How to design your home for connection
It’s no coincidence that my therapy practice, Grow, is often described as “warm,” “comfortable,” and “not like a therapy practice.” This is the exact feeling I set out to cultivate when I imagined opening up a private practice for mental health in 2012. A space that felt like someone’s private living room, where they could sit with a cup of coffee or tea and feel comfortable opening up was the exact description I’d had in mind when I began to picture the space. It’s no surprise that I carry this similar warmth and welcome into my home as well. My home, and my office are an extension of myself, who I am, what I value and the space I want to create for others whether they’re sitting in my office, or my family room.
Our homes are sanctuaries of meaning. They can hold the meaning of memory with family as photographs adorn walls. They can hold the meaning of vitality as people and air move through the home. And home can hold the meaning of relationships that exist within, of value you bring into your life, of what you want people to feel when they arrive, when they stay and when they leave. When you think about your home, what does it mean to you? What do you want it to represent? But more importantly, why? Curating a home is much different than curating a house and the difference is in the feeling. We’ve all walked into someone’s home only to leave having felt unwelcome or unmoved. And we’ve all had just the opposite as well, as there've been times where there was such a sense of comfort and invitation in the space that you could’ve easily stayed longer.
Curating a home is much different than curating a house and the difference is in the feeling.
One of the most beautiful things about design outside of the ability to be personable and unique is design’s emotional intent. When planned and purposeful, design can carry you into an array of emotion you didn’t know you were looking for, especially when it comes to our homes. Sometimes this happens by chance, but most of the time it’s the aesthetic of you that pulls the essence of your home altogether.
When we think about what draws us to home decor, Instagram photos or an idyllic space plan, we’re often moved by what we see and the function or design element within but we’re driven and attracted by how that space, color, texture, or piece of art or decor makes us feel. Home can be the place that feels the most magnificent to you. It can be the place that brings you warmth, comfort, peace and belonging. It can be the place where you identify love not just by the people in the home but by feeling your home has cultivated.
Aesthetic and essence, the way something makes you feel by engaging all of your senses, and your personal values, what you want your home to represent (and how) can work together to harmonize and become an extension of yourself and your purpose.
It takes insight, intent and some self-discovery to cultivate the sense of what you want your home and rooms within to represent. Think about the words you might use to describe you and your style. Examine your values and ask yourself how your home reflects the essence of who you are. Think about the way you want people to feel in your home. What rooms do you envision them feeling this way in? You can be as vast and general as you want or break down your home by the rooms within it to gather a sense of the elements. For instance, are there rooms in your home you’d like people to gather in and have meaningful conversation? This can happen anywhere but how does the space you’re imagining invite the sense of comfort and security needed to become vulnerable and encouraging?
Think about the relationships in your life that are important to you and bring them into your home. How do you place importance on the people you love when you’re together in your abode? If what you envision speaks to a value you have, then visualize how you could potentially deepen the experience to strengthen the value. Answer the question, why? For instance, food is one of our universal languages of love and gathering. Is the space where food is served or offered in your home one where there’s an extension of love? Do you want it to be? How does that space invite sharing and passing of dishes and stories? Maybe this looks like a long table that seats many. Or maybe it’s the smell of coffee being brewed near two mugs at a coffee station in the corner of your kitchen. It doesn’t matter the size of the space, it’s what you want to use it to do.
Design helps us extend ourselves outward and onto our homes as a canvas.
There might be a space in your home that invites conversation naturally curated by an eclectic piece of art that tells a story. You might use music to set the tone and lighting for ambiance. Even smells evoke emotion. Color, texture, decor, smell, sound and how those elements come together create an essence above and beyond each of those individual elements that describe more than a room’s function but the feeling it carries as well. Texture and the sense of touch can break up lines and also evoke warmth in temperature and comfort in fabric. Think about what a cable-knit throw does to a leather sofa? Now think about how you envision the leather couch and blanket being used? What do you see there? Is it where the kids sit and play a board game on the coffee table? Where do you sit to read while wrapped in the knit with a cup of coffee in your hands? Is it where your husband plays his acoustic guitar? Is it a creative space, a family space? What is the feeling?
Decor elements evoke style and artistry and they can also hold a memory, a meaning and a function as well. Too much or too little of a decor or home element can be an indication of volume and sound with or without music actually playing. We see color everywhere and while it speaks to our sense of sight, light or dark, color can be a language of emotion as well. Cooling, calming blues, vibrant, clean and crisp whites. Even the right shade of green hue can make you feel tranquil, as though you’re in a spa.
Design helps us extend ourselves outward and onto our homes as a canvas. We feel, long to feel and/or long to share the emotions within ourselves with our space and with others as well. We also long to connect over our feelings, our friendships and our families. Whether that connection is simply alone with a cup of coffee, feeling grounded or cozy on the couch, or with anyone else, we can bring together elements of design, our values and the intention of our space all by using the framework of who we are and what we want to feel, together.
