Atmosphere: Formulating the Feeling of Home

Designing how your home feels is a crucial step in home design that is often overlooked. Learn the key elements of atmosphere design so you create a home that truly feels like home.

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Table of Contents:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

— Maya Angelou

• Feels Like Home

• Elements of Atmosphere

  • Sensory Design

  • Cleanliness

  • Spirituality

  • Shifts

  • Communication

• Overlaps of Culture & Design

• The Impact of Well-Designed Atmospheres

• Summary

• Where to Start

To Note:

Human-generated content.

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A well-designed atmosphere is a deep source of inspiration because atmosphere is the calculated formulation of a feeling. With that inspiration, we can be continually fueled on a path towards completing divine missions — developing ourselves & our families to our fullest potential. We also offer our atmosphere as a great gift to those who enter our home, who can leave with a little more enlightenment.

So let’s begin. Here’s how you can formulate the feeling of your dream home.

Feels Like Home

There are a few places that help clearly illustrate the need for intentional atmospheres. Let’s first consider the “happiest place on earth” — Disneyland. Disneyland produces the feeling of magic. It draws you in with smells, sounds, those yummy churros, familiar sights & an upbeat warmth that energizes you. On the opposite end of the spectrum, consider what really makes a haunted house feel so scary. Darkness, mustiness, dust, screams (the scared kind), maybe even the sound of chainsaws. Not so inviting…right?

There are key elements to building an atmosphere. It is something that can be calculated & continually refined. These elements come together to formulate the feelings you desire in a true dream home.

Elements of Atmosphere

There are a few core elements of atmosphere design.

Sensory Design

• Sights

  • Light (allowing in natural light, working with circadian rhythms, ambient lighting)

  • Colors (mood creation, value driven)

• Sounds

  • Music

  • Tone of voice (also found in Communication)

• Smells

  • Scents

• Taste

  • Food

Cleanliness

• Physical cleanliness

• Intellectual cleanliness

  • Media Filtering

Spirituality

• Faith rhythms that invite heaven into home

Shifts (seasonal, time of day)

• Seasonal: decor, music, scents, recipes (especially tied to holidays)

• Time of Day

  • Morning light, evening wind down (ambient lighting)

  • Morning routines, after-school routines, nighttime routines

Communication

• Tone of voice

  • Maintaining calm, loving tones.

  • Avoiding profanity.

• Displays of affection

  • 5 Love Languages: Acts of service, physical touch, gift giving, quality time, words of affirmation

Overlaps of Culture & Design

Each of the three pillars of home (Culture, Atmosphere, Design) has clear overlaps. These overlaps display that each must work together & help to strengthen each other. Some of these overlaps with Atmosphere specifically include:

Culture:

Sensory Design: Favorite family music

Cleanliness: Holding values of order & stewardship of the home environment & of our minds

Spirituality: Routines & rhythms that strengthen faith in the home

Shifts: Traditional recipes, scents, music

Communication: Respectful, loving communication & displays of affection for strengthening personal bonds

Design:

Sensory Design: Lighting (especially ambient light design), colors creating mood

Cleanliness: Organization & “a place for everything & everything in its place”

The Impact of Well-Designed Atmospheres

My sisters & I shared friends from another family we attended school with. They were a family who worked hard, lived with discipline, and loved big. Their home was one that you craved to be in. It was welcoming & warm. It was clean & inspiring. When you walked into the home, you felt a pull inwards & the desire to contribute to the goodness there. You were drawn into conversation & given a safe space to be heard. My sisters & I have discussed this home together & find it to be one of our greatest sources of inspiration — all because there was a calculated atmosphere, with intention & discipline behind every element. To this day, years later, I can imagine myself walking into that home.

To Sum It All Up

Unless you work at Disneyland, you may not have considered atmosphere as an important consideration in your home design. But, as we begin to consider these elements we will recognize that the feeling of our home requires just as much attention & intention as the rest of the process. By analyzing these elements, we can start filling in the gaps of where we can amplify the inspiration our homes help produce.

Where to Start:

Begin by defining what feelings you want in your home. To know what feelings are most important to you, look at your core values & identify what feelings are associated with them.

If you need extra help, you can plug this prompt into AI: Based on my core values, what feelings would I most want in my home to draw inspiration from? Core values: ____________.

If you don’t know what your core values are, I invite you to participate in my free 3-Day Vision kit! This will help you not only define your core values, but also help you to design what dream days look like & help you identify your first step towards realizing it all.

If you’re looking for something a little deeper, your most important first step is to build a strong foundation of culture. This will bleed into every other piece of designing your home & developing its atmosphere. That’s why we created the Foundation First course. Where you will learn to become the most capable manager of your home, ready to tackle all the tasks ahead that build true dream homes. Starting with your personal stewardship, and directing you with pace & grace outward so we build from the inside out, affecting heart to home. You can find that here.

Resources Mentioned

AI Prompt: Based on my core values, what feelings would I most want in my home to draw inspiration from? Core values: ____________

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• Culture: How Personal & Family Habits Lead to Legacy

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