Happier at home

Simple steps that help make a house feel more of a home.

Seven secrets to making your home your haven

Ultimately we want our homes to be a place of comfort and personality

Homeliness can be hard to define as its physical expression varies according to personal taste – it’s as much about atmosphere as it is interior design. But a happy and functioning home is a goal well worth pursuing – it provides a private retreat from the world, a setting in which to explore our creativity and a place to welcome and enjoy the company of others. Here are seven ways to encourage the kind of haven we want.

1 Don’t just declutter

Several years ago Marie Kondo’s bestseller The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing set off a global wave of people tipping the contents of their cupboards onto the floor, asking if each item gave sparks of joy and thanking old socks for their acts of service. Modern living seems to involve a constant flow of things into our homes and the only way to keep even remotely on top of things is to perpetually sort and eliminate stuff in equal measure. Whether you adopt the KonMari method or a less extreme approach, clearing the clutter makes your home look bigger, reduces mess and makes cleaning easier to achieve. But while decluttering is crucial, extreme minimalism is not practical – or even that desirable – for most of us. Getting rid of almost everything and living according to strict minimalist ideals is not any healthier or any better to aspire to than never getting rid of anything, says Rachel Hoffman, author of Unf*ck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess. “Compulsive decluttering and compulsive hoarding are opposite sides of the same coin; they both result in extreme behaviour that dictates how you interact with the stuff around you.” To function in life we all need a certain amount of stuff. Gardening, entertaining, engaging in sport or trying almost any kind of creative activity starts with assembling the necessary clobber together. But we’re better off with three pairs of jeans we like wearing, rather than seven pairs we’re so-so about. And most of us won’t use a juicer or a pie maker. If tossing things is an excuse for buying yet more stuff then constant decluttering is not going to be great for either our finances or the wellbeing of the planet. Reducing our total possessions is a worthy goal for most of us – even better is buying fewer things in the first place.

2

Engage with possessions Sometimes we deny the importance of possessions or feel embarrassed about our enthusiasm for them because we don’t want to appear materialistic. Studies show that people with materialistic attitudes tend to be less happy and we know that the desire for possessions can further undermine happiness. But as Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author on happiness points out, the line between possessions and experience isn’t simple to draw. For instance, a camera is a possession that helps keep happy memories vivid. Also, many wonderful experiences require, or are enhanced, by possessions. Camping is more enjoyable with a great tent. Throwing a party is more fun with wonderful decorations. Meanwhile a dog is a possession, an experience and a relationship.

Rubin suggests that cultivating our possessions is not a simple matter of organisation, elimination or accumulation, but a matter of engagement. She suggests that we rid our homes of objects that don’t matter in order to make room for the things that do. In her book Happier at Home Rubin documents a number of ways she consciously cultivates more enjoyment from the things in her family’s apartment, including creating photo galleries and curating collections of favourite things. Ultimately we want our homes to be a place of comfort and personality, ampleness and possibility – not a series of empty rooms.

3

Make your peace with the housekeeping cycle Does cleaning the house make you feel angry or filled with despair? You’re not alone, according to Hoffman. One of the toughest concepts to wrap our heads around is that by its very nature, cleaning is a never-ending cycle. You’re never done – and that’s probably the most aggravating thing about it, she says. “If you’re looking at cleaning and housekeeping as an activity with an ultimate finish line, it’s always going to result in a big F for failure in your mind.”

The point of figuring out a system of cleaning that works for you isn’t to end the cycle but to identify which parts of the cycle you can control and how to work with them in a way that results in a clean, comfortable home with the least amount of stress on your part, says Hoffman. The shorter the cycle for any particular task, the less time overall it will take to do it, and the more pleasant your home environment will be in the meantime. Consider, for instance, the impact of doing the dishes several times a day compared to only once a week. When you do household tasks more often, you’ll be less angry about them overall because you will spend relatively less time doing each chore. Rather than feeling frustration at the repetitive nature of housework, or viewing it as an infuriating cycle without an end, Hoffman suggests thinking of it as a sequence with a daily or weekly rhythm. Every day is a new opportunity to try again.

4

Abandon perfectionist thinking Perfectionist attitudes have you running on a mental treadmill chasing that elusive moment when you manage to get everything just right. Perfectionism provides convenient excuses to not try things. From housework: “If I can’t do it right, why bother doing it at all?” To hospitality: “If the house isn’t immaculate and the meal cooked to perfection I can’t possibly invite people over.” And irrational or catastrophic thinking: “If my house isn’t spotless, I’ll die of embarrassment.”

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If you’re setting unattainable goals for yourself at home, or not accepting anything less than a perfect result, you’re not being fair on yourself. “Try not to get overwhelmed making your home look like carefully staged pictures of rooms that actual people never use”, says Hoffman. “Having a clean home doesn’t make you a better person, it just makes you a person with a clean home.”

While decluttering is crucial, extreme minimalism is not practical – or even that desirable

5 Foster connections

In 2016 a Harvard Study of Adult Development tracking the lives of hundreds of people since 1938 confirmed what we intuitively know to be true – a key factor determining long-term health and wellbeing is the strength of our relationships with family, friends and spouses.

In Happier at Home Rubin observes that our partner or family’s happiness can matter so much to us it is hard for us to be happy when they are not. The same applies, perhaps to a lesser extent, to flatmates.

Another quirk of happiness is that while you can’t make someone be happy, and no one else can make you happy, happy people tend to make other people happy.

Simple daily habits can go a long way to fostering warmer relationships with the people around us. Vague and unspecific goals are hard to action, but with the help of concrete, manageable resolutions Rubin suggests it is possible to change everyday habits. It starts with knowing yourself and understanding what approach might work for you and your unique household.

Research suggests that kissing boosts feelings of intimacy, eases stress and encourages bonding and connectedness between couples. In Happier at

Home, Rubin resolves to make a habit of kissing her husband every morning and every night. She soon found that by “acting more loving, I made myself feel loving – and at the same time, made Jamie feel more loved.”

Later Rubin suggests to her family that they resolve to give warm greetings and farewells to each other. Rubin’s hope is that the practice might provide them with a simple way of showing more attention and affection for one another. She writes, “… the more we did it, the more it became a habit. As a consequence, each day several times, we had moments of real connection among all members of our family.”

Other connecting habits to consider might be turning mobile phones or the television off and sharing the evening meal around a table, encouraging everyday courtesies such as saying please and thank you, or instituting a zero tolerance of teasing.

6 Cultivate hygge

This quintessentially Danish word comes from a sixteenth-century Norwegian term hugga, meaning “to comfort” or “to console”. It’s related to the English word “hug” but is closer in meaning to “cozy”. In 2016 more than 10 British books were published on the topic and it was included in the Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year shortlist. So what is all the hype about? Hygge is described as a feeling but also something that has meaning in itself, not something you do as a means to becoming a better person. It’s to do with slowing down, candlelight, relaxation, indulgence, and an attitude of gratitude. It’s about simple pleasures such as bread you baked yourself or the smell of a Christmas tree.

The concept of hygge is not dissimilar to gezellig, which is core to Dutch culture and just as difficult to translate into English. A gezellig room is typically warm, safe and comfortable – everything that is enjoyably familiar or nostalgic. A gezellig atmosphere can be relaxed but also gregarious and filled with laughter. It might equally be a moment of togetherness and shared understanding, where we enjoy a sense of connection and belonging.

Whether it goes under the tag of hygge, gezellig, mindfulness or being in the moment, there’s a growing recognition of the value of being present to simple, authentic everyday moments.

7 Now is now

“Each time of life has its own kind of love,” wrote Tolstoy. In the busyness or tedium of home life it is easy to let significant moments slip by unrecognised and unremembered. Every stage of life has its unique challenges, and chances are you’ll look back on this time with a pang. As Rubin puts it: “The days are long but the years are short.”

One of the best ways to be happy is to make others happy, so be ready to celebrate the daily triumphs of those around you. Light candles at dinner time and put on music while doing the dishes. Live as though these are the good old days.