We all have a unique idea of what our perfect home environment feels like and what it looks like from an aesthetic perspective, yet if we forget to stay on top of managing some of the boring stuff our feeling of home is turned upside down and life starts to feel quite chaotic.
Of course, there’s a huge difference between walking into a “home” that feels like home, rather than a “house” that merely feels like your space and a lot of this comes down to the finer details such as having freshly cut flowers, cosy soft furnishings, and warm lighting. However, like the engine room of a ship, there are a number of things that need to be taken care of in order to ensure a consistent feeling of harmony within your home – as niggling concerns that are left unattended can quickly cascade into a snowball of stress.
This article looks at how to ensure a consistent feeling of “home” by taking care of some of the less glamorous ‘behind the scenes’ tasks of creating a harmonious home environment.
STAY ON TOP OF THE BILLS
Keeping up with household bills can be stressful if money is tight; particularly in winter. With this increased energy consumption comes a significant increase in your energy bill, which is why many people choose to pay in equal monthly installments to cover the average energy consumption, throughout the year, rather than face a sharp increase in winter. With regard to household bills, you want your home to feel like your castle – a sanctuary free from stress – not a situation where each time you leave past the mailbox you dread receiving a utility bill or having to deal with mounting credit card debt.
GARDENING
If you come home each day to an overgrown garden, paint peeling off the fences, and rubble in the yard – it creates a feeling of chaos and things being out of control. Agreed, you don’t need a white picket fence with begonias growing in the garden, but a garden that feels “well kept” will help you feel calm and like your life is in order.
HOT WATER
There’s nothing worse than having to face the horrors of a cold shower, particularly if it is winter, as a result of the boiler breaking down. Having a reliable water heater is essential to the consistent feeling of “home sweet home”. The two primary choices are tankless or demand type water heaters, which each have advantages and disadvantages – perhaps one of the best choices available today is an electric tankless water heater on the basis of energy and cost efficiency.
CLEAN & TIDY
Keeping your home clean and tidy sounds simple enough, but often, this can snowball out of control when left for a few days, becoming such a chaotic mess, that you don’t know where to begin. The trick here, is to either employ a cleaner that undertakes a moderately deep clean, each week, or for you to do it yourself, little and often.
NEIGHBORS
No matter how hard you try, not everyone is getting to get on with you, and some people are just plain difficult. However, if you can get on with your neighbors to the point there’s a sense of warmth and community between you, this will pay dividends on facilitating the feeling of “home” you crave.
In summary, your home is there to provide you with stability, a place of harmony and tranquility that supports you throughout the storms of your life, yet it’s important to maintain your home in order to receive the harmonious feeling you deserve.
