Why your home, doesn't feel like home
When was the last time someone complimented your space?
When you come back to your home after a long day of work, deadlines, errands, and emotional energy spent, you deserve a space that is a sanctuary for relaxation, not stress. Your home and its cleanliness reflect your mind and emotional well-being. If you find yourself incredulous of the statement, then accept that you’re in the minority.
When you have the luxury of free time in your home, it should serve you in a way that energizes you towards not just who you are, but who you want to be. This can only happen when there’s harmony of function, individualism, and relaxation in your design choices.
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.”
― Edith Sitwell
Lighting
Sure, warm light is nice, lamps are chic, but nothing replaces the warm glow of a well-lit candle. There’s no excuse not to own them because they work for any home design. Victorian? candleabra. Japandi? Lantern. Minimalism? A votive. If you’re more interested in visual art similar to James Turrell, sans the six-figure price tag, these luminous abstracts are an interesting conversation piece for your home.
Fabrics
When you get into bed at night, God forbid you are touching an under-300-thread-count sheet, or worse, polyester. Your endocrine system deserves better than polyester as a lounging fabric. We found the incredible duvets, throws, and sheets from Coyuchi to be not only tasteful and high-quality but also sustainably made. It’s not easy to find a fabric company that’s reasonably priced with good fabrics and design.
Aromatherapy
Skip this, it’s your comfortable living with the lie that your space smells like absolutely nothing, and you like it that way. Everywhere has its unique smell, and you certainly will become nose blind to it so long as it isn’t a bad one. An oil burner like this gorgeous piece from Studio Wilson, made for Aesop, is a winner with your signature scent, and the solid bronze makes for a great conversation starter.
Aromatherapy may also lead you to incense, but caution, as many contain harmful PFAS, which will do more harm than good in the long run for your health. An alternative we like are room sprays on curtains, couch, or even on lampshades. Fabric is best for room sprays to last since they’ll retain the scent longer. After all, you wouldn’t just spray perfume on your floor.
The ritual…
Life is mercurial, and naturally, we look for ways to take the edge off. Rituals provide us with a healthy, tried-and-true way to unwind, prepare, and focus on the good. Your home ritual will be unique to you, and it’s in the nuances that you’ll find true joy. When deciding your ritual, a general rule of thumb is that if it reduces decision fatigue, improves sensory comfort, or invites presence, it’s a good thing.
“Rituals — repeated, meaningful routines — give the brain structure when life feels uncertain. Their predictability can calm stress, reduce mental load, and improve social interactions. You can design small, personal rituals to actively program your brain for resilience, clarity, and connection.”
Simple rituals you’ve heard of life meditation during the night or morning are a given, but the new rave is low screentime. This can be not sleeping with your phone in your room or using the phone lock brick.
Sound
Acoustics truly transform a space, for better or worse. There are sound systems tailored for large spaces, think bowers and wilkins, and others for smaller or medium spaces like Sonos. Regardless of which you choose, there’s one hard-and-fast rule: if you appreciate sound and plan to host anyone, you must own a subwoofer, and you’ll benefit from placing it in an optimal spot, which you’ll find by doing a sub crawl. Now’s never been a better time to own a Sonos system, as the new CEO has tightened things up and many of its speakers can stream lossless audio.
Your abode is a paradigm for your mental health, analogous to the way our physical health is to our spiritual health (more on that in another post). Unlike our physical appearance, it is something we can keep to ourselves, but even if we do, the reality of its stasis, intentionally kept, or neglected in its squalor, still remains.
In this age of a persistent online culture, due to remote work and the events of 2020. We believe it’s time we make our living spaces a divine place where the outside world can be put on pause. A place so wonderful that we treat it as a gift, we so desire to invite others to dwell with us, even if only for a moment.