Light, Color, & Nature In Your Home

Interior design and decor tips to help elevate your mental wellness within your living space.

As mentioned in our first post, incorporating elements into your home such as color and nature, play an important role in your mental health and wellness. In this post, we will provide a few suggestions and examples about incorporating each element into your home in different ways.

Light

Exposure to light in your home can help improve your mood, increase productivity, and improve your sense of well-being. There are various ways to bring light into your home!

Natural Light

Letting in natural light into your home is one of the easiest and inexpensive ways to brighten up your home environment. Even if you do not have many windows or large windows, by opening up your curtains, blinds or pulling up your shutters, you can significantly increase the amount of light in your home.

Lamps & Lighting

If you do not get sufficient amount of natural light in your home, there are other ways to increase light into different areas of your home. Add floor lamps to rooms that receive the least light. Floor lamps can generate a significant amount of light and brighten an entire room or a large area of a room. You can buy light boxes or daylight simulation light for your home. These products actually mimic outdoor light! With these products, you can also gradually increase the amount of light in your home.

Home Improvements

Making small improvements in your home can also brighten up your home without needing to add additional lighting. You can brighten up the colors in your walls with a new coat of paint. Change your dark colored walls to cooler and lighter colors. You can also apply this to the furniture and decor in your home. If most of the furniture in your home is dark, switch it out some for lighter furniture. For example, if your dining table and dining chairs are made of dark walnut wood, replace the dark colored chairs with a lighter wood color, such as white oak. If your living room sofa is navy blue and your living room rug is dark gray, opt for a lighter color sofa or rug. If you have a brown and black bookshelf, add light colored items for decor. If you floor is a dark wood tone, incorporate lighter colored furniture to balance out the darkness of floor.

Color

Color has been found to play a role in affecting a person's mood, emotions, behavior, and their mental health and wellness. It also has been found to affect the way people feel about a space. Before incorporating color into your home, you must first conduct a bit of research about colors and how they affect you. Try to focus on the colors that you feel improve and enhance your well-being. Once you have completed your research, you can begin to brainstorm the different ways to bring color into your home.

Paint the Walls

One of the most common ways to incorporate color into your home is by painting your walls. Once you have identified the colors that work best to improve and enhance your well-being, go to a paint shop and get some paint samples! You do not need to paint every single wall in your home! Focus on the rooms that you spend most of your time in and add your preferred colors.

There are also other ways to add color into your home without needing to paint your walls.

Art + Decor + Accessories

If you prefer not to paint your walls, then fill in the color gaps of your home by adding colorful art, decor, or home accessories. Listen, you do not need to be an art connoisseur or spend a ridiculous amount of many to incorporate art in your home. Remember, art is subjective, therefore, you can add different things that you consider to be art. For example, posters, photographs, paintings, prints, drawings, decals, sculptures, 3D installations, fabric pieces, and many other items. Any colorful art piece you incorporate into your home, can help add an instant pop of color! This can also be applied to decorative items and accessories. If you are not quite interested in art, you can add a pop of color using the following items: serving trays, dinnerware, cookware, pillows, throw blankets, flower vases, coffee table books, curtains, appliances, and many other items.

Nature

Exposure to nature contributes to overall physical and mental wellness. Particularly, being in nature helps reduce stress, decreases muscle tension, and improve emotional regulation. If you live in an urban area, you may have limited opportunities to interact with nature. Therefore, we want to suggest different ways to bring nature into your home to support your physical and mental wellness. Below are the different ways you can incorporate nature into your home.

Plants

Adding plants is the most common way to blend the outdoor world with your interior space. An important feature about plants is the versatility that they offer in terms of scale. You can use small plants to large floor plants to cover different areas in your home. You can add a small plant to the following: a coffee table, an office desk, a kitchen counter, an open shelf, and even on your nightstand. If you prefer larger plants, find an open space or a corner in your home that needs to be filled. Large plants are great for rooms in your home that have large empty spaces.

Flowers

If you are not a plant person or you just don't want the responsibility of caring for a plant, you can add flowers as a short-term solution. Flowers require less care, time, and maintenance! Just as plants, incorporating flowers are a great way to add life into your space. Flowers also offer the flexibility of modifying the look of a space at any given time.

Faux Plants + Flowers

If you absolutely do not want real plants or flowers in your home, you can definitely still bring that touch of nature into your living space by incorporating faux greenery. There is nothing wrong with adding fake plants and flowers into your home! You can even buy candles, oils and diffusers that can emit floral or nature scents. Therefore, this option is still as effective as having actual plants and flowers in your home.

Stones + Rocks

Displaying stones or rocks is also another unique way to bring elements of nature into your home. You can display shells that you have collected from visiting different beaches. You can display jars of sand that you have collected from different beaches to show the differences in their texture and color. You can display rocks or stones you found that caught your attention! In my case, I have a small collection of volcanic rocks from different volcanoes my husband and I have hiked over the years. You can also use your stones and rocks to make decorative arrangements in your home.

Final Thoughts

We hope these suggestions help you find different ways to incorporate light, color, and nature into your home. We also hope that you feel more comfortable and confident in creating a living space that supports and enhances your mental health and wellness.

-Maria Gutierrez & Elizabeth Rios