This is my favourite to-do home project - creating a collage of my fondest memories. I call it Wonderwall.
Now, more than ever, our homes have become the most important and over-utilized space in our day to day lives. It’s June and most of us are still working from home and will continue to do so for at least a few months more if not a year. Our children have been schooling online for the last few months, and soon with the summer holidays, they will continue to spend more time indoors until and if normalcy returns. Tempers are frayed and morale is at an all-time low.
Today I am going to address a few key concerns that we all have.
1) How do we strike the right balance between work and personal spaces?
2) Considering the whole family is together and indoors most of the time, how do we prevent our home from becoming a war zone and instead turn it into a calm sanctuary? How do we ensure that we retain our sanity, and insulate ourselves from this global atmosphere of uncertainty?
1.Striking the right balance between work and personal spaces:
Eroding boundaries between work and relaxation can give rise to exhaustion. So make sure that you do not work on your laptop from your dining table or from your couch or the patio. Instead, assign each family member a room or a section of a room and keep it separate throughout the work day. Most importantly, make sure that your family occupies these work spaces only during your work times. Treat each other’s working spaces as if they were offices or schools. Let each member create a desk space for themselves in their favourite corner. Make sure that these work stations have a good amount of natural light, sockets for electronics, and most importantly earphones. Simple touches like a vase of flowers can add a dash of colour and cheer. If you have two or more kids using the same room, separate their work spaces with a make shift curtain, a book shelf, or any other visual divider. This visual divider will give them privacy. Another great idea is to have the children’s desks facing outdoors through different windows. “In” and “out” trays or boxes will help maximise efficiency and help keep the work space neat. You can also use small kitchen jars to store small items like pens and paper clips.
Do not eat lunch or have your mid-morning coffee at your work desk. If you want your coffee fix or your kids are feeling snacky, put out some bar stools in your kitchen and use your kitchen as an office/school cafeteria. Insist on having your lunch together as a family at the dining table. It’s a good way to break the day’s monotony, to connect and recharge.
A two-in-one work station like this one is an ideal space-saving solution. It provides each kid with privacy within the same room.
2. Making your home an oasis of calm:
REFRESH AND RECYCLE: Accommodating the entire family 24/7 is not an easy task. But an easy and cost effective way to refresh your living space and also gain some added space is to rearrange your furniture. Involve your family in this project. And while you are at it, use this opportunity to declutter your home. Clearing the physical clutter in your home, also declutters the mind and opens up spaces that you never knew you had. In the process, you might find some stuff that can be efficiently recycled and repurposed. At the end of this exercise, you will be surprised at the shift in energy – in your mind as well as your home.
MAKE A WONDERWALL: This is my favourite and once again you can involve the whole family in the do-it-yourself project. Begin by painting one wall in the house, preferably a corridor wall or a staircase wall. Next identify your fondest memories. We all have special photographs on our Instagram. How about printing them out, putting them in frames (the frames don’t have to be uniform) and creating a wall collage of people and places that you love the most? Intersperse these frames with hand-painted sayings, palm prints of every family member, prized art works or curios that you bought on your travels.
BRING THE OUTDOORS IN DOORS: Natural light is an instant way to perk up any room. Maximise natural light in every room, by first dismantling your heavy curtains. Instead use only your sheer day curtains.
Incorporate plants and flowers into your living spaces. Other than adding colour and cheer to any room, plants are also proven stress busters. If you are lucky to have a balcony or a garden, use this downtime to nurture a herb garden.
Another fun way to get the outdoorsy feel is to unpack your Christmas lights and install them along your window ledge or wrap them around a shelf in any room. Soft lighting that resembles a starry night brings instant coziness to the room.
So that’s it from me! See you soon on the other side. Until then #hanginthere #takecare #staysafe
Convert your balcony into a sanctuary.
All photographs are for representational purposes only.
Pic credits: Om Sweet Home, Decor It Yourself, Better Homes And Gardens, Pinterest