What makes a happy home?

In 2019 the Happiness Research Institute released The GoodHome Report 2019:  What Makes a Happy Home? and their findings echo those shared above: “after surveying over 13,000 people and interviewing nearly 80 people in 10 European countries.  Expert interviews were also conducted with people with expertise in architecture, psychology, sustainable property development, neuroscience, city planning and social sciences; also, the content of social media posts that contained the hashtag #happyhome were analyzed.”  The investigators learned that “Happiness with our home is almost three times as important to our overall happiness as our income.” The important conditions for a happy home are:

• “Emotional conditions – Our emotional attachment with our home is based on five specific emotions: Pride, Identity, Comfort, Safety, and Control. .
• Material Conditions – The physical attributes, environmental conditions and legal settings of our home. These include size, sanitation facilities, air quality, tenure, etc. . . .
• Personal Conditions – How we use and engage with the home.  This covers socializing, privacy, home improvement, etc.”

Also, “happiness with the home is closely linked to many other emotions and aspects of our lives, such as feeling at ease at home, feeling safe, feeling connected with ourselves, and feeling in control. . . . [home] is a place where we can express who we are through the way we live, and the way we’ve renovated, furnished, and decorated our homes. . . Adaptability and space [perceiving our home as spacious] are more important to our happiness with our homes than both home ownership and the size of our homes.”