Healthy Living: What Designing A Healthy Home Means
Our health + wellbeing is typically something we take pride in. Each of us wants to be healthier, we want to live longer + provide a safe place for our families to live. So, without much arm twisting *wink* a healthy home should be front of mind because it’s an incredibly important topic to all of us.
Now lets compound our desire for health, longevity + safety with the cold hard facts. Because the reality is we spend on average 90% of our lives indoors — so it’s a no brainer, right? Creating a healthy home + being conscious about investing in the quality of a place we spend so much time is critical to our overall health + wellbeing.
Interestingly enough though, these kinds of conversations are still pretty taboo in mainstream media. Whether you’re flipping through a magazine or sitting down to watch the latest home makeover show on tv –– it’s not really something that’s talked about or is openly discussed.
Really boo, a healthy home isn’t only an evasive concept that many popular networks + media outlets around home turn a blind eye to, it's more like a huge can of worms that needs to be opened.
Think about it –– decisions around your mental, emotional + physical health all interconnected with every single decision you make about your home. Not gonna lie boo, it’s deeply personal (+ complex, too!)
But you see, at Elegant Simplicity, we’re no strangers when it comes to making bold statements. We’re not afraid marching to the beat of our own drum, sounding car alarms or blowing whistles :)
So, let's do this...
What is a healthy home? What does designing (or building) a healthy home actually mean? And how do you create a healthy home for the people you love?
Let's find out!
Definition Of A Healthy Home
If you do any amount of exploratory research around what a healthy home is — you’re bound to discover the handful of principles that make a home conducive to occupant health (i.e. living there):
Clean + Dry
It’s clean, reduces pest infestation + is dry to ensure it’s non-conducive for rodents.
Pest-Free
Seems like we’ve already outlined the principle of being pest-free. However, this also includes the risk of not only having pests but improperly treating them which can have devastating implications on one's physical health from residual particles.
Ventilated
It’s got a fresh air supply for improved respiratory health.
Safe + Accessible
It’s safe from potential falling + even when necessary modifications are made the home remains accessible in and outside the home.
Contaminant-Free
There’s no chemical exposure from things like lead, radon gas, asbestos particles, carbon monoxide, VOCs, or secondhand smoke.
Maintained + Affordable
Has adequate maintenance from moisture, pests, or general household work especially when necessary to ensure the home is safe.
Controlled Temperatures
It maintains safe temperature levels of the heat or cold air.
But, as we see it here at Elegant Simplicity, a healthy home isn’t just “conducive to occupant health. A healthy home isn’t just net-zero on the impact of our health — it’s a net positive.
Say, what? Yeah, your home should fill you up emotionally, mentally, physically + have a positive impact on your wellbeing.
To us: a healthy home promotes good emotional, mental, and physical health.
But the question still remains… how?
How Does Your Home Impact Your Well Being
The reality is there are actually a ton of factors that influence your health + well-being in your home. From everything we’ve listed above which mainly focuses on health as a safety aspect to mood influences + behavioral impacts, each has its own influence on the people living in your home.
Mood Influences: From color to both artificial and natural light, research reveals that how we feel, can be influenced by our home environment.
Color
Color is far beyond an aesthetic decision. In fact, the fascinating thing about color is that it’s such an incredibly powerful tool that sometimes, without even realizing it, color directly impacts our mood, our feelings + believe it or not *gasp!* it even contributes to some of our physical behaviors.
Recently, our family took a road trip + while we spent most of our time racking up a few hundred highway miles, whenever we’d stop for gas or pull off to go for a quick hike along the way, we’d ask Brooklyn to look for + point out for different colors.
Ultimately his three-year-old brain was fascinated with traffic lights. So to encourage his exploration of color +to continue the conversation we’d ask him things like what does a green light mean? What does a red light mean? And so forth…
In the same way that our brains draw conclusions that green means go + and red means stop, color has the ability to create both positive and negative energy in your home. So, if you’re trying to pick paint colors for the interior or exterior of your home — ask yourself, what mood do I want to convey? How does our family interact in the space? Are you wanting to create a calm + relaxing sanctuary or a more lively + inspirational spot.
sidenote: if you’re most people, struggling with paint color, stop stressing + book yourself a design consultation. This way we can dial in the details together!)
While there’s no one size fits all formula when it comes to color, another guideline to consider, is the overall size of your space. In general, the smaller the space the brighter the room should be and the larger the space the more room you have to explore with darker colors.
So often, when we begin discussing color, most of us immediately jump to + begin thinking about paint-color. And while paint is hugely important, it’s merely one way to introduce color in your home.
When it comes to color, at Elegant Simplicity, we’re all about timeless style that can live up to the wear + tear of everyday life. So, we tend to design a neutral backdrop + bring color in with intentionality and purpose. While we absolutely could paint an entire room a dark + saturated moody color, we also love to introduce colors in the form of furniture + other furnishings like rugs, throw blankets + accent pillows, decorative accessories, as well as artwork or even window drapery.
Light
Like color, light can set the mood of a room — hence why we often refer to it in a space as “mood lighting.” But like color, light can also create both positive + negative moods so it’s another important design element to consider. As a general thought — there are two types of lighting in each room…
Natural Light — fairly self-explanatory, natural light is the source of light available to you through the doors or windows of a home.
Having a lot of natural light is an excellent problem to have because you can utilize window drapery + window coverings to not only filter the amount of light into the room but to also control the overall mood of the space.
Natural light exudes a feeling of warmth + happiness but if not filtered adequately or in an aesthetically pleasing way it can be harsh + uncomfortable. Ugh, you know the feeling of sitting in a chair on a midsummer afternoon sweating bullets but trying to act like it doesn’t bother you *wink*
If a room has great natural light, that’s fantastic — but what if it doesn’t?
Artificial Light — a complementary source of light to what already exists in the space used with intentionality.
The last part of that definition, “used with intentionality” is really important because there are a few types of artificial lights to consider when choosing the best light for your space + a room without adequate lighting is uninviting.
Task Lighting - sheds plenty of light in a specific area without brightening up an entire room
Accent Lighting - is intended to accentuate (or act the) a focal point of your room
Ambient Lighting - is the starting point of space. It makes us the base amount of light in a room. But if used sparingly can create the subtle “mood lighting” that gives you all the feels + creates ambiance.
The truth about lighting is that most well-designed rooms have a variety of light sources, both natural light as well as multiple types of artificial lighting. However, to get the lighting right, you really need to think about the activities that are going on in a room. For instance, if you’re designing a reading nook, well then, it’s safe to bet you’ll want a task-light to prevent eye strain. But, if you’re designing a hallway on the main floor of your home where guests will see — perhaps you’ll want to layer in an accent light.
Behavioral Impacts: An organized home will encourage you to maintain it, while a cluttered home will invite you to add to it.
Well, first + foremost, having clutter doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person or parent. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about your home or how you live. It simply means you’re human. You’ve allowed life, work, + responsibilities to take over...welcome to the club.
But how do you take back control of your home?
Well, it starts by breaking bad habits + quite frankly, we all have bad habits.
Whether it’s tossing clothes in the dryer + forgetting to fold them
Putting dirty dishes in the sink instead of rinsing them off + loading the dishwasher…
Shoving things in the junk drawer (because you have no clue what else to do with it)
Naturally, when it comes to our homes, most people are discerning. And when we come face to face with areas where clutter, decision or any other form of uncertainty bottlenecks, we default to the path of least resistance. We look the other way. We turn a blind eye for weeks, months or sometimes even years without ever giving these areas of our home so much as a 2nd thought.
Yep, I’m talking about:
the counter space –– where you stack the mail.
the mudroom –– where bags are dropped + shoes are sprawled everywhere
the chair in your bedroom –– where your clothes get tossed + never put away.
So take back control, one step at a time.
Encourage or Discourage Family Time: An intentional furniture layout encourages genuine connection + conversation while an uncomfortable seating arrangement will do the opposite.
The value of feeling connected to one another cannot be understated. It affects our emotional, mental, and even physical health.
And providing you want a home that’s relaxing, where everyone has a place to be themselves and when friends or family come over they genuinely love your home — well then you need a layout that is conducive to this.
Otherwise, you're facilitating the opposite. In fact, there’s a great quote ( completely unrelated to design) that says “anything you say yes to, [means] you’re saying no to something else.” And I absolutely love it because when put in the context of home — it highlights that we should be really clear, intentional, and driven to create a home that positively impacts our health + wellbeing.
Strategies For Designing A Healthy Home
Biophilic design
As society evolved towards a more urban, and even suburban, way of living our lifestyles, our work environments + our homes disentangled from Mother Nature. Therefore, biophilic design integrates elements of the natural environment into the places we visit, work + where we live in an effort to bridge the gap. To reconnect us back with the positive impacts nature has on our health + wellbeing.
In fact, effective biophilic design in our homes creates spaces that emulate the restorative benefits nature offers us. From incorporating direct experiences of nature like plants, water, light, and other physical elements such as air to indirect experiences of things like imagery, natural materials, colors, and other elements that mimic or evoke nature.
The presence of biophilic benefits in research has shown that spaces created with biophilic elements, derived from the natural environment, lower anxiety, anger, frustration, and confusion – a haven for emotional restoration!
Be Conscientious Of Your Investment
From volitzation which is the off-gassing of typically wet materials into the air (most commonly paints, glues, etc) to abrasion which is a type of degradation where rubbing a material releases tiny harmful particles, designing a healthy home is all about being aware of the potential risks of the things you fill your home with.
Whether you’re building a home from the ground up, remodeling your kitchen or bathroom, or simply furnishing + styling, these things aren’t meant to scare you but they are real.
And bringing them up is our effort to help you to become more conscious of the implications of each + every design decision you make –– be it a new sofa you buy online or hardwood floors being installed in your home — What’s the overall impact of what you purchase on your health and well being?
Seek Out Transparency
Whether it’s advocating for or educating yourself about the ingredients used to create the things you love, seek out manufacturers, companies, and people who are willing to be as transparent as possible...
There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world we live in + in your quest to create the perfect home but list up my friend, because there’s neither no harm in asking nor any change demanded if we don’t.
Well, there you have it...everything you need to know about creating a healthy home! And don’t forget, if you’re in the preliminary planning stages of your next project, let’s chat.
P.S. If you loved this article then you’re going to really enjoy the4 Days To A More Beautiful + Functional Home.