Do you find yourself a little bored, or even unhappy with the decor in your home? There could be a reason for it: Your interior design decisions just might be bad for your mental health… yep. I said it.

 

Surprisingly, everything from how you arrange your sofa to how much sunlight filters through your rooms can have an impact on your emotional and physical health, whether you’re aware of it or not.

 

8 year old me was constantly rearranging and decorating my parents home- I guess that's where it all started. For me, decorating is LIFE. It's the freedom to be unapologetically me and create beautiful spaces. Decorating is a sure fire way to put me in my happy place- and there's science to back this up! 

 

Home Decor for Good Mental Health by Leonardo Cacatian

 

 "Color can also have a significant impact on our mental health. Historically known as the "color cure," healthcare institutions have a long history of using color to help soothe the body and mind. An early use of color therapy in the United States was at a mental asylum in Wards Island, where doctors used color to try to treat mental illness. Bright rooms with an emphasis on red colors were used to treat patients with depression or melancholy. Calming blues and greens were introduced to rooms housing violent patients. Purple hues were thought to help patients experiencing insanity. Black rooms were prescribed for patients with mania."

 

"Results were mixed, but enough success has been seen over the years in various forms that the use of color therapy persists and is widely used in a more subtle form commonly known as "color psychology." Purple is a nice choice for a soothing bedroom, while a cheery yellow is perfect for a morning breakfast nook. Stark white has been popular over the past few years, but the look can be a little harsh and doesn't take full advantage of what color can do to help your psyche."

 

I love creating happy spaces and carried this passion for creating beautiful things to art school and focused on painting "happy art" via colorful, vibrant abstract paintings. Because I believe that our imaginations tend to depict beauty and joy way better than our own reality, I gravitate towards making abstract paintings. It's the abstraction of an image that makes it beautiful and intriguing. I also believe we are naturally drawn to "pretty things" and bright colors. They unarguably capture our attention, thus I paint with a lot of  color and have a lot of colorful brush strokes in my art (I've also made the most fabulous glitter and resin paintings - talk about an attention grabber). 

 

For the most part, my artwork is heavily influenced by nature's beauty: specifically flowers and flower gardens. From their natural aromas and variety of bright colors, it's no secret why we use flowers to create a cheerful environment or happy mood (table settings, special occasions, unfortunate occasions, deaths, births, just cuz…). Flowers are universal in celebrations.

 

I use my paintings to create colorful home decor pieces to create happiness and celebrate our interior spaces. The rooms we spend a majority of our times in have a huge impact on our mental health and in my efforts to spread happiness, I've made home decor accents to do just that.