We described in our earlier post "10 Stressbusting™ Themes for Decorating to Innovate & Inspire" how we consciously organise and populate our home to embody the lifestyle and values we seek to create when we are spending time there.
Yet it recently occurred to us that our house itself didn't have an 'identity' of its own.
We therefore decided to embark on the task of giving our house its own name.
This involved revisiting the question of what our home meant to us as a family.
We determined that the 5 key benefits we derive from our home are that:
1. It is a sanctuary for us to retreat to when the desire takes us
2. It is somewhere we can relax and be ourselves
3. It is our 'safe zone'
4. It is a constant in an otherwise rapidly changing environment
5. It helps us recharge
We then as a family started the process of drawing up a shortlist of names for our home, which resulted in the following 3 options:
1. 'Anchor House'
2. 'Oak House'
3. 'Woodland View'
In the end and after examining the values our home embodies further, we opted for 'Oak House' (with 'Anchor House' coming in a close second owing not in short measure to LouLoU™'s Navy background!). This was due to 'Oak House' having connotations of being solid, built to last and our house's nearer proximity to local countryside than the sea. While we liked 'Woodlands View' too, this was more representative for us of the outer landscape surrounding our house than the internal embodiment we were trying to capture in the name (though there is of course nothing wrong with that approach to naming in principle).
The exercise as a whole was highly enjoyable and involved us all as a family group reminding ourselves of how much our home means to us and how its environment calms and benefits us, things we can often otherwise overlook or take for granted in functional day to day living.
The task of naming our home was not dissimilar to agreeing and building a family crest, an equally enjoyable endeavour we describe in our earlier post, "Design a Stressbusting™ Family Crest".
We now talk not of 'going home' or 'spending some time' there, but rather of 'Oak House' which gives us a greater sense of pride, identity and a constant sub conscious reminder of what our home stands for to us.
And the bespoke sign itself that resulted only cost us £30.00, courtesy of a skilled local trader - brilliant value for money for such an exercise.
We hope ideas like this help and wish you a magical Sunday 💥💫
All our love
MikeyM™&LouLoU™ xxxxxx 👍🥰❤💙💛💖