How to Create a Home that fills you with Peace Part 2
In my last post, Part 1, we talked about Hygge. I believe it is the key to creating a Peaceful home.
If you don’t know, Hygge is a Danish word for developing a mood of coziness and comfort. It’s about creating feelings of wellness and Contentment.
In that post, I confessed my old tendency of yelling 🙁 and shared my thoughts on how reversing stressors can completely change the mood of your home to one of wellness and Contentment. Please visit that post to find out how.
Today I want to share ways to inject coziness and comfort into your home. There are several ways to do this. Maintaining simple routines and keeping your home tidy is one way. Infusing a little cozy ambiance here and there is another.
Is your house always a mess? The tidiness of my home changed overnight the day I started doing two things. Keeping regular routines, and REALLY decluttering. Honestly doing these two things makes it SO MUCH EASIER TO KEEP CLEAN!!
First of all, decluttering is magic. I can’t stress this enough. Seriously, if you could live your life in reverse for a moment, where the decluttering RESULT came first, I swear–you would likely get rid of ALL YOUR THINGS!! You have no idea what a difference decluttering makes in your life and stress level.
Try one small room today–see if it doesn’t make a 100% difference in how simple it is to keep up with..
The other simple change I made was to create and maintain simple routines. These definitely deserve a post all there own but here are mine. 1. Run the Dishwasher every night and empty every morning.
2. Reboot laundry every morning.
3. Take trash out every night
4. Do a 5 minute family tidy every day.
I’ll post more on these another day. But just know, these are game changers!
I do have some bad news. Even after you’ve decluttered, rooms will get messy. The good news is, my decluttered rooms can be tidied in under 10 minutes!!
We MUST teach our kids to pick up after themselves. We are not maids. This one is hard. Remember, it’s a process. It definitely takes time. I am no where near the end. Teaching is training. Don’t know if you’ve ever trained a pet…or trained for a marathon or trained for a career. You didn’t get results overnight. But then one day, it clicked. Hallelujah!
There is a great Youtube channel out there called A Better Life with Kat. Love her channel. She helps so much with systems. (Flylady systems–have you heard of The Flylady?)
She has a saying when it comes to training your kids–“Inspect what you Expect”. That was revolutionary to me. So instead of giving them instructions and getting mad when they didn’t do it, give the instructions, give them time, then go follow up.
Expect that it may not be done exactly how you want it. And actually may not be done at all, at first. But as you inspect, ask if they think the job is complete or if it’s what you asked for. It opens up the conversation for teaching and learning. And eventually they get it. Much better than getting mad and yelling. If yelling and nagging is working for you skip this paragraph, lol.
Now for the fun part!! I love décor. I love design. My fantasy self might be an Interior Designer! There are some awesome ways to fill your home with coziness. Coziness creates an atmosphere of peace and contentment. Here are some things I do:
Blankets. I love cozy blankets (even in the summer–I am not a fan of air conditioners). Snuggly pillows are also Hygge–but not too many–we are decluttering here.
Candles or candle light. I think Candles are really cozy. If you fear toxicity as I know some candles can be, try soy or one of those nice battery operated candles. Amazon has some great ones. They are on timers. I have sconces on a couple of my walls and the candles automatically come on at a certain time. Lighting creates a great mood.
Scent. I LOVE scents in my home. Essential oils are not only healthy but you can mix different scents to create or enhance your mood. Relaxing, peaceful, or invigorating. They are also wonderful at helping eliminate cooking odors–I love lemon and peppermint or tea tree oil and orange for this!
Plants and flowers. Speaking of odors, plants are great for increasing air quality!! I don’t have a green thumb AT ALL. I’m learning, and there are some plants out there even I can’t kill. And some of the most hardy are the ones that help air quality the most. A Peace Lily is one, and so is Golden Pathos. If you have killed more plants than your budget allows, you can find some very nice looking faux plants these days. Fresh flowers work well too. You can make a grocery store bouquet look BEAUTIFUL in a simple vase. Split it up and place in different, unexpected rooms–like the bathroom or your bedroom.
Family photos or special Art. The list of ways to cozy your home is endless but I’ll leave you with this last one. Fill your walls with Family photos and special art. Do you have some art you or your children have created? How about a local artist, or art you purchased from that little shop while you were on your honeymoon? Display it!! It perks up any room. Also, I love looking at photos that conjure up great memories of events or different times in my life. Frames are really inexpensive and it is rare we get those photos off our phones and onto photo paper. So take the time to develop a few of those vacation, 1st birthday or the day-of-the-2-foot-snow-fall photos. Creating memories is what homes are for–having a wall that helps relive them makes home that much more special.
We all would benefit from creating a peaceful respite at the end of a long day. There are so many ways, some are simple and yes, some take a little more effort. But the result is a home that hugs you the minute you walk in the door.
I hope you will try some of these and let me know how they work for you. Meanwhile, I will be “inspecting what I expect” in a couple of kid’s bedrooms….I’ll let you know how it goes.
