty of this, whereas that is the one room where you can truly get away from everyone else and have time to yourself. So, play on that and make it a space to relax and unwind, where you might want to spend an hour in the bath; not somewhere that is full of half-empty tubes of toothpaste and grotty grout.
It makes sense to plan in advance how you want each room to look and what you are going to do to achieve that. Otherwise, you might end up buying more items than you need and the decluttering process will all have been for nothing.
Minimalism isn’t always best, but if you can stick to a theme and color palette for each room then you can be sure it will end up being homely rather than hotchpotch.