Your home does not need to appear staged for a House Beautiful photo shoot right now. There will be no unexpected pop overs from neighbors or clients.

No critics are wondering why the flower vase is being used as a pencil holder, craft projects are scattered on the kitchen table, why your new uniform is ‘athleisure’, or if your socks match.

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Orchestrate, design, decorate your surroundings for your lifestyle, not a magazine. Recent circumstances allow wonderful opportunity to explore and reconfigure your dwelling elements, focussing on what works for you, and enhance your experience indoors. If it is a change of scenery you desire, it is at your convenience right now, without having to leave home.

Consider tactile items, like changing accent pillows, everyday dishes & tea towels, adding more plants & natural elements, opening window coverings normally closed, re arranging art, inspire a sense of a new environment altogether .

Focus on experience as a whole, engaging your senses, include textures, sound, scents, colour, furnishings, light. Reconfigure furniture, declutter, or add items of value that make you feel good. Simple additions can make a huge difference, especially in every day items and often occupied rooms. You look at your bathmat every day, take advantage of the place you are most often barefoot, choose a soft tactile one that mimics the feeling of fresh grass, creating a morning ritual that is a grounding experience.

Dishes, another every day item can be a wonderful tactile experience. Consider purchasing handmade mugs from a local potter. Created from clay, they are connective to the earth, and the maker. You might gift several to friends and family who you are unable to see in person. You can each share a cup of tea on zoom, FaceTime or web chats with your similar mugs. I love these heart mugs from The Pottery Cupboard.

I have a clients who change their art collection per season, storing pieces in between the seasons. This is a wonderful way to transition from seasons and introduce renewal in your home.

To invoke as sense of soothing, apply calming colours/ shapes, nature elements in transitional spaces leading to bedrooms.

The colour lavender induces relaxation similar to the flower. Winter paintings, treasured art we have collected, and family photos are displayed in our hallway. These provide a lovely peaceful experience.

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Repainting walls in a fresh creamy ivory will reflect light, offering a feeling of airiness and open space.

Science suggests we have amazingly powerful response to elements in our dwellings.( Click here for further reading.)

You can create influential indoor experience for positive behaviour, improved health, productivity, sleep, communication, engagement, nutrition, etc. An interview with architect Barbara Stewart in Psychology of Interior Design describes these kind of design elements in depth. ( Its well worth the read. click here )

Stewart says it’s no surprise many people want wood floors, because they ‘replicate the forest floor.’

She mentions paying attention to how we will move in the space, “meander as thou on a path in nature’….’ if a zoologist designed human habitat, it would’ reinforce natural patterns and reduce stressors.”

Friends, I hope you are able to “Meander as thou on a path in nature” in your space, feeling positive energy all around. Be well, be safe.

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~Photo ~Seattle Glass Museum~ and outdoor garden.

~ Paintings are available for purchase, the studio is open for business with e transfer payments, shipping, free local delivery/ drop off. With an inventory of 70 paintings in the studio, and several more at the gallery, like any business, it is required we sell existing art before I create more. Thou the brush has stilled, I have not, focusing on building/ creating collector relationships and creating ideas on what is next for my career. Thanks so much for your letters and positive response on the work & posts.