Creating a Home That Reflects You
Each new year offers fresh starts and abundant opportunities to live our best lives. January is the time to decide if we need to double down on the routines and rituals that have brought us joy in the past or perhaps like a computer, we need to make some updates that will make us more fulfilled and productive moving forward. It’s also the time a lot of people make resolutions. We resolve to do or not to do specific things. It is fairly simple to do—we pronounce our decision and forge ahead and then sometime around February or March, the energy is often gone.
This year, rather than make some resolutions, we hope you will be inspired to live a more intentional life. There is a difference in making a resolution and living intentionally. Being intentional is less of an obligation with the possibility of failure and more about making decisions in our own favor every day. It requires a certain amount of introspection and awareness about who we are and what our values are and then deciding to be deliberate about taking actions that align with what we recognize to be true. What makes us happy and what are we doing to keep being happy?
As we have said often, home is where happiness begins for most of us. It is where we feel safe and loved and where we love others. That does not always mean four actual walls and a yard, but it does mean that home is where we are in love with ourselves and others. How does who we are and who we love influence our home?
We offer the idea that the mood we create in our home should reflect our inner selves and that our home can impact how we think about ourselves. The spaces we create express intent and indicate what is important to us. When our home mirrors our soul, there is contentment, and our happiness meter rises. When we are in a home that makes us feel good, our senses send subliminal messages that support our mental, physical, and spiritual health.
The difference between how you would describe your own soul or spirit and the spirit or mood of your home can be the reason you feel less contented and happy than you want to feel. Does what most of us refer to as our “happy place” make you feel happy? That gap can be a starting point for living a more intentional life.
So how would you describe yourself? Elegant and sophisticated, playful and unexpected, modern and refined, simple and serene, or maybe you are classic and comfortable? If you immediately know which words describe you, you are off to a good start. Does the atmosphere in your home reflect who you are? If you are thinking more than one of those descriptions feels like you, that is not unusual. You can have different moods for different parts of your life but taking the time to think about who you are and how that might affect your decision making at home is the beginning of being intentional. All the layers of home design build on that basic block of who you are.
The first of the year is the perfect time to take stock of what we love about our lives and what we wish for in the future. What gets repeated? What gets discarded? What can we do to be more intentional about being our best selves? What can we do to make our home, the starting point of every day, a place that encourages authentic, intentional living?
We heard a quote recently from Amy Astley, the editor of Architectural Digest, a magazine that considers itself a global design authority. They photograph homes of the internationally famous and she said that it is not the details of the home that the magazine tries to capture, but the spirit of a home. The spirit of a home is what makes a home special. Over the coming months, we are going to share unique and beautiful homes on the Mississippi Coast—homes that have spirit. We hope to inspire you to start living your best life and to do so with intent and optimism.
Holly Harrison has been a licensed interior designer for over 35 years. Shannon Stage has spent nearly 20 years in the giftware industry. Together they own Sassy Bird Interiors in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Sassy Bird Interiors
211 Main St. Bay St. Louis
228.344.3181
www.sassybirdinteriors.com
