Home has always been where the heart is, a place to escape daily stresses, filled where possible with the people and things we love. This we know. What is a revelation, however, is just what impact that sanctuary has on our happiness and wellbeing.
Enter, the GoodHome Report – a recent study into the link between our homes and our happiness commissioned by Kingfisher, B&Q's parent company, and the Happiness Research Institute. The findings – gathered from over 13,000 people across Europe, as well as experts in the fields of psychology, social science, city planning and architecture – well, they may just surprise you.
Let’s talk numbers
To really understand why creating a happy home matters, it is worth looking at some stats first. First up, the report finds that if we were to divide up our overall happiness into percentages, our homes account for 15% of our total. Yes, that’s more important than general health and fitness (14%), our salaries (6%) or our career choices (3%). See? Kind of a big deal.
Happy home, happy life
What is cheery, is that 73% of people who are happy with their home are also happy in life. But as only three in four of the Briton’s surveyed feel happy with their homes, we think some pointers might just help. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t macro choices such as home ownership, how many people you share with or whether you’ve chosen country versus city dwelling that tip the scales of happiness. It is, in fact, the micro decisions that make all the difference.
1. House proud
So here’s a stat that, for want of a better phrase, floored us. Pride accounts for 44% of home happiness. And why? Because where we live is such a reflection of who we are as people. “Our home spaces are a collection of our lives and who we are, and where we’ve been,” says Lindsay Graham, Head of Psychology of Space at The Centre for the Built Environment at Berkeley University. So how exactly do we foster pride in our own homes? Easy – share the love. The more we invite friends, family and neighbours into our homes, the more we too love and connect with our homes. And if they compliment your mean skills, well that doesn’t hurt either.
2. Personalise
Which leads us nicely into personalisation. As pride in general is so linked to our own personal achievements, it makes sense that personalising and completing pride-inducing home improvements ourselves will boost happiness too. The importance of making a space your own may seem obvious, but often when you're sharing or renting, it can feel like less of a priority. There are hundreds of ways to make a space feel like only yours, even if painting or large-scale decorating is out of the question. From framing your favourite photographs to choosing colourful cushions, lamp shades, throws and rugs of your own, these small touches can make a big impact on home happiness.
3. Think big
When it comes to your abode, size matters. Interestingly, however, the GoodHome Report found that it doesn’t necessarily matter if your home is large in square footage, more that it feels large. In fact, feeling spacious ranked as three times more important than a home’s actual size. So what’s the take away here? It’s all about rethinking the layout and rearranging our homes to cleverly create a sense of more space. That might mean well-disguised storage solutions (all hail storage cubes) or adding castors to the feet of coffee tables and armchairs to make your layout easily adaptable when entertaining.
4. Go green
One message we took from this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show? The potential mental and physical health benefits that spending time in, and interacting with nature has to offer. Even if your current home doesn’t boast a garden or balcony, bringing plants and flowers inside has never been easier. Our favourite happy home hack is to have nature in unexpected places, from gloriously green ferns on bathroom shelves to large potted palms either side of your comfiest armchair.
The GoodHome Report was commissioned by Kingfisher and B&Q in partnership with the Happiness Research Institute.
If you want to know more about the GoodHome Report and the connection between our homes and our happiness, then check out this talk from Meik Wiking, who co-authored the GoodHome Report and wrote best-seller 'The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well'.
