What makes a home?

Home is the centre of life. It’s the place where you feel at ease, where you ‘belong’ and where you can create different moods that reflect your own tastes. And this can be an apartment, a flat, a studio or a house. It is all about the home you create.

The place where you live has to accommodate a wide variety of activities. These include sleeping, cooking, washing, relaxing and these days also working. Looking at an office, a school, or a workshop, they are typically defined by a limited range of functions. Unlike your home.

 

So, when you move into a new place the easiest is to look at books, magazines, brochures, pinterest and other platforms on how to decorate it. And that is all good and well and a great start. But something these platforms cannot tell you, is how you want to live. Before you decide on all these extras – the tables, chairs, floor lamps, rugs, even the colours on your walls – it is pretty vital to discover what your own preferences and tastes are. How do you want to live in this space?

House to home

Many people feel they are not creative enough or don’t have enough confidence to put their own style on the interior or even feel exposed if they try to do something different to the norm. Therefore many people just go with styles and ideas straight from magazines or shops without thinking that this might not really fit their lifestyle, enhance their own lives, tell who they – the owners – really are.

But, when you think about how much time you spend at home – and the past year more than normal – it is imperative to invest and fashion your home in a way that means something to you, in a way that it works for you. In the end you are the one living in this house, not someone else. Your home is a vehicle for expressiveness.

And always remember effective interiors have a positive unambiguous character that is lively and lets your personality come through. Walking into your house you want a sense of it being inhabited by real people, that it feels like a real home.

Discover what you really like:

• Make a list of houses, spaces, shops, restaurants or cafes that have appealed to you in the past.
• Write down the reasons how these places made you feel, their style, their ambience, the colours they used, the decor and even the smell if that was something you can remember and made an impact. Write down what specifically did you like about them.
• Really get down to analysing why these places were meaningful to you and made you feel the way you did. Maybe it was something to do with space or light or colour, or a combination of these elements? Maybe the materials they used for soft furnishings or the type of furniture they used?
• By separating these elements, taking them away from the environment where you first saw them, and then using them in your own decor will help to enrich your own home.

The best is that there are no objective standards in design and decoration. What someone might find uplifting and peaceful might be spartan and empty for another person. Someone might love all kinds of knick-knacks which might be clutter to someone else.

 

 

In the end a sense of place, a home, is not really possible to design, except through a combination of so many factors which then generates a specific atmosphere that you call home, where you can be you.

Enjoy.