By Glenda Wise
I know I’ve written on this topic a few times, but the past couple of weeks I have stumbled upon various articles about making a house your home, so I felt that maybe that was a sign for me to write about it again.
Let’s start with the basic elements of an appealing home:
• Comfort
• Well-designed seating that encourages conversation
• Color harmony
• Adequate lighting that also influences your mood
• Beautiful and meaningful things to admire
• Overall sense of easiness
Making guests and yourself feel comfortable in your home is one of the most important things you will do. You can have a stunningly beautiful home, but if it feels as if you can’t just sit back and relax, there is a problem.
Arranging the seating to encourage conversation aids in helping people feel comfortable. You don’t want your seating spread so far apart that you can’t have a normal, indoor voice conversation. There are so many great options out there now without having to purchase a lot of furniture. I’m a big fan of the floor pillows designed as seating. This screams, “Hey, let’s get comfy and have a relaxing conversation.”
It is proven colors affect our mood. I love all the warm greys and whites being used today. They look modern, without having that modern feel. I also love all white, but be careful because this can often feel cold. You will need to warm up the white color scheme with warm wood tones and a few color accents here and there.
Lighting that is too harsh can cause you to be on edge and not relax. On the other hand, lighting that is too dim does not necessarily invoke conversation either.
You all know I am a big fan of placing meaningful things in our homes. This to me is the icing on the cake. Without these meaningful things, well, your house is just a house that anyone could move in.
Combining all of these elements will give your home an overall sense of easiness. Look at the magnificent things Joanna Gaines does. All of the homes she designs look beautiful all the while having a sense of easiness about them. You just feel like you could walk into any of her homes and stay awhile.
How you choose to put these things together is your choice and unique to you. From the type of furniture and accessories, use of color to unexpected objects that give a home its character is all up to you to decide. This is your style. There are no set rules anymore (thankfully). Style is determined by the way you and your family live. Your style is the sum total of a home’s many parts arranged to precisely tell a distinctive story about you.
Oh, and I just want to finish up with a bit of advice. About a month or so ago I saw a recipe for an environmentally friendly weed killer that consisted of vinegar, Epsom Salt and Dawn. One weekend I carefully mixed the concoction just as they directions stated and I even went to Ron’s and bought a sprayer, then proceeded to spend most of the afternoon carefully spraying around flowerbeds and the fencerow. Let me tell you something, that potion is absolutely, without a doubt environmentally friendly because my weeds have never been so healthy! Those weeds are thriving, so unless you enjoy pulling weeds by hand I would suggest staying away from this mixture.