We are in stress when there is too much happening in our head; boggling us, confusing us to bits. When we are down, it is highly likely we would like to spend much more time at home, hiding away from the world. Home, which signifies peace, harmony, warmth and love. A place truly made to take away our pain and give us strength in overcoming the problems. But just imagine – imagine that the house you have made to give you comfort is itself struggling for peace…how will it help relieving your pain? I’m not an expert on home décor – nor I’m here to tell you how to make your living abode beautiful. But with time, I have actually realized few fundamentals of life. And one of them is to ease off pain from your life by redecorating your home with such positive hues and vibes which make it a heaven for all times. A place where a mere sight to your bedroom makes your heart rush, a living room that takes away the heaviness from your heart. I have surely got few tips on how to bring peace to your home, to your life.

“Home Caring is Self-Caring!”

When I was in Pakistan, I had this huge and heavy furniture all over my place – but it wasn’t just the story of my house. Every single household I knew had this heavy and dark piece of furniture in it. It isn’t anyone’s fault. This is what the trend is. It is, fortunately, the size of our houses that allows us to clutter it with too much and too profound. It’s nice but it’s way too gaudy. If you just step back, then you may realize that this adds to your head. And trust me, we only manage this with an army of house helpers we have, who can clean and look after all this (on a side note, time to say a big Thank you to all those who help us sorting our lives).

With this much liberty at hand, we usually keep a lot of stuff at home. Which is unnecessary and simply not needed. Those tea pots that are residing in your kitchen cabinets and never used? But you don’t have the heart to simply give it away? Well, that mindset needs to change. Have a heart and start donating stuff which you are not using for ages.

1)  The first and foremost key to bringing peace to one’s life and house is decluttering.

Decluttering allows us to breath; just like it allows our mind to breath when we let go – that is meant to let go no matter how hard you try to cling to it. Our house shares our mentality. It gives you options to hide stuff it doesn’t want to get rid of. But one must realize, the house needs to breath. So next time, you venture into your storage room or give a deep look at your cabinets, start taking out stuff that you have not used in ages. Chances are, you will never use it in the future as well.

 

2) When in confusion, use pastel and earth colours at your home. They transmit a lot of positive vibes all the time. They help healing and bringing the most comforting experiences in the world.Source: theboholife_

 

3) Don’t use A LOT of bright colours especially in small rooms. And if you really have to, make sure that the size of the room is big. Even in that case, use bright colours cleverly only to disrupt the usual continuity of pastels. Too many and too loud colours takes away the soothing effect.

Source: rebeccaandgenevieve

4) Always paint your walls white – Full Stop.

White allows paintings / plants and other home decorations to stand out like no other colour. A pale brown, beige, light blue or grey coloured wall kills the very slate where you want to put the foundations of a happy, bubbly house with your pictures and stuff. Only add colours to a wall, which are meant to stand out by design and not by default. Statement walls are usually meant to be a scarce feature of a well-pronounced house.

This is a screen shot from a random home décor search page and all I see are white walls!

5) Organize your house and properly plan your problem spaces; the laundry area, the kitchen cabinets, that drawer full of cooking spoons that is opened a hundred times during a day. If you are building a new house, please ask yourself where you would like to run the laundry and where will you place the iron board. For me, iron board has to be at my arm’s length. It is used so frequently, that I can’t get into the trouble of folding it in and out almost every other day. Hence, I need a proper spot. But if your ironing routine is sorted, then you are truly blessed. In any way, always plan your storage areas. Bring boxes, organizers, get ideas from the internet but organize. For that matter Ikea has always some great ideas!

 

6) If your bedroom space is small, spread light coloured bed linen on your bed.

Source: My Home

7) Try to be minimal in terms of filling in your room. If your room has the capacity to take in 100% furniture – consume only 80%. Allow the space to play a magnificent role in making your room look big, warm and comfortably airy.

8) Of all the online best home décor I have seen, they are either a beautiful mess and a mess in its truest, deepest meaning or they are simple and minimal. Your playground must never be somewhere in the middle of these two. In fact I would only suggest to go for a beautiful messy house if you have the means to organize the mess. Otherwise, all the things will be all over. Try to start slow and build up gradually. You are not in competition with anyone and there is no race in time. Take all the sweet time you have to make something nice for you to live.

Source: Ikea

9) Use light coloured rugs (yes, I said beige) to add warmth to your living space. Coloured rugs are also welcome, but only where they are meant to make a statement – to stand out. Not to create confusion.

10) Never rush in buying furniture. Always, first look at the dimensions of your rooms and then make decision on buying a new piece of furniture. They come expensive. Plus the moving and assembly is always a tricky thing. Don’t jump into buying something really heavy and bulky. Allow your abode to breath. And this is only possible when you calmly understand the dynamics of your house. I have seen people stuffing up a little living area with the world’s most gigantic sofas. Have mercy my dear – this is truly a pain to the eyes!

11) Add Green plants (real or fake) in your room – every room. They mean life.

Source: My Home

12) Have a statement piece in your living area and bedrooms. It will always have this ability to elevate your spirits. Whenever you will look at that statement piece (could be a plant or a piece of furniture or a wall print) – it will boost your energy – always!

11) And when you are hosting dinners and luncheon at home, always plan how you will present the cutlery and plates; if the guests list is long and you need to stack up everything. Once I hosted 20 people at home and didn’t know what to do with the cutlery. Spreading it on the table unsupervised would have been a kill. So I bought this small plant holder. I use it for presenting my cutlery, when setting up a proper table is not possible.

12) Lastly, always be considerate towards people you are living with, before planning your house. I’m speaking from my own experience now. There are many things that you like on the internet – presented to you by your favourite blogger – or a piece of advice that your friend might give you on home décor. But these things fail if your house mates have other needs.  For example, I really liked this cushion that I saw on the internet. It was easy to make those pom poms. So I did it. And then, it met a horrible fate. One of my kids has this habit of pulling off the threads. Now everyday, I pick up a pile of yarn from the floor when I’m cleaning the house. What I’m trying to say over here is that there are many things, which you cannot just copy-paste. You need to improvise – a little to suit your needs. House with very young kids cannot have the same look as the one where only adults have the occupancy. Yet, a home with kids can still be a happy, bubbly and comforting place to live in. All you need is a good call on hues and storage when you are planning your home.

 

 

I really hope this piece of writing was helpful in designing your home – your world 🙂

My Home Product Sources:

Bed & Night Stand: Fantastic Furniture, Cotton Bed Linen: Bareeze, Giraffe Lamp: Ikea,  Green Table Mat: Haroon’s Pakistan, Yellow-Painting/Candle Stand: Lifeline, Rose Strand/Hanging Plant: Ikea, Candle/Red Embroidered Table Mat: Some random Chinese shop, Glass Vase: Gift, Cane Planter: Kmart, Small White Flower Plant: Myer, Gold Lamp: Gift from Bunnings, Cheeseboard: Gift, Owl: Habitania, Big Floor Plant: Aldi, Big Floor Planter Jute: TKMaxx, Black Cushion Cover: Kmart, Multi-coloured cushion cover: Some random bedding shop in Pakistan