We all want to live in a healthier household, but making a decision about where to start isn’t always easy. Here are eight simple changes you can make that could enhance life for you and your family.
Thinking that a house can enjoy “perfect” interior design and renovation is a mistake. What is most worthwhile is what provides the most value and enrichment to your own life. That’s why two homeowners can decorate their space in entirely different ways and for both outcomes to be valid.
You’ve already won as long as the property is safe, not a fire risk, and gives you the sense of comfort and utility you’re after.
That being said, your priorities might change as time goes by. Perhaps you were quite happy with a simple and minimalist space as a young professional, but now you have a family, you hope to enrich your household with more utilities.
So far, so good. Putting together several investments for a healthy household and healthy family is always a good idea. In this post, we’ll discuss some purchases you could make to refine the household in such a way. We hope this gives you the inspiration to design and adjust to your heart’s content, remembering that every step forward is one worth appreciating:
Table of Contents
1. Indoor Air Purifiers
Air quality is very important, especially if you have infants, children or elderly relatives in your household. This is doubly important if you live in an urban area where constant car exhaust pollution may interfere with your air quality. An indoor air purifier can provide HEPA filtration while even releasing negative ions into the air, allowing your home to feel more comfortable, breathable, and fresh.
In some cases, an air purifier can also help rid you of those usual live-in smells, like doggy smells (wet coats, dog breath) that you otherwise get used to but guests don’t. Air purifiers are also worthwhile for infant bedrooms, where the sleep mode can be activated to avoid keeping your child up at night. Indoor air purifiers can be freestanding units or integrated with your HVAC system.
2. High-Quality Mattresses
It’s hard to overstate how enriching a calm and collected sleep can be for the health of, well, anyone in your household. That’s why investing in good mattresses can be such a worthwhile approach to take. This gives you a sense of relaxation and comfort, but could also help if you have limited mobility or back issues. Memory foam can comfort to the natural curvature of your spine as you sleep, which also helps with long-term health.
Moreover, high-quality mattresses tend to have anti-microbial properties which can only lead to a healthier and cleaner environment. This way, you invest directly in the sleep health of your family, which is always a healthy approach to take.
3. Nutrient-Rich Vegetable Garden
Now, you don’t have to be an entirely self-sufficient family to live healthily, even if you might enjoy moving in that direction for sustainability and health purposes. Curating a little health garden for root vegetables, a greenhouse for tomatoes, or a simple herb garden for garnishes can be a beautiful investment.
Moreover, there’s nothing like gardening to improve the mental health of those who partake in it. Investing in a few planks of wood, some soil, compost, seeds, water, and patience can help you learn a great deal about your exterior soil pH environment, show your children the value in nurturing plants, and to see the final result at your dinner table.
Who knows? Perhaps you’ll extend this self-sufficiency to keeping a few chickens in your garden and beyond.
4. Home Exercise Equipment
You don’t have to be Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime to get value out of a home gym or some pieces of exercise equipment. Even a good exercise bike with a TV you can connect your smartphone to will serve as a good budget option, especially if you’re emulating a service like Peloton.
Home exercise equipment can help you avoid constant drives or walks to the gym, keep you consistent with your schedule, and even open up exercise to other family members. Even having space for a yoga mat, a weightlifting bench, or somewhere to enjoy bodyweight exercises can be enough. Over time, this is sure to help you feel your best and to move forward with a sense of comfort.
5. Smart Thermostat For Temperature Control
Most would agree that the weather has been relatively unpredictable around the world, and we’ll let you speculate as to why that is. For example, in countries like the United Kingdom, known for rarely having serviced air conditioning in most residences, homeowners are investing in these utilities thanks to the blisteringly hot summers being experienced.
A smart thermostat can help you avoid having to sit next to the control box all day, instead aligning itself to the needs of the moment and reading your room temperature to maintain the correct balance.
6. Quality Cookware
Of course, any home that has lovingly prepared meals cooked daily is a healthy household, and it’s hard to qualify that with a “yes but.” That being said, quality cookware can be a fantastic investment to make, because it can help to remove the toxins or released chemicals that might occur in trace amounts thanks to cheaper quality products.
For example, scratched non-stick pans may be less healthy for you to cook with than you imagine, while Teflon pans are known for this outcome if not correctly maintained. A well-seasoned cast iron pan can provide a healthy alternative, but it does require a little upkeep, and it’s important for children to be mindful of the risk when in the kitchen during cooking time.
Investing in healthy plates, cutlery, a good dishwasher, reliable pans, and healthy alternatives for cooking (like reducing your reliance on seed oils) can be a worthwhile investment to make in your household. Of course, there’s zero shame in having frozen quick-to-prepare foods on hand but trying to cook fresh as often as you can and meal prep can also be a worthwhile investment, perhaps not of your budget, but certainly of your time.
7. Comfortable Furniture & Seating
Great furniture dictates how we interact with the interiors of our home on a daily basis, and it’s worth making sure these implements are comfortable to spend time with. Comfortable furniture and seating can do the world of good if we opt for models that are robust, designed well, and unlikely to be damaged over a long period, especially with the strains of familial life.
An industrial dining table serves as an excellent investment, then, because it offers a sense of comfort and utility while also remaining completely robust and secure no matter what you throw at it. It can also match the unique architectural styles of modern homes and rural spaces alike, meaning you have the best of both worlds.
It’s also worth considering how certain furniture helps you live more healthily, such as with lumbar support in your office chair, replaceable covers for couch cushions, a well-ventilated wardrobe, and more.
8. Reclaimed Or Sustainable Furnishings
Sustainability is its own form of health because limiting your impact on the environment is almost always worth your effort. Reclaimed or sustainable furnishings not only help you refine something old into something new, but it speaks to your willingness to rejuvenate older materials.
That might involve using reclaimed wood from a local church to fashion your front door or reclaimed timber to implement false beams in your home for that rural effect. Have fun with it, and you’ll have embedded your personality into the walls of your household.
Invest In a Healthier Household
Making a few simple changes in your home could make for a healthier household. Considering comfort, sustainability, and wellbeing whenever you buy anything or you home will help you make choices that are right for the whole family.
With this advice, you’ll be sure to invest in your healthiest family household.
This is a contributed post.