Hi, guys, its Viktoria and in case you want to know a bit more about me I recommend reading my previous post where I wrote a little bit more in details about me. In the following years I will be your decorating guide on square.mk. So let’s start.
If right now you are trying to rent an apartment or you just have purchased a new apartment, here is something you need to remember: the most vulnerable thing in the home is YOU. You are the one who can rearrange everything, bring new things in, fill the space with your style and make it comfortable. You’re the master of your life and your space. The coziness of your home will mostly depend on you. If you don’t see the apartment that 100% matches your needs, think that apartment can be easily rearranged to fit my needs. It’s very hard to find a space that will totally fit your character and your family’s lifestyle, so in order to have the dream home, you will need to put your soul and talent into it and trust me, in the end, you will enjoy this process!
What is the main function of the home?
Before talking about decoration let’s first think of what are the main functions of the home? First of all, it should carry out 3 basic needs: food, sleep, and cleanliness. And most of the people usually stop here. But there are way more functions of the home, and they will play a big role in the happiness of your family and your personal growth:
– Recharging. The home, not the bar or club should be the place where you rest and recharge after a hard working day and prepare for new challenges. Bars and clubs are for having fun, they will not fill you with a sense of strength. And home will – because it has small memorable things that remind your past achievements, things that you enjoy watching and touching, the area where you can be alone with your thoughts (of course if you created this zone, I will talk about the importance of it in the next posts.
– Feeling gratitude to yourself and your family. Your home is your reflection – it’s what you’ve
achieved, and not only in a financial way but also intellectually – how many books you’ve read, souvenirs from how many countries you’ve brought, what relationships you’ve built and so on. Nothing motivates more than the reminder of how much you have already done.
– Resting. Favorite book, hot tab, candles, music, dinners with friends and family, yoga, beauty rituals, movies, staying in bed the whole day and many many other pleasant things (everyone has their own set) that a lot of people skip because they didn’t make the rented apartment fit their lifestyle.
There are many others and I will come back to them later. My point is, that before spending money on décor and expensive designers you need to understand the goals and functions of your home. What emotion do you want to create in your living space?
So, when you in search of the apartments (or already rented or purchased the apartment and are thinking how to settle in) I would suggest taking a couple of minutes and think what are the main purposes of every zone in the apartment. What do they serve for, and what are the necessary things that should be there and how you can make it lovely by using simple décor or moving things around. The entrance, kitchen, bedroom and living room are the main zones in the home, let’s start with them.
Entrance
The entrance should welcome those who enter the home and should show that the guest (or member of the family) is loved and that everyone is happy to see him/her. This area is responsible for storing clothes and shoes and products for taking care of them. The entrance should be comfortable for taking off coats and shoes.
– At the entrance you should be able to find “before leaving home” things like keys, perfume,
lipstick and so on.
– Mirror at the entrance is important. It lets you check if you look okay before leaving the home
and set the mood for a new day.
– And the last function is to bring a good mood when you come home
These all seem to be very simple and clear things, but nevertheless, in most of the homes I’ve been to, after you open the door you stick into a bunch of shoes on the floor (especially if it’s a big family), then you can’t find the place where to put your coat. In the morning the owners of such apartments are usually running around the home full of frustration, trying to find keys in the pockets of all the wardrobes, then running to the bathroom for lipstick then searching in the kitchen for something to clean the shoes. Familiar situation?
Whatever you do in the home should bring only positive emotions, in the next articles I will go into details on how to organize this zone, so that you leave the home with a smile on your face and ready for new challenges, instead of the guilt of being late and irritation.
Kitchen / Dining room
Kitchen is one of the most visited areas in the home, and has the most functions out of all areas:
– It is a place for cooking
– Place for storing food
– Place for eating
– Place for storing dishes and kitchen equipment
– And most importantly, a place for meeting up with family and friends and communication.
I really love a spacious kitchen that has a separate dining area. I enjoy making fine table clothing for holidays, hosting friends, and communicating with my family while having a nice dinner. After I changed my kitchen it became not a place of work and struggle, but a place of rest and communication. In the next article, I will give you more detailed tips on how to arrange stuff and to do zoning of the kitchen to make it comfortable.
And now a small tip for those who are planning to buy a new apartment and will have a chance to build the kitchen from zero. We all know about the feng-shui theory on the interior. Most people are not taking it seriously, but I need to say, that it’s a big science that really helps to make a good atmosphere and mood in your home.
So, feng-shui points out interesting things about the kitchen area. It says that the most important elements are the stove and the sink. The stove represents fire (male energy) and the sink – water (female energy). Feng-shui advises not to put these two elements in front of each other (like now it is very fashionable to make the island in the kitchen with a sink and bar and to leave the stove by the wall). Colliding male and female energy can worsen the relationships between man and woman at home.
On the other hand, feng-shui advices to place the stove and sink at an angle of 90 degrees to
each other and so that the sink is placed by the window and the stove by the wall. Science explains that the stove (fire – male energy) is connected to the spending of the money, so the wall will provide support and control. So, even if the kitchen is considered to be a “women’s space”, the way how you will place the things in the kitchen might influence the stability of the family and budget control. If it’s not possible to put the sink and stove at the angle it’s better to put them in one line, next to each other.
Be careful with new waves in design – they might look catchy, but the most beautiful home is the one, where everyone who lives in it feels happy. I truly believe that emotion in the home is way more important than new trends from the magazines.
Bedroom
A bedroom is an area where we spend 1/3 of our life. The atmosphere in the bedroom will affect all sides of our life including health, relationships, and emotions. The main functions of the bedroom are:
– Proper sleep
– Recharging
– Sex and energy exchange
– Rest
– Self-development
Feng-shui says that the bedroom should be quiet, cozy, comfortable, not too big – so that it can keep enough energy, and not too small – to allow the energy flow. There should not be a lot of windows in the bedroom, bright lighting is also not good. And importantly – the bedroom should not have very bright colors.
And I will add one “no” from myself: No TV. The bedroom is the main core of your life, the cloister of love, rest and recharge. TV is not helping in any of these functions, the bedroom is not the place for it!
When choosing a new apartment or refitting the old one don’t get trapped on catchy fashionable bright designs or a bunch of modern equipment it will not make you happy. Think of the emotion and comfort you want to have in your bedroom..
Living Room
Living room is probably the most controversial area in the home. You ask why? The reason is very simple – most of the families do not quite understand the real purpose of it. Even if you google: “what is the purpose of the living room” you will most likely see “For meeting guests, watching TV and communicating”. Formally, the world with its non-stop technological development is pushing us to put TV on the main place of the room and, at the same time the old traditions still make us fill all the space with sofas for guests. But in fact – none of these will create a warm family atmosphere in your home. Before telling you how I discern this area, let me lead you a little bit to the history of this room.
Historically, the living room was known as the “parlour room” or “parlor room”. This name is taken from the French word parloure or parler which means “to speak” or “conversation.” During the Victorian era, the parlor was the front room of every middle and high-class home. It was used only to meet with guests and for some very special family occasions. The parlor was a reflection of the family’s financial status, so for furnishing and design of this particular room the family would spend a big piece of its budget. The owners might have cheap and uncomfortable bed, but the parlor would be done by the latest trends of design. Everyone was trying to make a masterpiece out of this room – paintings of famous artists, antique or handmade furniture, exclusive décor – all to show the social ranking to the guests. In the 18-19 centuries having the parlor room in the house was a proof of high status. Of course, no one was using the room every day. Right when the guests were leaving the house, the curtains were closed and the room would wait for the next Sunday or special occasion. For the owners of the house it was also not the room that they would really enjoy spending time in, because the proper behavior was heavily enforced among family members and guests. Meeting the guests was almost like work, not like leisure.
The second breath the parlor got during the rise of industrialization, when the machinery pushed the production of furniture and made it affordable for the lower class. Instead of unique hand-made furniture it used the “expensive look” stuff. Design magazines were publishing new trends and advice on what is good and what is not to put in this room. So little by little the parlor room stopped being an attribute of the rich and got very wide spread.
As the parlor was losing its status of “only for the rich” the decoration of the room became more democratic. By the mid- 19th century it became common to have several shells, where the family can displace the memories from family trips, decorative objects, photos of the family and current reading materials. The wife had the freedom to display objects of her own to express her individuality.
After becoming affordable to a wide range of families, the parlor was losing its main idea and status. The room was not serving as the reflection of the financial status, style and taste of the family any more, instead it started to serve everyday needs of the householders. During the outbreak of the Influenza, it became common to display the body of the deceased for viewing in the parlor room. During that period this area of the house lost its name “Parlor” and instead got the name “Death Room”.
And only when after the World War I, the number of deaths had decrease, the magazine
“Ladies Home Journal” published an article in 1910 suggesting that the “Parlor Room” should no longer be called a “Death Room” and instead be called “Living-Room” since it was a room in the home that held activities, socialization and happiness it had become more of a lively room than a mourning place or meeting guests place. And here we are with our living room now. Today we have lots of different ways to present our status – like the car, the company we are working at, the brand of cloth we are wearing and so on. No one is inviting his partners home to impress and to show how rich the family is and what pieces of art he has
on the walls. During the dark days of history it became obvious that first of all the family needs the area where it can spend time together.
Think of it like that – bedroom is an area for men and woman, kid’s room for kids, kitchen mostly for women, cabinet mostly for men, and the living room is the only area in the house where all the family can spend the time together. The living room should be the center of your family life! Don’t limit your family time with just a dinner together. Think of how to place the things of interests of each member of the family in the living room and how everyone can enjoy spending time there. The movies and advertisements usually show us “the warm family evening” as: husband is reading a book; wife is doing some handcraft while the kids are playing with Lego on the carpet, everyone is happy. This picture is not something unreal – it’s just a well-organized living room where the main focus is on the family, on the interests of every member, but not on the guests who might come once a month.
Living room is a place where everyone should feel like home. It’s a big mistake to keep this room out of life. Don’t remove the kids toys from the living room – it will make the child feel that he is not important and not loved. Same, when you remove husband’s newspapers/or wife’s cooking books (or other personal things of interest) to “his/her” area it will only make him/her to lock in the room and spend time alone. Everyone in the house should know that the house can entertain them, and the answer to how to entertain them should be in the living room.
And of course I will not forget about meeting friends at home and organizing “private areas” in the house. We all like to spend time with friends as well as we all need some time to be alone. Wait for my new articles, and you will be surprised how you can accept the guests in a fun way, even if your rented apartment is very small and how to find some privacy in any house. So, these are the very basic functions of the home. I will go very deeply into each of the areas in the next articles, but this one can be a short checklist before you rent the apartment. It will help you to understand what you are searching for and to check if your new home has the basics that respond to the main functions of home.
And a small tip at the end: when you view the apartment, but some basic things are missing or there are some things that you don’t need and they are at the place where they should not be – feel free to ask the owner to remove or add some stuff. Most people feel shy to ask things like that, but my experience shows that most of the owners will be happy to take a step forward to fulfill your wishes of comfort.
And keep one thing in mind!
And keep in mind – home is alive, it reflects you, your character and your mood. When making changes in the house u will be changing yourself. Creating the house of your dream is a long process, and the The process itself should bring you satisfaction. Don’t take it as a duty, take it as a step-by-step ritual that will make you feel happier!
And dear friends, f you have any additional questions, or if you have any wishes on what I should write more about, please write in the comments, and I will do my best to do so.
And if you are still on the market for that perfect home we can help! Just tell us do you wish to rent apartment or to buy apartment or maybe you wish to rent a house or to buy a house?
I wish you all beautiful day,
Viktoria
