Create a Cozier Home with 3 Quick Fixes
Are you looking to improve your home? Here are three quick fixes to create a cozier home through lighting, scent, and a few of your favorite things.
Lighting
When you walk into a room that is bright and sunny, your mood lifts. Conversely, a darkened room can be soothing. The lighting in your home matters. Open your blinds or shades to let the sunlight in your home, unless you are trying to beat the heat by keeping your curtains drawn.
Overhead lights can brighten a room, yet they can be harsh. Turn off the ceiling light and use lamps to create a subtle lighting effect.
Is there a room that bugs you? Try changing out the lighting fixture. Now, I know they can be expensive, but you don’t need to spend a great deal of money on lighting fixtures. I like to shop around at local lighting stores and write down the name and manufacturer of the ceiling light I am interested in buying. Then, I comparison shop online to find the best deal. I’ve had great luck finding deals on Build.com.
Scents
Smells can be calming or irritating. Place an essential oils diffuser filled with water and a few drops of lavender and lemon oil and notice how the mood of the room elevates. Now, leave some old fish in the trash can for a few days and watch the mood decline. (You really don’t want to do that, but you get the idea.)
Essential oils are the easiest way to keep a room odor-happy. You could always use fresh flowers, but be sure to change the water daily to prevent the yucky smell that comes from bacteria forming in the water and around the stems. Another way to brighten the aroma in your home is to plant flowers around your windows or screened doors that give off a scent. I love planting ultra violet petunias. Their scent gently flows through the screens of my open windows in the early evenings.
Favorite Things
In this day and age of home renovation tv shows, most of my neighbors aspire to live in that perfect HGTV dream home. Here is the problem, though, you don’t want your house to look and feel sterile. Those shows provide suggestions, not templates, for homes. To fight against creating a home that looks just like everyone else’s, you want to add something of yourself to each room whether it is designer approved or not. You see, ultimately, this is your home, and you should have at least one of your favorite things in each room. At least!
It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you. In my living room, I have the phone from my long gone Grandma’s house. It’s the phone she would use to call me, and I find great comfort in seeing it every day.
Make sure each room of your house has something of you in it to uplift your mood. My daughters are much older now, but I still have the pottery chicken and angel they made me in elementary school proudly displayed in my china cabinet. I think it’s a chicken and an angel…
Make your home more positive without using a lot of money. Through the use of lighting, scents and a few of your favorite things, you can add comfort to the place you call home.
I’d love to hear what you do to make your home cozier! Could you please send me a comment below? ?
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- Next week, we’ll talk about the zen of stand up paddle boarding! I hope you will find your way back to The Happy Bishop to read the post.
