Turn Your Home into a Sanctuary with These Tips

The conventional definition of a “sanctuary” is a place of safety and refuge – a place to which one might run to avoid pain, discomfort and pressure. More commonly, people use “sanctuary” to denote a place where they feel entirely at peace.

The two definitions aren’t mutually exclusive. To turn your home into a sanctuary, you want to create a safe and peaceful space. You want your home to be a counterpoint to the madness of the outside world; that way, when you come home after a long day at work, you can kick your feet up and feel safe. And you want to optimize the space for relaxation.

To do that, it’s important to remember this guiding principle: people live through their senses. Sight, sound, smell and touch play critical roles in your overall feeling of safety and comfort at home. In this guide, let’s go through a few tips for creating a home sanctuary by focusing on these cardinal senses.

Increase Your Home’s Natural Light

Sight is a crucial factor in the feeling of comfort and safety. Think about the times you’ve walked into a dingy, dim home and how it made you feel. (Let’s just say, there’s a reason why haunted houses in movies are always depicted as dark).

The first step in turning your home into a sanctuary is to increase the natural light. Replace your out-dated windows with GoldenVinyl Triple Glaze windows to allow more sunlight into your household without sacrificing energy efficiency. For even more abundant natural light, select window larger window styles, like bay windows or floor-to-ceiling picture windows.

Then, with your bright new windows installed, choose bright colours in your décor to match. Lighter colours bounce the natural light, giving an even more luminous feeling to the room. Also, be sure to de-clutter your spaces for a roomier feeling.

Embrace Aromatherapy

Smell is an often-overlooked sense, but it plays a significant role in overall wellbeing and comfort. The smell of cooking, for instance, is great when you’re cooking, but it becomes an irritant when left to linger in the air and trap itself in the cloth furnishings.

Luckily, there are a couple of simple ways to balance the aroma in your home. Firstly, choose operable windows that create a cross-ventilating breeze to air out any unwanted smells; this may require you to schedule a window installation or window replacement, but it’s worth it. Secondly, embrace aromatherapy: invest in a diffuser and some essential oils to fill your home with pleasing, relaxing smells.

Create Quiet Spaces

It’s essential to have distinct spaces in the home. Yes, the living room should be raucous and fun, but do you have an opposite equivalent: a quiet, Zen space you can go to when the family activity gets too hectic?

If not, consider cordoning off a room in the home, and designating it “the Quiet Room.” Decorate it minimally and keep a few meditative objects on hand: a yoga mat, a meditation pillow, candles and music.

Prioritize Comfort in Your Furnishings

Too often, homeowners prioritize aesthetics in their furnishings. It’s all well and good to have beautiful paintings to look at, but you don’t need to transfer that same aesthetics-first mindset to, say, your couch.

First and foremost, any furnishing that your body comes into contact with – couches, chairs, flooring, beds, etc. – should be optimized for comfort. Aesthetics should come second. If you’re suffering through stiff chairs, uninviting couches and chic, uncomfortable beds, ditch them.

By recognizing how you sensually interact with your home and making shrewd changes to your home, you can easily turn your house into a sanctuary.