January 2024

What makes a happy home?

I borrowed this title from The GoodHome Report 2019 by Happiness Research Institute based in Copenhagen, Denmark. A survey of over thirteen thousand respondents from ten countries revealed what most of us already know: a satisfaction with our home has a significant impact on our general happiness. Seeing scientific data supporting this point of views is gratifying. Here are morsels from this report worth noting.

Seventy-three (73%) per cent of people who are happy with their home are also happy in general.

How important is home happiness?

The report shows that home happiness is as important as mental and physical health and far above income and social status. It accounts for 15% of our overall happiness, with mental health rating at 17%, physical health at 14%, income at 6%, followed by employment and social status both at 3%.

What makes us happy with our home?

Happiness with our home is based on five core emotions: pride (44%), comfort (25%), identity (17%), safety (10%), and control (4%). 

Pride is by far the most influential factor, according to the report. When we hear our guests say, “What a beautiful house you have”, we are filled with pride for all the work and resources we put in our home, we feel accomplished and grounded.

In this study, comfort is defined as “a mental state: It is the feeling of being mentally at ease at home and the feeling of having a home that is stress-free safe haven…”.

Identity reflects the feeling “that out home is integral part of ourselves. It represents who we are and how we would like the world to see us”.

These three emotions - pride, comfort (both mental and physical), and identity - are keys to designing successful home interiors.

Does home size matter?

Some findings in the report on what makes a happy home are surprising. Here is the list in order of importance: a generally good condition, adaptable to future, perceived as spacious, owned, has enough room for residents, has many rooms. So, actual home size is considered less important than the feeling of spaciousness. Bigger is not always better.

I conclude with one of the core findings of the report that “people who get involved in home improvements – whether they do it themselves or hire someone else to do it for them – are prouder (and therefore happier) about their homes than those who do not.”

Next month, in Part II,  I will talk about what we can do to make our homes happier.

Source: The GoodHome Report, June 2019, Happiness Research Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark