Rooms That Make You Feel Calm and What They Have in Common

Why do some rooms feel calm and relaxing and others make you feel like you need to get out of there as soon as possible? What is it about a room that makes it inviting and comfortable, regardless of the fact that the design choices might greatly vary?

We know it’s not just complex aesthetics that do the trick. Our airbnbs are often more luxurious and perfectly put together than our own, and yet after a few days of vacation we often grow tired of them. For the room to be calm, it must both be a healthy room, but also a familiar one.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately, as I’ve investigated ways to make my own home a place where my family and guests can feel at ease. I’ve also been reflecting on ways to be a welcoming host in my own personal life. The lessons are not exactly the same, but there is a common thread. To feel comfortable in a space, you must feel like you belong or have been given permission to be there.

I’m not an interior designer, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about the kinds of spaces that contribute to my well-being and have tried to create them in my own life. Here are eleven things that I’ve noticed make a room feel more calm to me. Maybe some will inspire you to add a little more of that ingredient to your own home.

Relaxed environments aren’t pristine, but they are uncluttered

No one feels relaxed in a messy room. One of our kids has a particularly messy bedroom, and every time we go in there to help straighten up we comment on how much calmer and more pleasant it is to be in the room afterward. Clutter is distracting and takes away from that feeling of calm, so it’s important to keep it under control. On the other hand, you don’t have to be a neat freak. Some objects lying about as the result of natural activities make a room feel alive.

They aren’t boring, but they are simple

In music, there’s a style called minimalist music that’s based on repetition of musical themes with very subtle variations throughout. If you haven’t listened to some of this genre I would recommend the main theme from the movie The Piano or the album 18 Musicians. There’s a tendency for simplicity to be confused for boringness, but they are not the same. When done well, simplicity allows the beauty of a thing to shine because you’re not distracted by the fluff.

In my opinion, a calm room should have a color palette that’s relatively simple and restrained. There’s room for plenty of personality, but it’s generally a good idea to have just a few main colors or one prominent color that sets the mood.

They aren’t sterile, but tidy

In the first home that my wife and I ever bought, we loved the huge living room and the fact that we had ceramic floors, which we thought would be easy to keep clean. Over time, however, we began to notice that the room felt cold and less inviting compared to the carpeted rooms that we both grew up with. The floors were loud and any bit of dirt showed up, leaving us to constantly sweep and mop. A tidy, clean room is one way to make a space more inviting, but being overly worried about dirt just creates a more stressful environment.

They aren’t dull, but full of natural light

To me, the perfect room has plenty of light, but doesn’t have light coming in from too many directions. There should be one or two sides of the room that have plenty of windows letting in natural light and allowing you to look outside. And then, when the sun goes down, there should be several lamps across the room that emit a warm, ambient light— not a fluorescent light from a bulb that’s directly above you. This combination of lighting is one of my favorite ways to add a sense of calm to any room.

They aren’t stiff, but beautifully furnished

In my experiences with rooms, hospitality, and food, I have observed that things which are fancy and luxurious rarely add the calm you’re looking for. In fact, certain rooms just create the opposite effect. I remember going to my grandma’s house as a kid and she had a living room that was “too nice” for us to play in. My own kids have made a similar observation about a few of my wife’s favorite table runners that are more decorative than functional.

If you want to make a calm room, don’t put anything in it that you’re afraid might get damaged. And if you want to be a calm person, don’t be the kind of person who’s afraid of a little damage.

They aren’t sparse, but full of plants

There’s no reason to think that minimalism means boring and sparse. In my opinion, some of the best minimalist rooms are those that have tons of green plants. I think that plants invite a sense of calm into a room because they remind us of the simplicity of being in nature. A man-made object might look beautiful, but beauty in the natural world is usually more wild and unruly.

They aren’t empty, but filled with bookshelves

Again, a minimalist room doesn’t have to be sparse and empty. There are few things that add more character to a room than a plain old bookshelf filled with books. This practical storage solution gives its own kind of decoration to a room that points to the past and present parts of our lives. If you want to add an extra boost of calm to your room, then place a comfortable chair in the vicinity to invite your guests to sit down and read.

They aren’t stuffy, but well-ventilated

This one is pretty obvious, but it’s often overlooked. To be comfortable, a room must be well-ventilated. This means it’s not too hot or cold, and that there’s not too much moisture in the air. Ideally, your room would have a nice gentle gentle current of air moving throughout it. To me, ventilation is one of those subtle things that many of us don’t notice until it’s wrong. For example, a room that feels too stuffy or too cold really becomes the most important characteristic about that room, and no amount of good design can make up for it.

They aren’t loud, but full of soft sounds

I’m a big fan of soft music or gentle background noise in the rooms that I frequent. I don’t need or want that music to be loud, but only to create a sense of calm and relaxation. One of my favorite things to do in mid-afternoon when I’m taking a very short break from work is to turn on the song Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel— this is such a great, relaxing song from the 1960s. But really, any song that brings you pleasure and isn’t too noisy will do the trick. Adding music to your room is one of the simplest ways to instantly change the way that place feels.

They aren’t empty, but full of personality

Finally, the best rooms aren’t empty or sparse, but full of unique personality. I don’t have anything against modern-style rooms, but I do think they lack a certain personality until someone makes them their own. One of the best ways to add personality to any room is by gently and lightly hanging decorative items on the wall. I find that this is much better than hanging a bunch of pictures because the decorative items reflect who you are and what you like, and therefore the room will have more of you in it.

Conclusion

What makes a room calm? There isn’t one easy answer, but it is clear that there are some fundamental principles and design choices that go a long way towards setting the kind of tone that you want for your room. How that’s applied in your own home might look different than the way I do it in mine, but it’s worth thinking about. Calm, relaxing rooms encourage the kind of connection that self-interested, distracted people so often want to avoid. In that way, I think calm rooms are an important foundation for healthy relationships.