An inviting home is one that reflects who you are at heart, displaying the objects that you love, and making comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and beautiful items central to your home. An inviting home will encourage friends to stay longer and help you family to feel content.
Steps
1. Make use of artwork. Whatever your preferred form of art, adding artwork to your home is a great way to attract attention and keep people enthralled. Paintings, pictures, photos and sculptures can all enhance the home environment. Fill up a bland wall, cover a boring mantelpiece and strategically place an three-dimensional item on the coffee table. These will create warmth, add color and serve as excellent conversation starters.
2. Add soft furnishings to your sitting areas. Encourage people to want to come in and sit down by using comfortable seat cushions, large pillows and cozy throws. Dress up a cool sofa with a warm blanket in the wintertime and remove it in the summer. Always think of comfort as the top priority.
- A few large floor cushions and beanbags will always be welcomed by those who like lying on the floor––kids, pets, flexible adults and dreamers will all take the opportunity to use these pieces!
- Add rugs. Rugs add warmth, color, comfort and style to a home. It's hard to resist sitting on a comfortable rug, especially when a kid, dog or cat curls up on it with you.
3. Add scents to the home. There are many ways to create a deliciously scented home, depending on your preferences. Here are just a few:
- Use scented candles. Candles provide a sense of warmth and comfort. They add a deep glow to the area they're in, helping to add ambiance. Choose candle colors to match the room and scents that you love the most. Candles can be placed on a shelf or mantelpiece.
- Place potpourri in your room. Make your own or purchase some, in scents that you like. This can be placed in any room, but try to match the season, such as spicy scents for autumn and winter, floral scents for spring and woodsy or citrus smells for summer.
- Use room sprays. Make your own or purchase them, and use whenever you feel the room needs a scent lift. Try to find the ones made from basic natural ingredients if purchasing them; chemically produced scents don't have the same pleasant smell to the nose.
- Add some scented flowers to your home. These might be cut flowers or flowers growing in a container, that's up to you. There is an incredible range of delightfully scented flowers available, so experiment to find out which ones fit your home and natural sensibilities the best.
- Use the stove to send forth delicious scents. Bake a cake or bread, heat up coffee, cook spices in a saucepan. All of these will send forth a heavenly scent into your home.
4. Add plants. Enliven your home with the beauty and freshness of plants growing in containers. Choose plants that thrive indoors; even better, look for plants that also benefit you, such as cleansing the air or eating the indoor insects.
- If you'd like your plants to be fixing your indoor air, check out How to use indoor plants to remove harmful chemicals.
5. Add decorations. For every seasonal event you enjoy and participate in, get right into the spirit and decorate your home with the relevant decorations. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid-Al Fitr, Halloween, Easter, Diwali, July 4th, national days, the Chinese New Year and so on, there are decorations for every event. You can also celebrate other things you care about, such as family togetherness, your love for animals, a sports event or personal celebrations such as birthdays, graduations and achievements.
- Decorate in the lead-up to the occasion. It's always nice to have a build-up of happiness in the lead-up to the certain day, week or occasion. The decorations will increase the inviting factor of your home markedly.
6. Use family photos. These turn the house into a home, showing outward signs of the loving life lived within the house. Photos can tell stories, provide conversation focal points and pique the curiosity of the visitor. Be prepared to answer questions guest ask about photos and be proud of the photos you've lovingly arranged.
7. Add bits and pieces. Nick-knacks are a great feature of an inviting home. They can consist of many fun things, including:
- Displays of collectibles. Always an interesting curiosity to encourage conversation, exclamation and interest.
- Jars of 'things.' Jars of things (candy, beads, letters, etc.) make your home feel interesting.
- Paper scraps. Have a pin board of all the lovely bits and pieces of paper paraphernalia that have piqued your interest.
- Keep some favorite old toys on a shelf or in a glass-fronted cabinet. These can represent the children (and adults) at different stages of their life, and make for wonderful conversation starters as well as being nostalgic reminders.
8. Have plenty of books. Bookcases with lots of interesting books are a feast for the mind. Guests will be intrigued and keen to pick them up and read the prefaces. Book collections can tell a lot about the inhabitants of the home and are definitely a great source of conversation.
9. Add teapots. Although the teapot might seem like an unusual suggestion, they make your house... cuter! They also have a functional purpose in suggesting that it's time to sit down and share a cup of tea, a conversation and some fine time together. Of course, you can include some coffee pots too, if you like.
