Everyone wants their home to feel like it is their space. They want it to feel like it is something personal and special to them. Everyone wants their home to feel…well, homey. A place you like to hang out in, entertain in, relax in. A place you curl up on your sofa and settle in for a movie, a good book, or a few spins at Intertops mobile casino.
Now, for many people, getting your home to feel like your home is the easy part. For most people, if they live somewhere then they will naturally feel like that place is their home. It is the place they eat, sleep, and live in and there isn’t another place quite like it.
Yet, many times, people can end up feeling like their house has become claustrophobic. They can feel like there is something not quite right with their house. This can lead to a negative feeling towards their home, and possibly stress them out.
And in today’s day and age, more stress is not something we need. If anything, stress is in quite a surplus nowadays with all the lockdowns and worries about the pandemic.
Yet, this is not how we are supposed to feel about our quiet abodes. Home is supposed to feel like a place you can truly relax in. There is an old saying that says a person’s home is their castle.
Castle’s are supposed to be luxurious! Sometimes our apartments or houses, especially if they are small, can feel less than magnificent. So, what are some great ways we can make our home feel like our own personal palace?
Keep it Clean
The first and most simple step in making your house or apartment feel luxurious is just to simply keep it clean! A dirty living space has a tremendous effect on our mental attitude, and will absolutely make you feel uncomfortable in your own home.
So, what are some tips for keeping the house clean and free of junk? Well, the first tip is to be consistent with cleaning. Whenever you make a mess, make sure to clean it up right away. This will prevent obvious messes such as sticky patches from dried juice or soda.
This also means you are going to want to do a full clean of your house often. Most people call this “spring cleaning” but I think it should really be done more often than just every spring. Perhaps you won’t need to if you are a clean person, or if you live alone, but the more people you have in your house, the more often you will need to clean it.
The second tip is to do general cleaning much more often too. At best, you should be sweeping, mopping, and cleaning up your living spaces at least once a week. This will keep your floors clean, and not feel disgusting when you walk on them.
Finally, you are going to want to turn your attention to the kitchen. The kitchen is perhaps the single biggest source of messes in the house. This is simply because it is inevitable that you will make some kind of a mess when cooking, and there is not much you can do to prevent that.
So, what can you do? Well, the first biggest thing is to clean up immediately after you make some kind of mess in the kitchen! Did sauce splatter on the wall while you were making spaghetti? Clean it up! That mess will eventually pile up, and the grime will be terrible for you.
Next, you are going to want to keep the dishes clean. If your sink is full, it can actually do a surprising amount to making you feel like your home is very cluttered. So, you should keep on top of those dishes.
Make sure you clean the dishes often. You want to always have enough room in your sink to comfortably wash your hands. So long as you can wash your hands in comfort, it means you have been keeping up with the dishes at a consistent and healthy pace.
Now, if dirty dishes start getting piled onto the counter next to the sink, then you know you have really messed up. You are going to want to get on top of that as quickly as you can. Clean counters will go a long way to help a clean conscience.
The final place you are going to want to pay special attention to is the bathroom. The bathroom is probably the second dirtiest room in your house after the kitchen. This is, of course, in terms of dirtiness, not sanitation.
Most of the time, private bathrooms won’t be too incredibly dirty unless you really neglect them. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t get incredibly unsanitary very quickly.
A bathroom is, after all, a place where you get rid of many waste products. Not only in the toilet, but also in the shower, and even the garbage. The bathroom garbage probably has a lot of biohazardous waste that isn’t usually thrown out in the kitchen trash.
So, one big tip to keeping the bathroom sanitary is to always close the lid of the toilet before you flush! Just like how a mask prevents the spread of Corona by blocking little droplets of water, the toilet lid stops little droplets of water from spraying out into the bathroom.
These droplets can carry disease, and if you don’t clean them properly can cause the bathroom to stink, or make people sick. So, best to keep that porcelain thrown squeaky clean both for your sake, and your guest’s!
The final point about the bathroom is to keep the shower clean! The shower is supposed to feel like a place where you can go to get clean. If the shower is dirty, it is going to leave you feeling dirty and impure.
Therefore, you are going to want to clean the bathtub and shower regularly. Make sure there isn’t any dirt or grime at the bottom, and try to clean out mold that can grow in the grout lines. It will keep you clean, and your shower will look spotless!
Furniture
Furniture is a big part of what goes into giving the character and charm of our homes. Whether you go for really modern furniture or classic wooden furniture, it goes a long way into making your home feel homey.
So, what are some ways we can use furniture to make our house wonderfully ours? Well, the first thing to consider is what kind of furniture you want your house to have.
For instance, if you go for a very modern style to your dining room table, but then get very classic looking chairs, it probably won’t end up matching. This is actually something to think about when decorating your house!
Human beings like things to be symmetrical and matching. We like things to look and feel like they fit together. Especially so if they are going to be in our living space.
So, if you have a piece, or perhaps many pieces, of furniture that don’t look or feel like they belong with the rest of your furniture, it can bother you mentally. Even if you don’t realize it, it can actually make you a bit uncomfortable.
Think about it this way, imagine all the people that you have seen on the internet complain about images of something ever so slightly messed up so it doesn’t fit. Perhaps you are even one of those people.
Now imagine that there was something like that in your home. It would no doubt bother you! And this is my point. We like things to feel like they fit! We want our surroundings to be continuous and flow smoothly.
When things stick out like sore thumbs, it bothers us. So you are going to want to keep this in mind when decorating. Try to get things that go together, or even match. It will go a long way to making you feel more comfortable at home.
It also simply feels like it is more expensive and luxurious! When things are a matching set, it can feel like they cost more because it doesn’t seem like they were bought here and there along the way.
Now, it doesn’t really matter whether they were expensive or not. You don’t need to be rich to live happily. It just simply means that we don’t want our surroundings to make us feel poor or cheap.
The second piece of furniture advice I have for you is to decorate with usable furniture! What do I mean by usable furniture? Well, I’m talking about something that has a use to it other than sitting or putting stuff on.
A great example of this would be a piano. Pianos are a great piece of decoration or furniture to have around the home. Not only can you put pictures or other things on top of them, but they also make music!
Even if you don’t play the piano yourself, you will probably have family members or guests come over that can. The piano is a popular instrument after all. So, it can be great fun to have the option for someone to play if they want to.
Also, you could even get yourself to learn to play it if you want to! Or perhaps a child of yours. Having an instrument of some kind around the house is great. It gives the option for someone in your house to learn to play, and that is a beautiful thing.
Decoration
It is very important that you decorate your house in the manner that you like. This is a huge part of what makes our houses ours. The way a home is decorated is part of what makes your house unique as opposed to someone else’s house
So, you are going to want to think about what kind of things look nice to you. And then, you can decorate tastefully around that!
Remember though, subtlety is key in this situation. You are going to want to keep the decoration to a reasonable level. If you add too much decoration to your house, it can end up just feeling cluttered.
And then, you would be right back to the same problem that you started with. Your house might look nice with all that decoration, but if it makes you feel stressed or trapped, then it is pointless.
A great way to alleviate feelings of stress or being squashed or trapped is actually by getting house plants. This might sound a bit counterintuitive. Why would adding more things make the house feel less claustrophobic?
The secret is what you are adding, not that you are adding something! House plants are like a little piece of nature brought into your home. They are also a nice splash of color. These two things combine can remind you of the outside, and make your home feel less artificial.
And that is a big part of what makes a space feel claustrophobic or trapping. If it feels really artificial, and like nothing from nature can get it, it can feel trapping. This is because it feels almost like you are underground.
Humans were never meant to be underground! Being underground terrifies us. The idea of being trapped in a stony tomb is bone-chilling. So, keeping some of the surfaces inside your home green can help you feel less like you are in a cave, and more like a nice forest.
Both of those things can feel trapping, but one of them is substantially more free feeling. Besides, a lot more people go into forests for fun than caves. Some do, but humans are weird compared to nature.
One final point about decoration is that you should never let someone else tell you how you should decorate your own home! If someone tells you that you should do something to decorate that you don’t like, then don’t do it!
Your home is your home! It is your own personal space. So, who cares if that colorful pool table and minibar aren’t classic, if you like it, go for it! The sky is really the limit here. So long as your surroundings make you happy, then you are doing it right.
