Expert tips for turning your home into a Zen zone

Walk into some houses, and they instantly feel warm and welcoming. Walk into others, and something doesn’t quite feel right. But sometimes it’s impossible to articulate exactly what the difference is.

“It’s sounds silly, but this feels one of the happiest, most relaxing houses I’ve ever been into,” says agent Greg Howard, of Black Diamondz Property Concierge, of 80 Douglas Street in St Ives.

“It just has a certain ambience, a real Zen quality to it, and even the two border collies who greet you at the entrance look as though they’re smiling.”

Open spaces, clean lines and warm natural materials help to give the family home its calm, Zen-like quality. With glass sliding doors to a private terrace, a beautiful 12-metre solar-heated saltwater pool and manicured gardens on a large 1075-square-metre block, it feels like a real sanctuary. Its proximity to local parks make it feel even more like a haven.

“The bedrooms are down one end for the kids, with mum and dad’s at the other end,”says Howard, who will take the property to auction on August 12. “No one can disturb each other.” 

One of the key factors in making your house a comforting, tranquil haven, says architect Andrew Nimmo, the NSW chapter president of the Australian Institute of Architects, is the light flow, whether that’s natural or artificial light.

“It doesn’t mean a house has to be dull or bright, but it does mean there shouldn’t be any glare and that the light is controlled,” he says. “The eyes do adjust to different levels of light, but it shouldn’t be at a level that can disturb.

“Also, colours are important. The modernists have had a lot of fun talking about how to engender different moods with different colours, and about how some combinations are soothing and others jar.

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“Certainly, the palette shouldn’t include super-bright or electric shades, but the house could be all white, or all black, or all grey, or a combination of those …”

A view to the outside is also important, he believes, to help create soothing space. Feng shui master Jodi Brunner agrees with that. “Bringing nature into the house is always a good idea, it can make a house feel very Zen and calm,” she says.

“In addition, open-plan living is also always good. A house should be open and have a good flow throughout, so the chi can flow from place to place, like the wind. We often say we don’t want things like the front door to line up with the back door [to allow luck to blow out] but that’s still not so much a problem if you don’t have both doors open at the same time.”

The entrance to a home should also be nice and open with nothing to obstruct the passage in, Brunner believes. Fellow feng shui expert and real estate agent Liz Wiggins says it’s for that reason anyone selling their home should ruthlessly declutter. If buyers enter a house with lots of clutter, that can immediately make them feel uncomfortable.

“If there is a lot of clutter around, energy in the home can be stagnant and there won’t be enough energy coming into the house,” she says.

The connection between living spaces is also critically important, advises Cartherwilliamson architect Lisa Merkesteyn. “It’s important the floorplan is logical and the connections between those spaces make sense.

“When you’re in a home you should feel like you know where to go, whether that’s a visual connection to the next room or through a corridor that leads to the next rooms or via a courtyard.”

Creating areas in apartments that feel Zen-like are also critically important, says HDR Rice Daubney architect Josh Jung. It can be difficult, especially with small spaces, but bedrooms and balconies in particular should feel places to relax.

He recently designed the lobby area of a large apartment block in Wentworth Point and worked hard to make that as welcoming and warm as was possible. “It felt quite empty and commercial at the beginning,” he says.

“But we introduced other features like sculptural tiles to add interest, a wall of curved blades so people there wouldn’t see others walking past all the time and played with the lighting so it bounced back, and reflected, off the wall to create a cloudy lighting effect. That made it feel very relaxing …”

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