Our home is our safe corner of the world and our sanctuary. The environment we wake up to every morning sets the tone for that entire day and has a profound impact on our mood, productivity, and overall quality of life. It’s essential to live in a comfortable and well-organized house, but our home should be more than functional. It should also be inspirational, align with our lifestyle, boost focus and creativity, and nurture healthy habits. Thus, if you’re seeking to slow down your life or just increase your well-being, designing a slow home is the cornerstone of the process.
How Can A Slow Home Impact Your Life
The way we feel at home plays a huge role in our well-being. If there’s an area of your life where you can start your slow life journey, that’s definitely your house. Simple steps can make a huge difference – declutter, simplify, rearrange, refresh. Practical and immediate changes in the space where you spend most of your time will give you a deep sense of satisfaction and new fuel to further simplify other areas of your life.
Some people choose to furnish and decorate with fashionable, accessible, or easy-to-find items, because of a lack of time or financial resources. Or they simply choose expensive objects from the cover of an interior design magazine, that will make an impression on their guests and look good in their Instagram feed. It is not right or wrong, but this is not what a slow home is all about.
Your home decorating should be intentional regarding the purchasing decisions you make. Putting more thought into the process and taking more time to find that perfect item for each corner of your home will not only lead to more sustainable buying habits but will also create beautiful energy and flow throughout your entire living space.
There are plenty of ways in which you can transform your house into a slow home without big investments or complete redecorations. Simply letting go of things and making room for hobbies and priorities will create a better space for you to live intentionally and unwind. But let’s see exactly how.
How To Create A Slow Home That You’ll Love Every Day
1. Stick to what you love, need, or what brings you utter happiness
A slow home means a clutter-free house, where you surround yourself with beautiful, useful, and meaningful stuff.
In our homes, some things make our lives easier and more comfortable, some things make our free time enjoyable, and others have a special meaning to us – gifts from dear ones, family heirlooms, or travel mementos. The rest can go.
You don’t have to become a minimalist to turn your house into a slow home. But knowing when to let go of things and take on a more mindful approach to buying new ones will translate into more time and more space for what matters most to you. A clutter-free house is known to enhance mental clarity, creativity, and inspiration, improve focus and productivity, and promote positive habits and routines. Know your priorities and intentionally create room for them.
In my opinion, life’s too short to waste time cleaning the dust on things that we no longer use or mean nothing to us anymore. Make sure you surround yourself with beautiful objects that represent who you are now and your current lifestyle.
Maybe it’s about an antique piece from a flea market that comes with a lovely story, a jewelry box your mother gave to you on a special occasion, an artwork from a designer you admire, or a precious tableware set that makes every dinner a celebration.
2. Think sustainable. Choose smart
A slow home is designed with eco-consciousness in mind. Sustainability in interior design can mean everything from energy-efficient systems and water conservation solutions to responsibly sourced, non-toxic materials for finishes, as well as furniture and accessories.
While an energy-efficient heating or cooling system might be more difficult to install in an existing house, there are dozens of other ways to adopt a more sustainable approach for your home. LED lighting, programmable thermostats, Energy Star appliances, low-flow faucets, toilets, and showerheads to minimize water usage, low-emission paints and finishes, and recycled or upcycled furniture are all ideas worth exploring for turning your house into a slow home.
Whether we talk about furniture, fabrics, or accessories, try choosing brands with sustainable practices, that show transparency with the manufacturing process and origin of materials.
A sustainable home design considers the adaptability and flexibility of interior spaces to accommodate the changing needs and preferences of its inhabitants over time. You might want to consider modular furniture, flexible layouts, and multipurpose spaces that can easily be reconfigured and adapted to different uses and functions.
3. Keep it simple and well-organized
A slow home starts with an intuitive flow and plenty of functionality, so try to focus on practically organizing your space, with everything useful within reach and all things unnecessary removed. Pay attention to your and your family’s needs and start there. A slow home should be easy to maintain and allow you to do your daily tasks and activities effortlessly.
For a clutter-free home, storage spaces are essential. Large wardrobes and floor-to-ceiling open shelves with storage baskets and containers score high for aesthetics and practicality. Hidden storage in coffee tables, benches, and ottomans is also great for storing magazines, remotes, and phone chargers and maintaining that tidy look. Trays can also be useful for grouping small items such as keys, pens, sticky notes, candles, etc.
Tip: Use the 2:8 storage principle. This means you can reduce the visual clutter from your space by storing 80% of your things behind closed doors and only leaving 20% of stuff within sight.
Another helpful tip might be to organize your dressing either by color or by type of clothing, but I also think sorting by outfit is a good idea so that you save time and make it easier to find anything when in a hurry.
4. Rely on neutrals, but make it yours
While interior design trends can serve as great inspiration, they change every one or two years, and trying to keep up might get both expensive and irrelevant to you. Instead, use them as inspiration and try to adapt them to your personal aesthetic.
Most slow home tips recommend having muted tones and neutral colors that create a sense of relaxation and tranquility. Whites, grays, beige, olive, ochre, and different earthy tones will give your home a warm, nature-inspired look. Vibrant colors are to be used as accents, through fabrics and decorative objects.
However, your home is about you and if you love colors, no one can stop you from painting that wall in your living room teal. After all, your home must be an extension or rather a reflection of your personality. Just make sure you don’t overdo it, as too many colors can result in a visually crowded space, they can be tiring for the eyes and trigger a lack of focus. When in doubt, you can always turn to the basic principles in color psychology about what colors go best in each room and area of your home.
Tip: Don’t forget to add that one mandatory black item in each room. It will highlight the other colors, allow your eye to settle, and ground the space.
5. Bring nature’s charm indoors
Know that feeling when you are in the middle of nature and experience a pure state of peace and bliss? Try to replicate this protective environment in your own home by paying more attention to the choices you make: use as much natural light as you can (large windows help a lot, as well as thin curtains in light colors), go for natural materials such as wood, stone, linen and rattan, organic shapes and live plants.
6. Make it easy to slow down with hygge
This Danish concept refers to creating a cozy environment at home for you to unwind and live fully in the present moment. When designing a slow home, make it easy for you to slow down and get into that state of relaxation, regardless of the external factors.
To be able to create an instant `hygge-ish` atmosphere any time you want, make sure you place accent lighting in the main spaces of your home, arrange a basket with fluffy blankets next to your sofa, create an open shelf for boardgames in your living room, always have a stack of scented candles and your favorite books close by. Needless to say, a wood-burning fireplace or ceramic stove will make this perfect atmosphere even more ideal.
To learn more about hygge, head to this article about some of the most prominent slow living philosophies from around the world.
7. Decorate around your hobbies
Love traveling? Your dearest souvenirs gathered from around the world deserve a special spot in a central area of your home, scattered on open shelves or anywhere you can see them. Display a world map on the wall, pin every country you’ve been to with one color and the ones you plan to visit with a different one.
Love reading? Create a focal point out of your bookcase – paint it in a contrasting color, organize books in creative ways – by topic, size, or matching covers – and combine them with a few minimalist decor items and a color splash.
Love cooking? Make sure you have all your kitchen tools within easy reach and try to keep only good-quality pots, pans, and kitchenware. Remove any plastic from your kitchen and add some pots with aromatic plants.
You can also hang a little corkboard where you can pin your family’s favorite dishes and desserts and keep your meal planner within sight. Encourage your family to contribute with meal ideas now and then and pin them on this board. Creating an inspiring corner with recipes and cooking books and displaying labeled jars with dry foods and spices are both practical and pretty ideas for a slow kitchen.
8. Create a Quiet Reading Nook
For all the book lovers out there – you should have a space intentionally created for your wonderful hobby. Books have this unique way to get your mind off the daily tasks and pause your infinite flow of thoughts. When you also have a quiet and intimate space where you can nestle and read undisturbed, it is easier to disconnect and stay away from distractions.
I prefer reading a book by the window, where I’m able to feel the proximity of nature in any weather, admire the views, and soak in natural light, but you can improvise this reading nook wherever you feel safe and happy.
Use throw pillows, accent lighting, and green plants, and maybe have some headphones at hand, to be able to separate from background noise. The good news is you can also use this corner to think, meditate, journal or simply immerse in a state of gratitude.
9. Turn a wall into a photo gallery
Why fill your walls with expensive artwork when you can be the artist yourself?
Have you ever thought of creating a collage with the best moments in your life caught on camera, mixed with drawings from when your children were little, or DIY painting projects that remind you of quality time spent outdoors?
It can be a self-made wall herbarium, made of leaves and wildflowers collected during an energizing forest walk, or an artwork made of shells, evoking a romantic beach stroll at dawn. These handmade reminders will give you the satisfaction of one-of-a-kind wall art that adds unique character to your home.
10. Add character with DIY
DIY interior design projects can create a special bond with your home and the objects in it. And it doesn’t involve some special skills, just some spare time, goodwill, and watching a few tutorials.
Painting or reconditioning old furniture or decor items such as a coffee table, a cupboard, a chair, or an old mirror frame can prove a therapeutic practice and it can also give you a deep sense of satisfaction. Through these DIY projects, you become the author of your surroundings, which comes with a different kind of satisfaction and self-awareness.
When you invest time and put your soul into the process of reconditioning and making things by hand, chances are you will get attached to them and use those objects for way more time, which is such a beautiful sustainable practice.
Otherwise, if you’re not into this kind of thing or you just don’t have the time to do it, I suggest you invest in high-quality pieces that will stand the test of time and transcend trends, rather than constantly buying new items every new season.
Conclusion
The most important aspect when you design a slow home is that your space has to reflect who you are, what you love, and what you want to prioritize in a certain period of your life.
A slow home encourages healthy habits and quality time spent with your loved ones. It is a space that can easily be adjusted in time to meet your changing routines and interests. A space that makes you feel safe, comfortable, and serene and encourages you to slow down.
Investing more thought, time, and energy into the things that surround you every day will surely pay off. Allow the right items to find you to design a meaningful and inspirational environment, rather than recreating some look from an interior design magazine that does not resonate with your lifestyle and priorities.
We shape our homes and then, our homes shape us.
Winston Churchill
As Winston Churchill said, ”we shape our homes and then, our homes shape us”. So if you’re looking for a slow-paced life, one great way to start is with a home that nurtures this slow living mindset and lifestyle. A slow home that is.
