6 Things That Make a Home Feel Calm

Have you ever walked into someone's home and instantly felt calm? Not because it was perfectly clean and not because it was quiet. Sometimes the toys are still out, the dishes might still be in the sink, and yet the home still feels peaceful. Over the years of raising a large family, I started noticing something. Some homes feel different, and I'm gonna share with you my top tips in what I do to make a peaceful, calm home. And I think the last one might surprise you. Welcome to the Country Castle. Welcome in to the Country Castle. I am so happy to have you here. In today's video, I am sharing some of my favorite ways to create a calm home. These are probably my top things for creating a beautiful home, a home that feels calm. I have eight kids. Of course, my home's gonna be busy and loud, but there is a kind of flow that is created in your home when you have these elements. So I'm gonna share them with you. Also, today's sponsor is Thrive Market, and I will share more about them in a little bit. It is springtime. It feels so wonderful outside. It's actually such a bait-and-switch for Utah, where I live. I live in northern Utah. We usually have snow this time of year, but we have had the most mild winter, and we've had such beautiful days. We have a whole week ahead of us of like 70 degrees, so it's gonna be so lovely. I'm gonna try to get stuff done outside in my garden and in my yard because I love doing my yard and my garden. So we're gonna be working on that next week. So thank you for joining me on today's video, and I hope that you enjoy. The first thing that changes how a home feels is light. Natural light has a way of softening everything, and it has always been really important to me, no matter which home we have lived in, how the light comes through the house really dictates how you feel. When the curtains open in the morning, the house almost seems to wake up as well. The light slowly moves across the floors. It fills the corners of the rooms, and suddenly everything feels just a little brighter. I've always loved how the light moves through this old house. In the morning, the kitchen fills with sunlight. In the afternoon, the living room warms up, and by the evening, the dining room and the kitchen is glowing. Even on ordinary days, that changing light quietly shapes the feeling of the home. It reminds you that the day is unfolding, and somehow that simple rhythm of light makes a home feel more peaceful. The second thing that makes a home feel calm is a reset. I don't deep clean every day with a large family that wouldn't be realistic, but I do try to reset the house. Some of those things might be folding a blanket, clearing the coffee table, putting a few toys back in their basket. These small resets take maybe 10 to 15 minutes, but the difference they make in the feeling of a home is remarkable and definitely noticeable. When surfaces are clear and things are back where they belong, the house feels lighter. You can breathe again, and suddenly the room feels calm. Even though life is still happening all around it. A calm home is also a soft home, not just visually, but in the way it invites people to be in the space. I love to do this with florals and beautiful blankets and pillows, and today we decided to rent a HomeGoods to add a couple new blankets to our couches in the living room, and I brought my son, Harry, with me and my youngest daughter, Sophia. Pillows are always an important element for your sofas, blankets on the couch, a lamp glowing in the corner instead of a bright overhead light. These little things may seem small, but they completely change the atmosphere of a room. Homes should feel that way. A place where people feel comfortable, cuddling up, reading a book, and not wanting to move is always my goal, and often it's these soft details that make the biggest difference. Okay, so today's sponsor is Thrive Market, and if you haven't heard of Thrive Market, this is an organic online food company with the best prices. One of the reasons why I love to order from them is I get a better deal for my big family. We are always budgeting, and their quality standards of no bad seed oils, organic, non-GMO ingredients that I love. I'm gonna show you what I ordered in my Thrive box, so let's open this up. Okay, I ordered quite a bit, so I probably won't show you all of them just for sake of the video, but I did get some organic applesauce pouches for my little ones. They absolutely love these, and I also got grain-free. I love these. I actually eat high-protein and no gluten during the week, and then on the weekends, I can eat more gluten and sugars, and so these are something that I can snack on during the week that doesn't raise my blood sugar. We got Primal Kitchen's ketchup. This doesn't have any sugar in it. We just really try to watch that. Another thing I love is the tomato paste tubes. These are great because if you just need a teaspoon of tomato paste for a recipe, which I have actually quite a few that I just need a little bit, you don't have to open a whole can. Another thing I love to order is tapioca flour, and as far as baked goods, I love to get Bob's Red Mill baking powder and their aluminum-free baking soda. These are great ones that I get, and they are just the best price, and the best thing about it is they gave my audience 30% off of their first order. Just hit the link in my description, and it will take care of it for you. This is a great option to be able to just get the things that you love delivered to your door, and shipping is fast. So that is my Thrive Market haul. If you haven't checked them out, go ahead and click my link. It's in my description below. Thank you again for supporting my sponsor, and I hope you enjoy the rest of today's video. Control, control, one of my favorite things. One thing I have learned after many years of homemaking is that calm doesn't come from control. It comes from rhythm, and one of the ways that I love to add rhythm to my day is making sure that I have something in the works, which is something I am going to bake to feed my family. This is aside from breakfast, or lunch, or dinner. This is something that is cookies, or muffins, sourdough rolls. I find when the day has a natural flow to it, mornings, meals, tidying, evenings, everyone begins to settle into that rhythm. Children especially thrive on it. They begin to know what comes next, and that sense of predictability creates security. Adults need rhythm too. When the home follows a gentle place, there's less rush and less tension, and that rhythm slowly shapes the atmosphere of the house. Another thing that quietly changes the feeling of a home is how it smells. Warm scents make a house feel welcoming the moment someone walks through the door. Sometimes it's rolls baking in the oven. Sometimes it's soup simmering on the stove, or cookies being baked in the afternoon. Sometimes it's simply a candle burning in the evening. These smells become part of the memory of a home. Many of us remember childhood houses by the way they smelled. Fresh laundry, dinner cooking, something baking. Those smells quietly signal something comforting. Life is happening here. The last thing that changes the feeling of a home might be a little unexpected. In our home, we've noticed that when screens are used less, creativity naturally grows. When screens are off, children begin to invent their own fun. I have always been someone who loves to create. Someone who goes against the grain and fights what's trendy and popular. As a young mom when I was first starting out, I did not allow my kids to have their own iPads and screens. I learned quickly that that little bit of quiet time that I received when they were on the screen, we paid for later with tantrums, emotions, and just overstimulation. So we love having less screens in our home. They draw, they build, they imagine entire worlds. That kind of play fills a house in a completely different energy. It's thoughtful, focused, and often much quieter. You hear pencils scratching across paper and the home begins to settle into a calmer rhythm. When children are present and imagining, the house feels alive in the best possible way. We actually only have one TV and when we watch something, we watch it together as a family and it's usually something that's more of a treat than something that we have all the time. Thank you for joining me on today's video. I hope that you took away some inspiration and some tips to add to your home. These are just things that I have learned over the years of being a homemaker that really make a big difference in the feeling of our home. Another one that I wanted to mention to you, but because of copyright laws, I am not able to share the music that we usually have blasting through this kitchen and through the house. We love music and we have a variety of genres that we love and we're usually dancing or we're slowing things down to just create more of a calm in our home. So that is a huge thing that we always do and I feel very passionate about. Let me know in the comments below, what do you love to do to add a better feeling to your home and did some of the things I mentioned today surprise you? I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for joining me today and I will see you in the next video. Bye!