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How To Make Home Your Happy Place

Jan Halvarson — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 07:28:34 +0000

A Book I Didn’t Know I Needed

Just when you thought the term Hygge was a passing trend from a few years back, Meik Wiking, the author of the million-copy bestseller, The Little Book of Hygge, and founder of the Research of Happiness Institute in Copenhagen is back in the book world to recommend, that Hygge is not only here to stay but as he explains, as in Denmark, how important the hygge lifestyle is there; making one consider, maybe we all could benefit from this concept in his newest book, My Hygge Home, How to Make Home Your Happy Place. A concept I don’t think any of us could deny to at least entertain. After starting this book, little did I know how much I actually really needed it.

The Importance of Hygge

Hygge is all about the art of creating a nice atmosphere, being with people we love, feeling safe, shielded from the world, where one can let their guard down and just be themselves; finding comfort and connection. Hygge is also about designing your home to have a positive impact on your wellbeing and shaping your living space to make it happen.

As Wiking explains, ‘It’s difficult to overstate how important Hygge is to the Danes and the Danish culture. The Danish obsession with hygge seems so ingrained in our cultural DNA and national values that to say you don’t care about it would be as much of a social faux pas in Denmark as it would be for a British person to say ‘I don’t think we should stay calm — I think we should freak out’ or an American saying, ‘I’ve been thinking lately about this freedom thing —and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not for me”.

Homes are hygge headquarters to the Danes. Not only is it where we relax and recharge, home is also central to our social life in Denmark.

Wiking continues, “Whereas other countries have a culture of socializing predominantly in bars, restaurants and cafes, Danes prefer hjemmehygge (home hygge). Perhaps it is because going out in Denmark is relatively expensive or because Danes are typically introverted people and feel more comfortable in their own surroundings.”

Another consideration Wiking mentioned after one difficult day during the pandemic was, as the virus imposed things we couldn’t control, his girlfriend reminded him, “we always have control over how we approach things.” Adding that, “While we may live in a turbulent world, we can still make our homes a happy place.”

As a Scandinavian extrovert turned introvert after the pandemic happened, I get that and welcome the idea of making our home more of our happy place. Just these concepts alone make total sense, which intrigued me more into diving deeper into this way of life.

What Has the Greatest Impact On Your Happiness?

Pulling stats from the Happiness Research Institue, Wiking found some interesting information:

“73 per cent of the people who feel happy about their home, also feel happy in general but, more importantly, that 15 per cent of people’s overall happiness could be explained by their home or their satisfaction with it. Fifteen per cent might not sound like a lot, but think of how many factors have an impact on your happiness. Your relationships, health (especially mental health), your job, etc. It takes a lot to move a needle, so 15 per cent is a sizeable chunk.”

Wiking goes on to say, “Spaces and places definitely have a positive impact on our wellbeing. So to know we can improve our quality of life through changing the spaces around us, that we can design our happiness through that, and to paraphrase Winston Churchill, “we shape our homes and then they shape us.”

So how do we achieve hygge in our homes?

I’m not going to reveal all that is in the book, but there are a few key concepts that Wiking explains as a good starting point.

One doesn’t have to do a complete overall of their home interior/exterior to obtain a hygge feel (that would also just go against everything hygge is meant to be —to try to fix it all right away). But to start small, taking baby steps is a good place to start, and here are a few takeaways I think are the perfect way to begin.

The Architecture of Happiness Checklist:

Embrace the Nook

Everyone likes to feel safe. And what better way to feel cozy and safe in one’s home than to “Viking Proof a corner or nook to hang out in, so as not to worry about anyone sneaking up behind you while you’re working (not that anyone would), but it’s a human instinct to protect ourselves”, notes Wiking.

Consider Scale

We can all learn from human scale, as Wiking states taking a cue from Danish architect, Jan Gehl, who advises cities across the world on how to create liveable spaces, “No matter how much space you have at home, give your senses things to enjoy and think about how your surroundings are constructed to support how you want to live there.” For example, “plants add life, books offer exploration.” You wouldn’t feel comfortable in a space where furniture is too small and the room feels empty, equally, if the furniture is too large for a room and it’s crowded, then things feel stifled and restricting.

Add Softness

Creating a soft place to fall where one can curl up with a good book is “quality hygge hybernation”. Love this layering of mattresses (Princess and the Pea-style) we featured this past spring here on the blog for adding ultimate softness.

Keep a Stocked Pantry

Being prepared for any type of weather or situation (especially in the winter) is comforting. This is a fail-safe way to hygge and hunker down during events beyond our control. As Wiking notes, after canning and pickling a summer’s harvest, “Making summer last until Christmas is a pretty good recipe for happiness.”

Create Space for Privacy and Socialization

Creating space for both privacy and socialization is key for a hygge home outdoors. Places that are suited for social activities (like your front door area/entrance), and a place that is more private (like a backdoor or balcony for instance). Love these Kotalaavuts out of Finland for enjoying the outdoors hot or cold. Seems cozy.

I never realized how much in depth hygge can get, especially since I basically just touched the surface of this book.

For more inspiration and tips, check out this book (link below), a perfect companion for hitting the reset button in the New Year.

My Hygge Home, How to Make Home Your Happy Place.

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A Cozy Festive Pantry Makeover

Jan Halvarson — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 08:50:58 +0000

With the holidays just around the corner, I wanted to be a little more organized this year and get a head start on all my festive planning. To start, I always like to spend a day cleaning out my pantry, checking expiry dates and re-organizing. Our pantry always seems to go off the expected course by this time of year and ends up embarrassingly messy (see proof below). And so a cozy festive pantry makeover was definitely in order.

It’s a challenge to get things right in any pantry, and ours, being very small and rather crowded, demands even more precision. Since shelving is limited, I switched a few things around to try to accommodate everything inside and in a certain order, to avoid any new clutter. My other obstacle is there is no door to hide the chaos, and inevitably, the temporary curtain I made (till I found a suitable one I loved), is always left open, exposing our true pantry colours

How I Created A Cozy Festive Pantry

To start with our cozy festive pantry makeover, I emptied all the pantry contents and set everything out on our kitchen table and cupboards. I then organized everything into different categories and checked expiry dates. With the goal of creating a more festive, cozy and seasonal pantry, here’s the categories that I think will work out for us in our small space.

1. Dry goods
2. Special baking ingredients
3. Spices and sprinkles
4. Oils and Vinegars
5. Cookbooks
6. Festive touches

A Little Paint and Paper

Since our pantry gets a lot of use and was looking a little scuffed, I added a simple wallpaper background and touched up the paint a bit on the shelves first. I then decided to remove two of the bottom shelves to make room for an old vintage dresser I had in the entryway to house things like our teas, vitamins, candles and napkins. The drawers also make way to hide all our incoming paper like mail, receipts, etc

Contain the Drygoods

I transferred all the drygoods into some extra large canning jars I had picked up at my local grocer Fun fact: Fall is a good time to find them there with all the canning happening after harvest. In order to keep track of all the drygood’s expiry dates once they are out of their original packaging and in containers, a pro-tip I heard recently was to place a small piece of masking tape underneath each jar (or their lids) with the dates.

Corral the Chaos

I always like to include versatile baking staples like peanut butter, hazelnut spread, baking chocolate and baking powder, so for items that cannot be placed into containers I like to corrall them together, each in their more broad categories in hopes of keeping them more contained and easier to access.

Curate the Cookbooks

I then edit down my cookbooks and all the loose recipe cuttings/notes, appliance manuals, etc., I’ve collected over the year; keeping my favourites and adding in a few new ones. Check out a few of my newest go-to’s for the holidays here.

Add Some Labels

I labeled just a few things in our pantry. I don’t believe in labeling everything, only the obvious. So just the items that might be mistaken for others (e.g. corn starch vs icing sugar). Download printable labels by clicking here: PDF Drygood LABELS and PDF (Cursive) Drygood LABELS.

A Festive Glow

To top things off and add a little festive glow, I added in a few battery-operated fairy and tea lights.

The result is what I think as a cozy festive pantry, perfect for launching the holiday season ahead.

This post is in partnership with Kraft Heinz. Stay tuned for a collection of delicious recipes and festive-inspired tablescape ideas in the coming weeks.

For a chance to win $50 toward holiday shopping, go to addjoy.ca . You’ll also find delicious recipes and tasty tips to help make your festive entertaining fabulous.

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Our Pantry Makeover + Label Printables

Jan Halvarson — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:56:00 +0000

On a quest to get better organized I’ve been re-organizing our very small and rather crowded pantry. This project has been long overdue, and as you’ll see below in the before photo, rather embarrassingly out of control too. I wanted to create a budget-friendly project, so I picked up some canning jars (versus individual, more expensive jars) to store the dry goods in and and then also created some printable labels inspired by a field trip last week to a local botanical shop.

It was obvious we needed to contain all the various drygoods we had accumulated, and the new year is always a good time to look at all the expiry dates also and get rid of what we weren’t using. Also with our plans to eat more healthfully this year, there was quite a bit of excess refined foods that needed to be taken out. So now was a good time to do that as well.

Here’s how it all went down:

To begin, I removed everything off the pantry shelves and organized into categories on our kitchen table. Placing all the flours in one row, grains in another, pasta in another, etc. I then began to look at all of the expiry dates and threw out anything that was expiring soon. And then after that, I just went through what I felt was not healthy for us and set that aside too. What was left, was food I felt was as close to nature as possible, keeping things very simple and wholesome.

My list of dry goods is now pretty basic and so much easier to keep under control I think. I still have a few items that we don’t eat as much (see all those legumes), but, eventually I know they will be used up in the odd humus or chilli we may make, but this is where it’s at for now. I’m loving the simplicity and easy access to everything. The spices, oils, and things like baking powder are hiding behind the curtain. But, how did I ever find anything before?

If you’re interested in the labels I created, you can download them at the bottom of this post. I just used a piece of clear tape over top of the label to apply them to the jars. I also made a printable copy of the recipe cards that are hanging on a clip from the shelf too (if you noticed). You can print those out too (scanned from my very old card files). The real thing! All of the printables are below.

All in all I’m pretty happy with the end result, and now the big challenge will be to keep it under control for the rest of the year. If you have any tips for that, feel free to let me know! Check back with me then!

Downloads:
(for personal use only)

Printable labels
Printable Recipe Cards

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