We’ve all pinned, saved and liked inspiring photos of stunning spaces from our favourite social feeds but creating your own perfect space is about more than just beautiful design, it’s about what makes you feel—feel happy, organized, restful, safe, inspired and quintessentially you!
On our latest episode of REAL TIME, we take a closer look at the relationship between our homes and our wellbeing with designer, author, speaker, and TV personality Tiffany Pratt.
On this episode, Tiffany and host Erin Davis talk about practical ways we can infuse more joy into our living space and reimagine the things we already own to elevate our homes both aesthetically and functionally.
Check out these highlights and be sure to catch the episode in its entirety. Find it at crea.ca/podcast or listen and subscribe to REAL TIME on your favourite podcast player.
On the connection between our living spaces and our physical and mental well-being
Tiffany: They’re intrinsically linked with one another, in my opinion. Having worked with homes the way I have, for as long as I have, in the quantity that I have, I can’t see a difference between the person, their choices, how they want to live, and the four walls that they choose to live them in. All the decisions that we make in that process, not just on the home itself but within the home, really make our lives—and that is our wellness, effectively.
How do we move beyond a fear of what we want vs. how it might sacrifice the resale value of our home?
In the end, it’s really not about the future. It’s about creating joy, happiness, and well-being in this moment, and there are so many ways to do it. Even if these changes that we make to bring our own joy to the present moment are temporary, it’s essential because to feel happy right now is way better than thinking of a future renovation or alternative place to live. We’re going to dig into why it’s important that, obviously, we don’t taint any resale value of the home, but certainly, we don’t want to devalue joy now.
We’ve all heard about using specific palettes to improve our mood. What can you tell us about incorporating colour to improve our mood?
Everyone looks at colour in a different way because their retinas, the way that they’re made, they all transmute, look at, and understand colour in their own private way. My job as a designer, and the “Queen of Colour”, is to really, really, really invite people to be who they really are, to invite colour into their life, not to be different for the sake of being different but to invite colour into their life because it adds to their life energy and it makes them feel more like themselves.
I don’t really subscribe to common culture (that is, blue calms us because it reminds us of the water). I think that everyone looks at colour very privately because of the way that history has made them, with experiences or childhood memories. Really uncovering what people love and what colours sing to them sometimes takes a little bit of investigation, like what colour is your cell phone case? What colour is your underwear? What’s your favourite lipstick colour? What colours are you drawn to?
I’m not going to get all historical on you right now, Erin, but we know that in the past colour wasn’t used as aesthetic. Colour was used as a message we were sending to the universe, the gods, or the powers that be, of what it is that that colour represents that we want to draw into our lives. You fast forward into families of affluence in the 1800s who had a family crest and family colours, and they would decorate their homes and dress in these colours because it meant something to their heritage, to their family.
Colour wasn’t about aesthetic and being different or something to be scared of. You celebrated those colours because you were drawing in what they represented and what you wanted for your life. If you look at colour in that context, you can understand that it really does add healing energy.
On the misconception that designing and refreshing your space needs to be expensive
I’m known for my thriftiness and it’s not because I don’t like to spend on beautiful things. It’s that there are so many important places to spend on a home and with little things that become pretty items, those don’t always have to cost a mint, and we don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a beautiful life. As a designer, you get to know that if you do what I do for a living. Many think you have to have a lot of money to work with the designer, to live that lifestyle and it’s not the case.
I wrote This Can Be Beautiful because it was my love note to the world to say that anything that you can truly look at, touch, see, that you’ve collected in your life (this table, this light, this dress, this toilet paper roll, this newspaper), truly anything can be beautiful.
It was created as a lifestyle book, not just for the kids and for the crafters at heart, but for the everyday person, to understand that through the use of their own two hands, they can build a beautiful life piece by piece. When we create, we use our own two hands, we use what we’ve got. We’re not only saving money, we’re being imaginative. We’re accessing our creative spirit, but we’re also building a life that looks like only ours and no one else’s, and that is a true gift in this world. I’ve always felt that you didn’t need a lot of money to have a beautiful life and this book is an invitation to do that and to really appreciate what you have, and to celebrate it by making it better.
Catch the rest of Tiffany’s conversation with Erin and be sure to tune in again next month as we speak with REALTOR® Sandra Rinomato about working with and for first-time home buyers.
Did you miss Tiffany on our Instagram Live? Watch it below.
