After years of being a loyal reader, I was thrilled to give Apartment Therapy a home tour. Are you kidding me? They are THE online destination I go to first for every home improvement and decorative decision I make! For my feature, I partnered with Dyson to showcase how important purified air is to our health and abode. And I've got 5 tips for all you Apartment Therapy fans for how to create a therapeutic home. Are you moving, relocating to a new city or just bought a place? Then you’ll want to read this because home is where mental health starts!
So This is my fabulous feature on ApartmentTherapy.com and I'm so gosh darn proud of it!!!! Mom, are you reading this????
This was a whole day shoot, and it was lovely in every way aside from the fact that I was getting over a bad cold, which as you may hear, made my voice nasally. I worked through it though because it was an important day for me :)
For this project, I partnered with Dyson and their incredible collection of Air Purifiers, of which I own all 3 styles. Throughout the video shoot (here) you can see them within my home circulating clean air. I leave them in auto mode so that I don't have to think about it but each one comes with a remote that magnetizes to the top in case you want to customize the settings. During these crazy covid times, I've found my Dyson Air Purifiers to be absolutely necessary especially since I suffer from bad allergies and have a dog. I love Frida to death, but let's face it, the pet dander is there.
Let me know if anything caught your eye from the ApartmentTherapy.com feature. I got a lot of lot requests through my social media posts from the day of the shoot to share the outfit that I was wearing, which was an amazing find from WKND NATION and you can score it HERE! My earrings are from the instagram shop @mignonnegavigan. They're basically angel wings for your ears ;)
As promised these are my tips for making your home feel like a serene respite from the craziness of our busy world...
5 Tips for Designing a Therapeutic Home:
1. The way you design your home should remind you of being on vacation.
A real estate agent once told me that your house shouldn't just be a financial investment. You should think about it as a vacation you really want to go on. Maybe even integrate design elements, inspiration, furniture and arrangements of hotel rooms, bathrooms and casual sitting areas you've visited while traveling. If they made you feel relaxed and at ease, there's something to that interior design that goes beyond the fresh set of perfectly folded fluffy white towels, dont ya think? I always take photos of environments that put me at ease and then try and emulate something about the design in my home. It could be as simple as furniture placement, texture and colors used. Give it some thought, create an album on your iphone to save your snapshots to and keep an eye open for what makes you feel calm. The funny thing is that it could be the opposite of what stylistically you think you like.
2. Clutter causes chaos, and where I find it most is in the kitchen.
So I regulary purge my kitchen of things I don't need and haven't been used in a long time. I find that it makes for a better functioning space that encourages me to cook more. It's great to have a lot of cookwear but not if you have so much stuff that you don't know where to start and don't even have enough counter space to set it all out. Or what about that one specific cooking gadget that was supposed to cut down on time that you're not really cutting down on because you're still looking for it in all your cabinets? Can you relate? I'd rather spend that extra time using my hands and enjoying the cooking process. It's much more therapeutic.
3. Don't marry yourself to one interior design style. Flirt with a lot!
Some people will entirely commit to one kind of esthetic and then find that their space feels like something is still missing. Usually what it's missing is personality and warmth that comes from developing your own personal style versus a pre-packaged one that we see at home design stores. I love eclectically designed apartments and homes because you can really FEEL the vibes of the person or family that lives there. It's OK to stray from contemporary to include a hint of country or shabby chic. Right now I'm loving modern bathrooms that have old rustic armoires used as vanities. It screams character! But it also reminds you how beautiful it is to blend old and new. Allow yourself to play! Part of having a therapeutic home is injecting yourself and the things you love into it. Your house is not a gallery space, it's where you regroup and recharge for every day!
4. No matter how many catalogs you see it in, DO NOT put a desk in the bedroom you sleep in.
If you must, put it in a guest room where you don't sleep! That's where mine lives ;) When someone stays over, just clear out your stuff and let them use it as a makeup vanity. Your desk is where you work and go into hyper focus mode channeling all your ambitions and oftentimes a lot of aggressive energy that makes you want to conquer the world. As much as I'm for that, that kind of energy does NOT belong in your personal bedroom. Where you sleep should be calming and liberate you from the stressors of life, your concerns and all the stimuli that endlessly ping your brain. While I do allow my iPhone to rest on my nightstand, work is never allowed to enter my sanctuary of rest. I highly recommend thinking about how darn important your bedroom is to your mental health. Factor that into the colors you choose, the kinds of pillows you display, the quality of your sheets and even what kind of plant-life you choose to co-exist with. Two of my favorite things in my bedroom are my Light Cycle Morph light from Dyson which emulates natural light and has a motion sensor, and my Hatch Restore Sound Machine which is a gentle riser (a.k.a. the most brilliant alarm clock LIKE EVER!). Both have literally changed the game for me by helping me wind down faster and--no lies--extending my sleep!
5. Lastly, give yourself space to move! The less furniture, the better!
Invest in pieces you actually want to and will lounge on. You don't need 5 accent chairs that no one is even allfowed to sit on because it's too nice. What's the freaking point of that? I recommend creating space that allows for different paths of navigation that aren't crowded. If you can dance, do yoga and play with your dog in the middle of your living room then you've succeeded! Obstruction of space is the Destruction of your sanity. Read that again and say it out loud.
Thank you for visiting me here at Mizzfit.com and for taking the time to check out my ApartmentTherapy.com feature! Your support has carried me through so many years of hard work building my small business and finding new ways to connect with you through uselful content.