Your house really can affect your mood

Leigh Leigh
Casa EV, ze|arquitectura ze|arquitectura Casas modernas
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If you've ever come home to a messy house – dirty dishes in the sink, dog hair on the carpet and clothes hanging up all over the show – then you'll be able to relate to the concept that the state of your house affects your mood. It can leave you feeling miserable, depressed and defeated. How can you run your life if you can't even have a clean home? It's a disappointing thought!

Coming home to a warm, cosy and clean space, on the other hand, can give you the feeling of absolute, pure joy, like you have your very own cocoon! Cool, crisp sheets, plush rugs and a sparkling clean kitchen is the epitome of happiness, don't you think?

So then you have to agree that your house can totally affect your mood, which is where we would like to take this concept one step further – even the shape, colour and style of your house can affect your mood!

Subconsciously, all of these factors are playing a role, influencing how you feel and how you view the world. 

Interested? Let's learn more!

The shape of your house affects your subconscious

When you think of circles or squares or triangles, different feelings are evoked. Maybe triangles make you feel like you are in ancient Egypt, travelling through the pyramids. Maybe rectangles make you feel like you're coming home to the Gingerbread house, where everything is warm, homely and tasty.

Shapes have different connotations attached to them, depending on your experiences in life. They may not even be conscious connotations or even experiences that you remember. Regardless, they will bring about memories, feelings and emotions that affect your mood, which is why the shape of your house is so important! You don't want to come home everyday and subconsciously be reliving memories of the time that you accidentally locked yourself in the cupboard, just because your house resembles one!

Now is the time to speak the language of shapes, lines and curves so that you can get the absolute best out of your home, where every day that you wake up in it is a happy day!

Circular shape

Circles are a wonderful shape in design, adding curves and spheres to a space. Subconsciously, circles represent the complete. What comes to mind when you think of a circle? A wedding band? An apple? A ball?

Circles are free – they roll, they twist and they gather momentum. Circles are slightly less rigid than straight lines, they are more flexible and a little bit more fun. For an architect or a designer, they can represent large glass balls, curving walls and waves throughout the interior and exterior. 

What does the circular shape represent for you? Does it remind you of holidays at the sea playing with beach balls? Or hoola-hooping with your friends in the back yard? Or does it remind you of the day that your husband proposed?

Circle are the eternal – they are secure and safe. When it comes to circular shaped houses, they can make you feel safe and secure too!

Squares, rectangles, pyramids

Squares and rectangles are very orderly, standard shapes that represent stability, trust, formality and rationality. These are the shapes that you want for your house if you value these principles. 

Square and rectangle homes are very standard and are easy to design and build. You can have a beautiful, perfectly in proportion home that creates subconscious feelings of stability and order if you choose rectangle or square design. 

These shapes are also very familiar because of how common they are and thus can also create feelings of equality, solidity and conformity. 

Triangles or pyramid shapes are representative of power and energy. Because they are wide at the base and then move into a point at the top, they can also work as an arrow shape, pointing at something. They are very purposeful shapes and are not incredibly common in architecture. However, if you do utilise them for the shape of your home, it will probably evoke feelings of action and direction. The only question left to ask is, what is your purpose?

Vertical shapes and lines

Vertical shapes and lines evoke masculinity, domination, brutality, courage and power. Opt for a house with strong vertical lines and you'll have the house with the most mojo on the block!

So how to introduce them into your house design? Vertical shapes and lines can be incorporated into the shape of your house in a variety of ways:

1. You can include them in the exterior façade, creating strong vertical lines throughout

2. Vertical shapes and line can be included in the actual structure of your home. In the photograph, this design by Maria Claudia Faro, vertical shapes are in the form of a three-storey home, where each layer takes on a new shape and design.

3. Colours can also highlight vertical shapes and lines. In this photograph, you'll also notice how different textures and colours highlight the vertical spaces, where wood and stone is used as well as the colour pink. 

Horizontal lines

Horizontal lines can make a home look much bigger, creating a very grand and spectacular looking house. However, interestingly enough, horizontal lines are associated with the feminine as well as feelings of weakness, calmness, restfulness and stillness.

Thus the fantastic thing about introducing horizontal lines into a home is that even though the house will look bigger, it will remain subtle and won't be intimidating for the neighbours who have smaller houses in the community.

This modern house, by Ze Architects, for example is an impressively large size, with a sweeping garden and a long, rectangle swimming pool. However, despite its size, it is still quite subtle and warm. The architects have achieved this by including lighting throughout the horizontal spaces, which illuminates these soft lines and spaces.  

Soft curves

homify Casas minimalistas

Soft curves create feelings of rhythm, movement, happiness, pleasure and generosity.

How happy does this design in the photograph make you feel? Doesn't it feel likes waves, opening up to reveal a beautiful house? Or that these curves are moving in the wind? It's a beautiful, fluid design that creates a very unique and effortless finish. Don't you think you would feel cocooned and warm in a home like this?

Including soft curves in the design of your house is a fantastic way to create a very happy and pleasurable space. And it's not difficult to do – it can be as simple as including certain lighting elements or re-designing the exterior façade. Chat to your architect and designer about this and you will get expert opinion on the best way to introduce curves into your home. Because who doesn't want to be happy and generous every day?

Check out: The Exquisitely Curved Glass House!

Sharp angled lines

If you're starting out in life, sharp angled lines could be the way to go when it comes to the shape of your house. 

Why?

Because sharp angled lines promote feelings of movement, liveliness and youth and can be associated with the dynamic, the explosive and the rapid. If you want to arrive at your work every day ready to take it on, hit a 10km run afterwards and still have time for a dinner with your friends, then this is the type of house that you want to live in. 

Sharp angled lines can add a very trendy and modern twist to a 21st Century house and can be very fashionable. Architects also have ways of including them so that they are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. 

There are tons of ways to include sharp angled lines into the design or shape of a house. Explore homify for more ideas!

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