Creating A Home That Feels Closer To Nature

*This is a collaborative post

Do you feel like you are sometimes stuck in a world that feels too close to the man-made? Sick of seeing the synthetic and the ugly and want to escape to nature? Well, living in the woods might prove tougher than you might like, but the solution may be right there in your own home. Here, we’re going to look at a range of tips that can help you bring your own home much closer to nature, and much happier for it, too.

Bring some life to the place

It might feel like an obvious solution, but if you want your home to feel more natural, then consider taking a little bit of nature and bringing it inside. People have been using houseplants to great effect for thousands of years. Not only do they look lovely and add some color to the place. They’re also known to have benefits when it comes to battling stress, anxiety, and even boosting self-esteem. Furthermore, some plants can improve air quality in the home and even have a purifying effect, making it easier to breathe. There are some studies to suggest that air plants even increase the oxygen count in the air which makes it easier to sleep. If you don’t feel like spending all your time looking after plants, there are low maintenance alternatives that are much easier to look after, too.

Choose materials from the natural world

For both your furniture and the fixtures of the home, consider the different natural options available on the market. We’ve all seen wooden tables, leather seats, and the like, but you can expand the natural option to the decor surrounding those options, too. The natural look is almost always more timeless, whether it comes to stone cladding over your walls, hardwood floors, wool rugs, and the like. Natural materials tend to be more eco-friendly than their synthetic cousins which have to go through costly and wasteful production processes to be made. When it comes time to replace any of the furnishings of your home, see if you’re not willing to invest in the slightly more expensive, but much more relaxing natural options.

Breathe in the natural world, too

It’s not just about how the home looks, it’s about how it feels. When it comes to the senses that are strongest at evoking a scene or a mood, then there’s no denying that our sense of smell is always going to win the day. Houseplants can help you welcome the more pleasing scents of nature into the home, but there are options that can help you switch those scents as you need, and choose some of the perennial favorites, such as lavender, lemon, vanilla, and so on. Home reed diffusers are becoming more and more popular for precisely this reason. Few scents are as long-lasting and as natural as essential oils, so if you feel your home could use the haze of the natural world, it might be worth considering.

Make natural lighting your priority

When compared to artificial light, natural light is much, much healthier for us. Every creature, including humans, are influenced by the movement of the sun in the sky, from how we sleep at night to our metabolism processes food. As such, if you don’t get enough exposure to natural light, then your body can very quickly start to feel “out of whack.” This can have real and detrimental effects on your health. As such, do what you can to maximize what natural light you get, such as using lighter window treatments to let more sun into your rooms. How your rooms use light is just as important, as brighter colors tend to be better at reflecting light, a trick that mirrors can also help with.

Spend time in the garden

You don’t always have to spend your time indoors. If you have a little piece of nature on your property, then consider growing a proper garden to serve as a beautiful retreat when you need a moment to yourself. Gardening is a hobby that’s well known to improve feelings of relaxation in your life and you don’t need a lot of space to do it. If you’re gardening in a smaller space, then you can look at walled or hanging flower beds that make good use of what vertical space you have available, for instance. Or you can simply use potted plants, instead. If you don’t have the outdoor space available, you may even be able to create a garden on your windowsill if your home gets enough access to natural light.

Create communal spaces to spend your time in

Human contact is just as important a part of a natural lifestyle as being surrounded by natural materials, smells, and light. For that reason, you should aim to make the home a little more communal where possible. For instance, if you’re looking at how to use your garden space, you can make a dining area out of it, perfect for entertaining guests and for giving you good reason to spend your days outdoors. If you have the decking or the patio space installed, then all you need is the right furniture, and a means to heat up the outdoors and to add some light. This can be the perfect place.

Make it more naturally warm

How comfortable you are in your home depends on how well it can protect you from the climate outside. This is especially true when it comes to the cold. Making your home into a winter wonderland isn’t just about cranking up the heating, however. You can make it naturally warmer by using wooden cladding that acts as extra insulation, as well as by using wool throws and rugs.

Create a natural vignette

There are elements from nature that you might find and think you would love to keep. This can include pinecones, a particularly pretty stone, or shells from the beach. There’s nothing weird about bringing it home with you. Potpourri is, effectively, a curated collection of things from the natural world in a bowl. Create your own natural vignette for the home, serving as a display on the coffee table, in the hall, or wherever it’s likely to get the most attention. Vignettes help to “set the scene” for the home, so it can be a great help in making that natural feeling throughout the home come to life. Or you can use those natural elements as accent details with other things, as well.

Give yourself a view

If you already have a window with a gorgeous view of some surrounding natural scenery then, by all means, make use of it and do what you can keep that view unblocked. If you don’t, however, then consider implementing wall art that offers some breath-taking views, as well. It doesn’t have to really be there, right outside your window, to offer you the same kind of emotional impact. Find landscape photos or paintings that evoke that sense of exploring the natural world and consider making them the focal point of the room. It doesn’t quite beat going out there and seeing it yourself, but it can help make your home feel a lot closer to it.

When it comes to creating a natural look in the home, faking it simply isn’t going to work. You’re going to need to incorporate some actual natural elements, be they natural materials, a little greenery, the right scent, or even bits of nature that you’ve brought home with you. Get it right and it can turn the home into the natural getaway you’ve been hoping for.