So asking yourself “What is my decorating style?” might not be such a bad idea. And you shouldn’t just ask the question but actually take the time to try to figure out the answer. Doing that can be as easy as going online and looking at pictures of furniture, pictures of interior wall paints and home decor items and making a note of how you respond to different shapes, colors, designs etcetera. Pay close attention and measure your reactions so you know when you’ve found something you neither love nor hate, something you absolutely hate, something you absolutely love. Obviously try to go with things you absolutely love. If you find nothing you absolutely love then go with neutral which are the things you neither love nor hate. But definitely make the effort to find things you love.

But just because you don’t live in the home of your dreams, or even in a “starter home” isn’t a reason to punish yourself by not taking any interest in the home you do have. The concept of “home” does not apply to any specific type of physical structure; so if you’re one to think that only houses qualify as homes, or places you own as opposed to rent, you should consider modifying your thinking so that you can begin to appreciate that home is where you live.

I remember watching a program once that featured a group of homeless people who took that idea completely to heart. Home is where you live.

They were “homeless” but they did have a “living space”, a specific location, albeit out in the open, that they returned to every night. This was their home and they tried to make it as livable as they possibly could because it was all they had and they figured it made more sense to work with what they had to try to improve their living condition in any small way than to punish themselves for being homeless.

Just because you live in an apartment and not a great big house is no reason to be so depressed you don’t care about your surroundings. It’s not where you live that determines quality of life, it’s how you live. And it begins with you and how you treat yourself, how much or how little you do to help or harm your mental balance. There are some people who can afford to live in a house who chose to live in an apartment. There are some people who can afford all the space in the world but choose something compact because they find smaller spaces cozier. The key to being happy in the physical structure of your home, whether it’s a 10-bedroom mansion or a tiny studio apartment is to maintain harmony between yourself and the people and “things” around you.

Things are just things. They can’t bring you happiness, but things can affect your mood and alter your peace of mind. A television, for example, can be a source of frustration for someone who doesn’t like television but lives with another person who watches a lot of television. If the television is situated in such a place that the one who finds it annoying is frequently being disturbed by it, that would be an example of how a “thing” detrimentally affects mood and alters peace of mind. Thoughtful placement of the television in such a situation becomes crucial.

When you live in smaller spaces you should strive to make effective use of the little space you have. Avoid clutter. Clutter is a negative word. Everything associated with clutter is negative. Just look at this list of synonyms:

chaos, confusion, derangement, disorder, jumble, litter, mess, muddle, anarchy, bedlam, disarray, discord, disorganization, lawlessness, pandemonium, emotional upset, upheaval, trouble

The above is what clutter will bring into your life in one way or another. Maintaining order in your living space becomes more critical the smaller the space and the more people occupying the space. Disorder equals physical discomfort and physical discomfort leads to mental unbalance. People get grumpy and start treating each other poorly which leads to emotional upset. If this goes on constantly people develop depression, deep anger, contempt, hatred and home becomes an unpleasant place where no one wants to be; and it all starts with you as the head of home not caring all because you don’t live in the “house” of your dreams. A house is just a thing. You could live in the house of your dreams and have it gleaming with opulence from corner to corner and then there’s a fire and it all burns to the ground. Don’t love your place less or more because of the size of it and the price tag of the items you have in it. Love it for the people who inhabit it, and then it becomes a sanctuary; and when you think of your home as a sanctuary it becomes easier to maintain harmony and order.

I decided today to use the opportunity for a before and after photo. Cleaning is something it takes me months to get around to doing, but I’m working on the depression that lies at the root of that so I plan on cleaning more frequently until such time as I can afford a maid….

So I took some photos of my messy dining room area, which is really about one-fifth of the living room space. Then I did some cleaning and took some photos of the dining room area after the mess had been cleaned up. The before photo above obviously shows a messy dining room, but it’s a colorful mess isn’t it? A work of art in itself.

However, when you have to live in a place, artistic though your mess might look, the filth is just not conducive to good mental health. How do you sit down and enjoy a nice meal with your family with your dining table covered with things that don’t belong on a dining table?

The after photo which you can see below demonstrates that it’s possible to restore order and balance to an unbalanced life if you have the will and if you make a real effort.

Now if the table can stay clean until tomorrow maybe we can actually sit at the table for Sunday dinner.