Design To Be Happy, What Does That Mean?

When we design our homes, we should design to be happy. Of course we want our homes to look good and be beautiful but we NEED our homes to also feel good. Designing a look good, feel good space, what does that mean?

First, let me explain by sharing a story.  One summer, a few years back, I was having one of those days. I tossed and turned all night, up a few pounds on the scale, coffee pot overflowed, topped off with a dead battery on my car. Nothing terrible, just small things that were going wrong. On top of that, it was late August, and it had been raining for days. Normally, a day or two of rain I can tolerate. But when a week goes by and I haven’t seen the sun, it plays on my mood. I found myself struggling to fight the blues and losing. Just at my breaking point, my daughters came home and surprised me with a bouquet of sunflowers, and everything changed. The sunflowers triggered a realization that made me begin to look at Interior Design differently.  

Suddenly I realized, that our homes should look good but they should also make us feel good. The bouquet of sunflowers my daughters gave me were stunning. I remember feeling happy as I arranged them in a beautiful vase and sat them on my kitchen counter. Those flowers brightened the whole room. Maybe that is one reason why the tradition of sending flowers to people who are sick was started. They truly are spiritually healing. 

Afterwards, I thanked my girls and said, “How could anyone with sunflowers be in a bad mood? They are such a happy flower!”  Then every time I walked into my kitchen and saw those flowers, I was hit with a feeling of joy. As a result, my bad mood magically vanished. Then, a light bulb went off in my head. We can manipulate our environment to give us what we need. In other words, we can design to be happy!

DESIGN IS NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL

With this personal experience, the idea of creating a home environment that would add smiles to my day and happiness to my life was born. Subsequently, I paid attention to how different furnishings, colors and accessories elicited different emotional responses from me. Therefore, I began making appropriate changes in my home as a result.  I began designing to be happy.

Design choices are personal. For example, I may feel the color white is clean and pure. You may feel white is boring. Benjamin Moore has a lot of information about the psychology of color. Design is not a one size fits all process. Design choices take some self-reflection but the results are extremely rewarding.

Creating a home you love is a journey and a mind set. In other words, there is a specific way of thinking that you can learn and as a result you will make better personal design choices. Most importantly, you need to train yourself to be in tune to your environment.

I recommend reading a previous post, GET STARTED CREATING YOUR HAPPY PLACE AT HOME , which explains the steps of the design process that needs to happen first for you to determine what important things need to be considered when coming up with a design plan. Then once you know what things need to be incorporated into you home you can take steps to make that happen. Also, 10 EASY LOOK GOOD FEEL GOOD IDEAS FOR YOU HOME, YOU CAN DO TODAY are small things that you can do to add some “feel good” to your home.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM FUTURE DESIGN TO BE HAPPY POSTS

I will talk about how to create a home that is perfect for you, aka design your happy place In other words, how different things make you feel, along with your likes and dislikes. Some future posts will discuss:

• How to make design and decorating choices that are right for you
• Decorating pitfalls and how to avoid them (they are not what you think)
• Decorating for your authentic self
• The correct way to think about function and how small changes can greatly improve it in our home
• How to make yourself more comfortable in your home
• How to add more “feel good” to your home

Copyright 2019

Please comment below to share your thoughts and or favorite things you have incorporated into your home that make you happy.