How to Make a Happy Home (E35)

Happiness for Cynics

This week, Marie and Pete discuss the 2020 Good Home Report, which shows that if you are happy with your home, you are almost certainly happy in life. In fact, our homes are more important to our overall happiness than our income or jobs. 

Transcript

M: You’re listening to the podcast happiness for cynics.

P: She’s Marie Skelton are writer and speaker, focused on change and resilience, who writes in colours and sticks post-its to the walls and makes a mean breakfast sandwich.

M: And he’s Peter Furness, a Disney loving, wine swigging best buddy. Each week we bring to you the latest news and research in the world of positive psychology, otherwise known as happiness.

P: So if you’re feeling low.

M: Or if you’re only satisfied with life but not truly happy with it.

P: Or maybe you just want more.

M: Then this is the place to be.

P: And to take us one step further on our happiness journey. Today’s episode is all about Happy Homes.

[Happy Intro Music]

P: [Laugh] So what I don’t think everybody realises is that while the music is playing, Marie and I tend to be darting around like two little five years old on the Wiggles episode pretending to do the music.

M: We dance every time, we find it to be the most annoying music we’ve ever heard and that’s probably why we picked it, really.

[Laughter]

P: The odd thing is it puts us in the right headspace

M: Yes.

P: Because when we do that, we come in and we’re really up.

M: Yes, definitely.

P: Change of physicality.

M: [Laugh] So today, Happy homes. And this is really your turf.

P: Oh! My house mates are gonna listen to this episode and go, uh huh, uh huh.

M: [Laugh]

P: I feel so sorry for my housemates sometimes what they put up with, it’s all my mother’s fault.

M: Yeah, I think my husband would probably agree. I don’t think he.. I am house proud.

P: Very.

M: Yes. Oh, very.

P: Yeah you are, your design and your style thing. Very particular.

M: Yes, so husband has to go along with that. You know, happy wife, happy life. [Laugh]

[Laughter]

M: But there is research and we’ve been reading the Happy Homes report. So that’s put out by the Happiness Research Institute.

P: It’s a fabulous document. I’m so impressed that someone’s actually going out and done the research on happy homes and what they do for us.

M: Absolutely. And it’s so important nowadays because most of us are in isolation.

P: Yeah [Laugh]

M: Or you know, if not completely isolated. We’ve just entered a period of our lives almost where we’re spending so much more time and home.

P: Mmm. And I think this is the telling thing at the moment as well is people are much more conscious of their own spaces now. So I’m finding with a lot of my clients. They’re saying, ‘oh, I have to change things around now because I’m not set up correctly for being at home so much.’

Some clients are doing seriously well because they’re in the home space, they’re putting laundry on at random hours of the day, they’re getting breaks. They’re actually doing superbly well because they’re getting out and they’re pottering in the garden and going for walks and things, whereas before they weren’t doing it.

M: Yep.

P: So for some people, it’s been a really positive change.

M: Well, if you think about that, I’m really close to the city in Sydney. But it still takes me a good hour door to door, well door to desk.

P: That is Sydney Public Transport.

[Laughter]

M: Exactly. But that’s two hours of my day I’m getting back.

P: Mm Hmm, absolutely. Yeah. So having.. the home is your happy castle, if you like, all those sorts of quotes, there’s a lot of truth in it now. And here we’ll tell you why. Because of the science.

M: Definitely. So here is the science.

P: Oh, is that me?

[Laughter]

“The home space is a treasure trove of information about who we are, who we want to be, and what makes us happy.”

That comes from Lindsey Graham who’s a psychologist and research specialist at the Psychology of Space at the Centre for the Built Environment, University of California, Berkeley.

M: That’s a mouthful isn’t it?

[Laughter]

M: Thanks, Lindsay. Great job.

P: Can we just sat University in California?

[Laughter]

P: She’s blind and she has three children.

M: [Laugh] So one of the other things that we have to mention is that the Happiness Research Institute that did the report found that happiness of our home is almost three times as important to our overall happiness as our income.

P: Oh, I’d agree with that.

M: So I think one of the great things about this report is that it looks at people who are renting. It looks that people who live in mansions and it looks at everything in between, And it doesn’t matter whether you live in that mansion and or you live in a falling apart dorm house with two other students and me down furniture. There’s still so much you can do to make your home a happy place that impacts on your levels of happiness.

P: Yes.

M: So I thought that was really interesting. So there are five core emotions Pete, that this research looks into.

P: The document talks a lot about the five core elements that come from a happy home and what that entails and they list them as:

• Pride; [44%]
• Comfort; [25%]
• Identity; [17%]
• Safety; and [10%]
• Control. [4%]

And these emotions are mental states. So by investing in our home and finding a sense of identity within it and creating a happy space, we’re catering to these five basic emotions and mental states. Pride is the big one. It apparently counts for 44% of the emotions based around a happy home and you found this one quite telling for you Marie.

M: Yeah, I did. Look if 44% of your feelings about your home are tied up in how proud you feel about your home and how happy you are with your home directly impacts your happiness level. Then, dig in to pride. Nearly half of it comes from pride. So how can you build pride in your home in order to have a happier home and a happier life is what I wanted to look into it and I just, I’ve written a post on my side about this and looked at ways that you can bring pride into your home without necessarily spending much or any money.

P: Mmm, yes. It doesn’t cost.

M: Yeah, definitely.

P: It comes back to cleaning, my big passion.

M: Well, that’s the first thing, the three cheap things that you can do is make your bed in the morning, tidy up, clean your house, and it is amazing what 2 to 3 hours of spring cleaning can do. Firstly, if you haven’t done it in a while, it can lead to more mess.

P: [Laugh]

M: Just a warning.

[Laughter]

M: But once you get through all that de cluttering or cleaning, whatever activities you’re doing, there are so many positive benefits psychologically. And that’s the whole reason that Marie Kondo’s books have sold so well and her Netflix show is doing so well, is that this stuff works.

P: And it even comes down to, the influences that we found, I think that you know the advent of the home renovation show ‘The Block’ and all these things. People enjoy that because not only do they get to pass judgement on other people’s homes, but it is this investment in the space, investment in the private space of your home and who doesn’t feel proud of having a clean house with ambient candles, lighting everything as people come over for dinner.

It’s, it’s an investment in the self. When you’re hosting a dinner party, you’re hosting friends coming over. You clean up a little bit. You make it nice. You put a little bit of flowers in a vase on the table and so forth. You grab some stuff from the outside garden and bring it inside, and it creates an ambience. That investment in the space is an investment in the self.

M: Yes, absolutely.

P: You’re taking pride in something. You’re getting pride. I find it interesting because you’re getting pride from an external source. So if you’re wanting to feel a bit, more, better about yourself, going and cleaning the house and creating a space and rearranging a bit of furniture at midnight so that it looks different and then stand there and look at it. You’ll feel a sense of achievement. It ticks that box of achievement you’ve achieved a task and then when other people walk into that space go ‘Oh, this is nice’ again that’s a positive affirmation. It’s a reaffirmation of your own, your own projection..

M: Self.

P: Yeah.

M: Well identity was one of the things there, 17% of how you feel that your home is tied up in your identity.

P: Yeah, the report talked about it being the integral part of ourselves. It represents who we are and how we would like to be perceived.

So it’s that opening the home up and it doesn’t even really have to be friends and so forth. The water reading man can walk in and say something and it can give you a sense of pride for the morning.

M: Yep and I think there is often, I’ve noticed when you’re just not feeling great about yourself or you’re going through a rough patch and you let the house slide and you also stop inviting people over.

P: Yep.

M: Not feeling house proud can be a real barrier to social connection.

P: Yeah, definitely. That’s a good point. I think it’s interesting that that could actually be a tool as well. If you’re having a low moment, get out the Dettol!

M: [Laugh]

P: Clean the bathroom and see how you feel. [Laugh] Oddly enough, maybe it works.

M: [Laugh] Maybe we just stumbled upon the key to solving happiness.

P: Throw on an apron get some yellow gloves on and make yourself feel better.

[Laughter]

P: It’s a good concept.

M: There is something nice though, about coming into the kitchen and that clean smell that you get from having used cleaning products as well. Not just wiping down the kitchen cabinet after making toast.

P: Yeah, true.

M: Well, it doesn’t even smell.

P: ..The report does talk about control as being one of the five emotions. Now this is the [it] only accounts for 4% of the emotions that they monitor. But I would actually question that. I would say it’s more, by taking control of your home environment and I think, because I am a share house person. I again, I apologise to my housemates, who are probably sitting there with their arms crossed right now.

M: [Laugh]

P: Petie rules the house.

M: [Laugh]

P: The couch will go there and the side table will go there. And if someone moves something, I’m like ‘Why is that over there?’

[Laughter]

P: So I actually do take a lot of control and find a lot of control in controlling the space in which I am in.

M: So this report was done last year before Covid. And I think that a lot of the uncertainty and anxiety that we’ve all felt this year has come from a lack of control. So it would be interesting to do this survey again. So just to give a bit of context. The research was done in Europe so I imagine it would be similar enough in Australia.

P: Yes.

M: To bring over, and predominantly Western Europe, so similar enough. But I think that if we’d done this in the survey and the research again during Covid, control might actually be more of a factor. Because we’ve had so little control over so much of our lives this year.

P: Mm, mm. Yeah, that’s what I think. It’s more than 4% for me. Safety is 10%. And I understand that as well in terms of your home being your safe space.

M: Yes, particularly for the elderly, it found. So a lot of elderly people go out to the world and do not feel safe. But their home is somewhere they come home to. They can lock the doors and feel safe in their bubble, their world, their home?  Yeah, Definitely. So what else we got, Pete?

P: Well, we’ve kind jumped around those five, five core emotions [elements]. It is worth saying that these are all interlinked, so that sense of control and safety can lead to greater pride and comfort, and they all sort of cross over and share in that sort of way.

M: Mm, Hmm.

P: I mean, that’s the guts of the report. The report also talks about whether you’re a renter or whether you’re a buyer. I think that that’s an interesting aspect because not everybody owns their own home. And one of the facts that I found interesting was, you don’t need to own your own home or own the space to actually feel that happy, safe space for you. You can do this when you’re a renter.

M: Yep, Absolutely. There’s, you might not be other paint the walls, but there’s now those great sticky things that you pull down on.

P: The 3M stickers.They have changed home decorating for ever! [Laugh]

M: So you can put stuff up on the walls and also you can use colour, pops of colour. So we said pride through achievement, you can reach pride by cleaning or re.. sorry

de-cluttering your home. But there’s also pride through re-decoration and I love this one. We’ve talked about flow before. That setting yourself the task and getting into enjoying the task of redecorating. So Pinterest is great for finding inspiration and pinning boards of things that you do and don’t like. And you can go on to Pinterest and look for orange themed bedrooms.

P: Oh! I didn’t know this.

M: Ha ha. Or Indian inspired bathrooms.

P: Oh, wow. I like this idea.

M: You know, there’s any number of things and you can pin them all to a board and get inspiration. And then nowadays, there’s not only -so I have to say, k-mart has really picked up its game in home decor.

P: Interesting. Yeah.

M: Candles. All your basic candles, pop plants, little knickknacks,

P: Clocks.

M: Clocks, [Laugh] anything. They have definitely picked up their game and you can things really quite cheaply. And then there’s places like Etsy, who are – oh Pete.

P: I don’t know Etsy. 

M: [Gasp] Etsy is where all the artistic people sell their stuff.

P: Oh.

M: Yes, And so it’s people making broaches or pillows or artwork, all kinds of stuff.

P: I just go to my Mum for that.

M: [Laugh] I think my Mum crochets.

P: Everything looks like 1950’s, but that’s ok it’s good.

M: [Laugh] But it’s also really reasonably priced. So that’s E-T-S-Y, worth checking out. But there’s a million different online shopping options, even if it’s just eBay or Amazon where you can find cheap items to make your, your project come to life.

P: Nice. I like that.

M: Yeah, so I’d say pride through achievement, so cleaning, definitely. And then there’s pride through redecorating. If you want to, even your local op shops. And on the last one, the big one.

P: [Laugh]

M: You mentioned before HD TV and all the home reno shows. The only thing I’ll say is, if you’re not an electrician, don’t do electronics.

P: [Laughter] Find help when you need it.

M: Yes.

P: There are some things it’s better off paying someone to do.

M: Yep, I mean, there are great YouTube tutorials out there, but still.

P: [Laugh] We’ve all been there staring in front of the electrical socket going ‘if I connect that red thing to the green thing am I gonna, Ooh!

M: [Laugh] Have we all been there? I was thinking maybe I could do flooring. That looks like it’s.. yeah don’t.

P: [Laugh]

M: Hire a professional, with the amount of money you put into buying all the stuff.

P: Yeah, true.

M: You’re doing a reno.

P: I get that.

M: That’s the, that’s the big one. But again, you don’t have to go full hog to find that pride in your home and pride isn’t the whole, you know story either.

P: How do you mean pride isn’t the whole story?

M: There’s the five [four] other things as well, so identity. So you could actually design all your own artwork. If that is an expression of your identity.

P: Sure, yeah. Where do we go from here?

M: I do like the paragraph on the sizes and everything.

P: [Laugh] They do bust some myths in this report about home owning on what it means, and they say that size isn’t everything. So, if you don’t have a palatial mansion, doesn’t mean you can’t take pride in the space. And I think I discovered this when I was a student and I had my tiny little two bedder house in Mountain Street in South Melbourne. And we had wicker furniture.

M: [Laugh]

P: It was disgusting. My flat mate at the time would come home and in this small space I’d managed to rearrange the wicker furniture around the television. And he’d come in and stumble over something going and go ‘oh Pete rearranged the house again.’

M: [Laugh]

P: But it was, it was that sense, there can be a real sense of achievement and ownership in small spaces. You just have to be clever and spending some time and some research actually on small spaces and how to create perceptions of space in a small room. So letting more light in,

M: Light.

P: creating, having furniture in the right ratio. Tall furniture might make a space feel more enclosed, low to the ground furniture might open it up a little bit more. All those sort of factors could be a research project and investing in yourself via your home.

M: Yes, definitely, and even light furnishings rather than dark.

P: Mmm. Which is interesting when you do look. Like watching, what is it, ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’, the new one?

M: Yes! Please.

P: The guy who does the kitchens he has everything is dark timber. He always paints the kitchens in a dark colour.

M: Yeah, but those houses in the States are huge.

P: Yeah, that’s true.

M: Compared to European and Australian nowadays.

P: And there’s actually more light I suppose.

M: A thing that I wanted to mention in the report is back to this idea of comparison. So we’ve talked about before how one of the natural, biologically driven things that we do is compare ourselves to others.

P: Yes.

M: Right. And it is so bad for your psyche.

P: Thank you social media.

M: So, so bad. And even just these home reno shows we’re watching in America as people redo an entire 20 metre by 20 metre kitchen for $10,000.

P: [Laughter]

M: It’s just not doable in our country. Who has a kitchen that big, ever!

P: [Laugh]

M: But it’s just again about being mindful of comparing yourself to others, and something that the report did find is that if you, back to your earlier point, if you’re a university student and you’re in a home that has mouldy floorboards and the kitchen’s falling apart, you could be as happy as Larry because you’re a student and everyone else is in the same kind of boat as you.

P: Yep.

M: But if you feel that your peers, the people around, your friends and people in a similar life stage as you are ahead of you. Then that can be really hard to reconcile with your happiness levels. And it it really does have a negative impact.

P: I think, I think that also it comes down to investing in what you have though as well. So it’s one thing to go to someone’s, someone else’s place and to see their situation. And if they are on a similar timeline to you, similar time frame, working similar jobs and so forth. Yes, you can compare it to yourself, but innately, I think you should invest in yourself and reflect on what you do have and what you have control over again, we’re coming back to these five major emotions that investing in the home space creates.

Maybe that’s the key, investing in what you have. And if you’re not spending time looking after your house and if you’re essentially ‘we don’t keep it clean, we don’t do the weekly clean’ and it’s a pig sty and if that makes you feel like you’re not achieving, then maybe you need to spend some time and do the work, as I always say, on creating a space that’s enjoyable. It’s not about expense. It’s about bringing a flower in every now and then. So, little things like that to make a huge difference.

M: Okay, so what is the one tip that you would leave for listeners? To make their home happier.

P: Do a spring clean.

M: For me, I would say, bring some of that green space indoors.

P: Ooh right, nice.

M: All right, we might end there.

P: Have a read of the report. It’s really good. And it’s worthwhile spending some time reading and taking it on. I think it’s a wonderful initiative.

M: Alright and on that note, Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and we would love a review on any of our channels, if you can.

P: Yes. That would make us very happy.

[Laughter]

P: Until next time folks, choose happiness.

[Happy Exit Music]

Related content: Read Moving On article What makes a Happy Home