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How does your home affect your mood, mindset and life in general? This question fascinates me to no end. Yet, literature on the subject of environmental psychology is sparse.
Most interior design literature focuses on finding the right mix between color and decoration, where to place objects and what to do to make your home look good. But, what about your home’s heartbeat? What about the way it makes you FEEL? Isn’t this more important than an expensive rug or a trendy chair?
Have we all but lost our connection to place? Or are we moving closer and closer to a holistic design strategy? These are questions that Winifred Gallagher grapples with in her book, House Thinking: A Room by Room Look At How We Live.
There is an overriding emphasis on making our homes look good rather than focusing on how they make us feel. She muses that perhaps, as a culture, our focus is on the wrong thing.
Despite insistent messages that a house or apartment just like the ones in the catalogs and cable shows is the portal to the good life, feeling at home is not a matter of costly renovations, crib sheets, or some decorator’s formula. Rather, it is about living spaces that support the way you actually live, which might only involve rearranging your furniture, and that complement who you really are…
Photo from bodieandfou.com
It’s not the style of sofa that matters but the way you feel when you sit on it. It’s not the art you put on your walls but the meaning behind it. It’s not the tile you put in your bathroom but the way it feels on the soles of your feet when you tread across it to do something as mundane as brush your teeth. When you know what feels good, it’s easy to have a home that makes your heart sing.
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Yes, yes, yes! I love this! Our house has never ever ever felt like home to me, but I think I have been going about it all wrong. Thank you for the book suggestion. I think it’s just what I need!
Fantastic! I love it that this spoke to you.
I agree that there are not nearly enough books on this topic. _House Thinking_ is still my favorite book in this space. Some other books I have found and enjoyed are
_The Architecture of Happiness_ by Alain de Botton: Not about the home, but it does an excellent job talking about what makes places feel right.
_Public Places and Private Spaces: The Psychology of work, Play, and Living Environments_ by Albert Mehrabian: A good overview of environmental psychology.
_Living In Style Without Losing Your Mind_ by Marco Pasanella: A bit more on the “how things look” side of things, but has some discussion of why somethings look nice and feel good.
_Home: A short history_ of an idea by Witold Rybczynski: Another book that is not particularly about design, but gives a good overview of the history of “hominess”.
_The Power of Place: How our surroundings shape our thoughts, emotions, and actions_ by Winifred Gallagher: Not about the home at all, but some interesting environmental psychology.
_Peeking Through the Keyhole: The Evolution of North American Homes_ by Avi Friedman and David Krawitz: Not much about design in particular, but one of the few books I have read that discuss how modern homes are actually used (e.g., it talks about things like televisions and children).
Let me know if you have any other suggestions of your own for me!
I love it! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I am going to look into all of these! I find this subject ENDLESSLY fascinating.