HOME

WHAT IS A HOME?

WHAT IS THE HOME TO YOU?

WHAT SHOULD A HOME BECOME AS YOU GROW?

WHAT IS NEEDED TO BUILD, TRANSFORM, OR PROVIDE A HOME?

Home is ideally a soft place to fall. Your home has a direct connection with your emotional well-being. Your living spaces should be designed to create a safety net to catch YOU from the outside world. Our immediate instinct in times of turmoil is to go home. Make your surroundings a priority in your life and for those you love. Home is a pure extension of YOU!

HOME can assume enough power to intensify or lessen a mood. Your home is your shelter in every aspect. If your home is poorly designed, cumbersome and cluttered, it can instantly intensify anxiety and stress simply by walking thru the door. This environment suggests to your mind thoughts such as instability, depression, and dysfunction. Begin to consider and create safe spaces around your home, just as a start! Possibly a designated room for exercise, a prayer closet, or a private reading nook under a stair may be a way to escape the “noise” around you, so dream it into reality.

If you are building a new home, think about planning areas for future fun, relaxation, and tranquility. If cooking provides joy in your home, design the kitchen to accommodate preparation, cooking, engagement with others, and comfortable conversation. Maybe a home office is necessary for your world, and the design is crucial for long hours of a positive working environment. Place your desk facing a window with a view, or add glass doors into a gorgeous foyer of the home. If watching Netflix on a Friday night with the children is your happy place, enhance the media wall with a fireplace, bookshelves, skylights, large artwork or a photo alcove, and enough circulation area for furniture suitable for lounging together. Don’t forget, bringing bright light in any of these spaces is very important to positive vibes for sure! Windows, skylights, chandeliers, French doors, simply any source of light will work.

If you are just beginning this journey in an existing home….Start with purchasing one accessory of your personal style, that screams mood game changer! Then purchase a can of your favorite color paint! Textured items and special pieces of artwork are amazing mood lifters too. Let it develop one piece at a time from there. When money is an obstacle or the floor plan of the house does not permit your much-needed personal space, plant a fragrant flower garden near a bench outdoors, and near a tree would be extra special. Research it, personalize it and claim it!

Design tip: If you need the sunrise to meditate and drink your coffee, design your bedroom and breakfast area facing the east. The warmth of the sun on your face and bright light will fill the room while you start your day.

Or if you love a good sunset, including a glass of wine alone or with a loved one, design your patio or deck facing the west. Watching the sunset can be a way to relax, or it can create a romantic dinner party atmosphere too. Notice which way the breeze blows, don’t block it with construction! Strategically placing your home and its components on the site can make all the difference in the world with just a little pre-planning.

HOME can assume the role of a sense of security. Security comes in many forms emotionally, physically, and mentally. If your home is facing a busy street with many curious onlookers and noise, but you crave the quiet, design a shield with your home. Install high windows that only allow light, or possibly skylights, to achieve the light with no viewing opportunities. Protrude the garage toward the busy street with the house placed further away, as another solution. Or if your home is existing, create a sound and visual barrier with tall, thick landscaping or fencing. When noise is truly an obstacle, replace the existing door facing the noise with a solid, insulated door. Music is another great way to help shield noise, so plan to install a surround sound music system where you can play white noise when necessary.

 Maybe by chance privacy is your need, direct your living areas facing the backyard or even create an enclosed courtyard area. You can do this physically when building a new home with wings of the building itself, or with hedges in an existing home. So much of our lives are out of our control, but our dwellings don’t need to be. Let your creativity soar!

Humans have five basic senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. The organs associated with each sense send signals to the brain to help us comprehend and perceive the world around us. It’s rare that your brain makes decisions based on the information from a single sense. Your five senses work hand in hand to form a complete picture of your immediate environment. So, if as an example, protection from the outside elements produces peace for you, then build long roof overhangs, covered areas for outdoor living, stilts to elevate the house, or whatever it may be to protect you from sun, snow, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.

If protection from the outside world is your need, turn the house’s focus inward. Solace and comfort can be achieved by natural elements for most people. Fire, water, and nature are natural agents to calm a person. If you desire a fireplace by your soaking tub, including a window for flowers or plants, as an intentional environment to decompress after intense days at work, well then build it! Think spa! It doesn’t have to be grandiose or expensive; it can be private and intimate to have the same emotional effect. We have an innate tendency to retreat to our private spaces when we need spiritual, emotional, or social protection. Control your surroundings and feeling of security by your design!

Design tip: If you have an opportunity for a beautiful view, capture it! Place a strategic, low window beside your reading chair, as an example. Whether it be a mountain range, or as private as a beautiful flower you planted in your back yard, frame the view.

 HOME can assume a place of healing. Having a comfortable place to live is crucial to mental health. Sitting by a fire in your favorite oversized chair can lower your blood pressure. Crashing under your favorite blanket while feeling the breeze from your bedroom window can provide deep sleep and necessary rest. Just being surrounded by love at the dinner table and snuggling with your family watching a movie has the ability to calm your nerves and heal your soul. Therefore, pay close attention to the environment and design of these family living areas! If open space planning exudes inclusiveness and happiness to you, then eliminate walls and barriers and build high ceilings. If segmented rooms exude privacy and intimacy to you, then provide designated areas with walls, furniture, etc.

The study of nature is always a way to begin understanding how your house can heal you. If listening to a rushing stream calms your soul, place your bedroom window so you can hear it at night. A view of a gorgeous mountain range in the distance can bring a sense of beauty into the home and change the energy of the room.

Our bodies make direct contact with the materials we select in these same areas. So, if hard, clean, sleek lines are your style, incorporate materials such as metal, stone, polished concrete, and some glass. If soft, flowing lines are your style, incorporate materials such as carpeting, earthy materials, wood, or timber. Design your space for the role it needs to provide in your life.

Rejuvenation can bring you back to “life”.  Simply stated, design what it takes to provide love.

Design tip: Maybe a screened porch is a way to experience the soothing outdoors while enjoying the comforts of element protection. A soft, sitting area and possibly even a fireplace on the porch can provide many days of eating breakfast listening to birds or smelling the rain. It can also provide many nights of listening to a thunderstorm or stargazing with loved ones.

HOME can demonstrate pride and sharing. A home can provide a sense of accomplishment and a battle won!

Achieved goals are so important to oneself. For many adults, providing for their family is a feeling of success.

Some home designs demand respect and attention by the strong entry, overall scale, expense, or dominance from the public view. Some make a statement at first glance by being humble, cozy, proportional, and quaint.

Define what it means to be proud of your home, and to want to share it with loved ones or friends. If entertaining at holidays is important to you, plan your pantry, bar overflow seating, open spaces, to make these events happen with ease. Put a second oven and a counter with outlets for lots of crock pots, roasters, etc. in your pantry as an idea. It will double as storage for the appliances but would be very useful in occasional entertaining. Consider the flow of your home during these times and every day. Do you want your bedroom door opening to the foyer, or the guest bathroom directly opening into the kitchen? Really think thru the way you will move through your home. Design a quick route from your kitchen to the outdoor eating areas, without walking thru areas that can become dirty and congested. Design a dry route to the guest bathroom from your hot tub or pool, instead of thru your living room’s white carpet. Place your pantry close to your garage and mudroom, it will save you steps in unloading groceries and luggage. Install a second washer and dryer near the bedrooms for efficiency, or if you are empty nesters, go ahead and put your laundry room in the master closet! Customize, customize, customize. Make your life easier!

Homes that require a lot of maintenance can become a burden, but can also be a hobby that provides enjoyment. Think of landscaping as jewelry to an outfit, it can enhance or hinder the image. If the beauty of your flower bed view from your kitchen window is very soothing, but you are a single mom with barely enough time to match your shoes, fill them with landscaping stones for no weeding or mowing. Or, if your deck grilling area is a favorite family spot, really embrace it and define it. You can create areas on the deck with shapes of the space, softening textures, changes in levels, colors, etc. Every dream or idea is possible.

Find a way!

Design tip: Create buffers between the noisy and quiet parts of your home. Your foyer, as an example, can separate noisy teenagers late at night playing video games in the family room from someone sleeping for an early work meeting. In addition, make sure the doors to the bedrooms are indirect that will ensure visual privacy, as well as help with sound reduction. For example, try not to construct a bedroom door opening directly to a game room area.

HOME doesn’t have to be featured in a design magazine to be filled with love, security, and acceptance. Family and friends remember the time they spent with you and the way your home made them feel, not whether they ate a sandwich or filet mignon for dinner. The feeling can be created by YOU.

DESIGN INTENTIONALLY!

Just remember, there isn’t a right or a wrong design of a home. Everyone lives differently! YOUR home is YOUR castle.

Shelley Waugh, Architect       

Many thanks to guest blogger, Shelley Waugh! Please learn more about Shelley Waugh at her website. Shelley can help you design not just a house, but a home. Your home is a reflection of you, your style, and your life.

https://shelleywaugh.podia.com/embrace-your-inner...
If you want to thoroughly think thru your next home design project, this class is a perfect way to understand your wants and needs, as well as give you an insight to residential design thought processes. My class is the same cost as one of your ceiling fans, but I can save you thousands of dollars and hours of frustration in your project!“ You can use an eraser on the drafting table, or a sledge hammer on the construction site!”

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P.S. The philosophy of A House With Four Rooms is to live an Intentional Life on your own terms by doing something daily for your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Taking the time to design your personal space is important to living well. You can learn more with my book A House With Four Rooms available from Amazon and the companion workbook that's available with a link in the book. Isn't it time to design your life and home to bring you joy?