The Thrill Of A Tranquil Home

Everybody wants to feel happy in their own home, but life can become stressful and overwhelming very quickly. Once you let your maintenance slip around the house, that’s when your cozy retreat from the world loses its cozy, relaxing and tranquil atmosphere and becomes just as stressful as the outside world. It’s a vicious cycle, and if you want your home to be a welcoming blanket of relief after a tough day at work or after running errands then you need to put a little bit of time into keeping it that way.

There’s nothing quite like a tranquil, homely home to wash away the stresses of life. The best way to break the cycle of having a stressful day and feeling even more stressed when you come home is to fix your home. You might return to the outside world with a clearer, calmer frame of mind and find that you don’t want to shout at your boss quite as much at the end of each day. If you’re wondering how you could make your home a little cozier and improve its general appearance then here are some ideas which might kick you into action.

Declutter.

They say that a cluttered environment leads to a cluttered mind, but both of these things feed into one another. The more focused you become on issues outside the home, the less you’ll pay attention to keeping the home neat and tidy. In turn, as clutter builds up in each room of your house, you’ll start to feel more and more overwhelmed by the state of the place on a mental level. The solution is simple: you need to declutter. And you need to do this not only once or on an annual basis, but each and every week.

Setting aside a day for tidying and cleaning will turn the chore into a habit and ensure that you never forget to do so. You’ll thank yourself when you find that your home starts to look consistently better. Sometimes, achieving the fresh and open look around your home doesn’t require a huge chunk of your money to redecorate the place, but a simple tidy up. Achieving the contemporary, minimalist feel around your home really isn’t as hard as you think; you probably don’t need that interior designer after all.

The power of paint.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of a paint job to create a refreshing, new and welcoming look to your old home. When it comes to DIY interior design, a lick of paint is every homeowner’s method of choice. It’s cheap, straightforward, and it can have a hugely transformative effort on the appearance of a house.

It’s called a makeover for a reason; much like the effect of putting on a new set of clothes, you can bring out the best qualities of your home when you start from scratch and refresh its face. The potential for your house to feel cozy and welcoming is already there, but you need to bring it out. A white coat of paint which invites natural light into the home and brightens each room is what you need to achieve that cozy, tranquil and aesthetically pleasing effect.

Fix the basics.

Interior design is all well and good, but you can’t live in a relaxing environment until you’ve solved any physical or practical problems. Your home might be dealing with a few issues that you’ve been putting off for a while, such as leaky plumbing or inefficient windows, and solving these problems should definitely come before making improvements to your home for the sake of mere aesthetic pleasure. You’re never going to be able to relax when you know that there are serious issues with your household, so you need to screw on your DIY hat every time there’s need for maintenance or general care for your home, as ignoring the issue won’t make it go away.

You just need to fix problems whenever they arise, and then you can get back to chilling out. You’ll find that your home falls apart far less when you address maintenance issues regularly, as leaving these things can lead to more serious problems developing in the future. What might have taken a few hours to fix, such as a broken faucet, could end up taking an entire weekend to fix and perhaps even a professional plumber if the problem is allowed to develop into a more serious plumbing issue. You have the choice of investing a little bit of time into maintaining your house on a regular basis or investing a huge chunk of your time when some big issue arises.

Warmth.

We’ve all ended up curled up on the sofa on a cold night struggling to get comfortable. You don’t want to freeze, but the itchy jumper you found in the back of your wardrobe isn’t exactly the ideal solution. Feeling comfortable and relaxed in your home depends on a certain level of warmth, but turning the heating on full blast all day long isn’t good for the environment or your bank account. If the idea of wearing excessive, uncomfortable layers around the house just to stay warm doesn’t sound appealing then you need to look into other ways of keeping your house warm.

You can use the resources already at your disposal to keep your household warm. Moving objects such as furniture away from radiators could allow the heat being generated to spread around the room more successfully, and draught-proofing your doors could also stop cold air from seeping into your cozy living room or bedroom. You could also look into house window tinting to trap heat in your home. The point is that you don’t have to rely entirely on central heating to keep you warm in your household; using clever tips and tricks to keep out the cold and keep in any heat is a much smarter, cheaper and environmentally conscious way of staying cozy in your home. People survived before central heating, so there are other ways to stay warm.

Fix your bathroom.

When it comes to a peaceful home, you want to get your bathroom just right. This may just be a place to stay clean for some, but it could be your tranquil little retreat if you design it correctly. It doesn’t take a lot of money to replace those old tiles with sparkling clean, modern and enticing new ones. You want to actually feel excited about taking a long soak in the bath rather than dreading the old, dingy, dirty tiles in your bathroom; giving the floor a makeover might be a good idea too. It’s worth taking the time to improve your bathroom.

Lighting.

You shouldn’t underestimate the effect that lighting has on your mood. Your home could entirely be transformed by the right kind of lighting in each room. As mentioned earlier, the reason that freshly painted white walls are so appealing isn’t just because they’re minimalistic and allow for new design ideas for your home but because they reflect natural light and instantly brighten any interior space.

Of course, you’ll want to think about the artificial lighting your household will require in the evenings too. Harsh, piercing lights might be ruining your mellow, tranquil vibe, so you should be opting for soft lighting with yellowish hues for living rooms, bedrooms and other places of relaxing. The right kind of lighting can warm your mood and create a peaceful environment. Bright, white light should be reserved for working environments; perhaps your study or the worktop in your kitchen.

The garden.

Landscaping is one of the final things you could consider when trying to create a more welcoming home for you and your family. The exterior of your house is just as important as the interior. The front of the house gives either a positive or a negative first impression as you’re pulling up to the driveway after a long day, but even the back garden can play a big part in creating a relaxing and pretty home. Landscaping this outdoor space needs to first involve ridding your garden of overgrown weeds, dying plants and perhaps even old trees. Much like decluttering your house, which I suggested earlier on, this will create an open space and a refreshing environment in which to surround yourself.

After tidying up the garden, you can start thinking about landscaping in terms of sprucing the place up. You might want to plant new flower beds which boast vibrant colors or a brand new tree. The goal is to create an outdoor space in which you’ll want to relax either on your own or with your family. The garden is part of your home too, and you want it to feel just as tranquil and chilled out as your property’s interior. You could fill this outdoor area with creature comforts, such as cushioned chairs, a dining table for barbecues and perhaps even aesthetic flourishes such as a fountain or a mini pond for some fish.