creating a home you love: how to make your home peaceful, cozy & restorative [part two]

in part two of this conversation about creating a home you love, we move from clearing space to intentionally shaping the way your home feels.

this episode is about creating an environment that supports your energy, your routines, and your well-being- the kind of home that helps you slow down, recharge, and feel grounded at the end of the day. we talk about small shifts that can make a big difference, from creating cozy corners to designing spaces that reflect the version of yourself you’re growing into.

if you’ve ever wanted your home to feel more peaceful, more inspiring, or simply more like you, this episode explores how to start creating that feeling intentionally.

this is part two of a two-part episode about creating a home that truly supports the life you’re building.

connect with julia on instagram @beautybyjulia + tik tok @juliasalvia

unlock more archive content on instagram @theselflovearchive + tik tok @theselflovearchives

sign up for the self-love archives newsletter: www.theselflovearchives.com

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to part two of creating a Home and a space that you love. In part one, we talked about the foundational elements and some historical elements of things that we need to understand, kind of like the how to create a home and a space that you love. In this episode, we're going to be getting into the more fun stuff, really putting in the work, the decluttering, the certain things that you can do to. Feel, comfort, feel at ease, and feel like you're creating a space that you truly love. Okay, let's get into part two. You are worthy of rest. Rest is not a reward. Rest is something that your body needs and your home should be able to provide that rest to you. And when I think about rest, I think about it beyond just sleeping, right? We need our sleep every single night. So your bedroom should feel like a comfort. You walk in there and immediately your cortisol levels lower immediately. Your body knows that it's time to rest. So I hope that you have created a space in your bedroom, in the place that you sleep every single night for that seven and a half to nine hours a night. I hope that you have created that space to feel that way every single night when you step foot into it. But your home should be a place where you get to rest Your home should be a place where you find comfort, where you are able to take a deep breath and debrief, relax. And I know this can be tough sometimes, especially when we are sharing a home with other people, and that's what brings me to having your own space in your home. I live with my boyfriend Nick, and when we decided to move in together, I made it clear from experience, but also because I genuinely think that if you have the ability to do this, you should. I said that we both need to have our own spaces. We needed a home that had two additional rooms outside of our bedroom that are just ours. He has his office, I have mine, he has his office, and I have mine. And we have created both of these spaces for ourselves as our own space. We spend so much time in our own offices, not just because we both work from home, but also because we have created these spaces to be something that we want to be in. And it is so crazy how wildly different the spaces are and how much they truly represent each of us. Now, as I said, sometimes you don't have the ability to have your own space like that, but you can create a space within your home that is just yours, whether that is a bathroom. That is all yours. The cabinets are filled with all of your things, and maybe it's the bathroom that has the bathtub in it where you keep all of your bath bombs, all of your candles, all of your comfort items. That space is yours. Maybe it's the corner of a living room where you have your cozy reading couch and a little table next to it for your iced coffee and a beautiful candle that you light. Every single night, make sure that your home has a space that is yours, that you get to call your own. I think this is so important for our creativity and our individuality and our ability to actually get that, that deep breath, that calmness. It's like how it is. When we walk into our bedrooms, our bodies know. That this space is ours and that alone can give us a sense of relaxation in our home. I have that for myself. Actually, in my office. I split my office in two. Where you see me sitting right now is like my work area of the room, and then right behind me, underneath my self-Love archives. Neon Sign is my space, where I meditate, where I relax. And the feeling that I get when I sit in these two different spaces is different. When I sit here in this chair, like I am ready to go, I am ready to work. And my body knows that it has become so routine now that my body knows that it is time to work, it's time to do what we gotta do, time to be productive. And when I sit on my couch behind me, my body knows that it's time to be calm, that it is time to relax. So sometimes it's not about having a specific whole room to yourself, more than it is to just have an area in your home that you get to call yours. To have a home that provides comfort and provides rest is not considered indulgence. It is a necessity. It is a necessity to have rest beyond just sleeping. Creating a home that provides you, this is not selfish. It is not indulgent. It is self respect. So we talked a little bit about how your home is not a place of performance, and we talked about how your home is a place of rest and that having a space to call your own in your home just further. Provides you that additional rest and calmness, and you don't need to work to deserve that. You deserve that just as you are each and every one of us. But creating a home that you love goes beyond these foundational elements of our home taking care. What takes care of you, your home provides you with safety, provides you with shelter, provides you with a place to rest, and your home deserves to be taken care of as well. It's kind of like when we put out gratefulness into this world. We are grateful that we can move our legs. We are grateful for the sky. We are grateful for the job that we have, even if we hate it. We are putting out positive information into this world so that it may come back to us tenfold. What I find really interesting about our homes is that we can live in a place for so short and not feel as though we deserve to create it into a home, or we can live in a home for so long that we feel as though there's no. Need to change anything. There's no need to update anything or live in a home for any sort of amount of time and not even know everything that's inside of it. Have you ever moved before? Have you ever moved before and realized how much stuff you have? I am completely, utterly guilty of this. I feel as though in my adult life I have moved so much and every time I move I am flabbergasted at how much stuff I have, and part of me thinks that I have so much stuff, so much material, so many tangible things that I can hold in a way of. Protecting me in a way of filling up the space. So when I decided to clean out and I'm saying clean out my closet, clean out my drawers, clean out my office, clean out a lot of different things, I had the ability to make space to be able to think. To be able to be more creative. And you're like, what do you mean? I mean that I think that there is some sort of energy that when you make space, whether that is physically or mentally, emotionally making space, but in this case materially making space in your home, you allow for room for other things, for bigger things. And I was in this like lack mindset of thinking that. Oh, if I don't, if I get rid of these clothes, what if I want them? Like what if I wanna wear them, even though I haven't worn them in like two years? What if I wanna wear them or I'm not getting rid of a lipstick that I never used because I'm like, oh, what if I use it? I've never used it. Or I'm not getting rid of this notebook. Even though I just have never wanted to write in it, or I'm not getting rid of something, I'm holding onto something because it was expensive, but I'm not using it. I'm not utilizing it. I think that all of these reasons are ways that we are filling a void. I think all of these reasons are a lack mindset because, what do you mean I realize that a lot of my not getting rid of things. Was not just filling a void in some ways, but was also putting me in this lack mindset of, oh, well this was really expensive. I can't get rid of this. Oh well, I don't wanna buy this again. Well, what if I need that? I was in this mindset of holding onto things because I felt as though if I got rid of it, I would be losing out on money. When in actuality what I was saying is that I may not be able to afford another one. So as I got rid of so many things, if there was a part of me that wanted to keep it, I would say to myself, well, if I want something like this again, I will have the means and the capability to just buy another money is energy, just like our things, our energy. And if I keep surrounding myself with things because I think I'm not going to be able to afford another, that's exactly what's going to happen. So I went into this process getting rid of things because I will be able to afford another if I need it. If I get rid of this lipstick right here and I want this color again, I'll be able to afford another. If I stocked up on three of my favorite lip liners, and it's just not my favorite lip liner right now, but it might be in the future, I can get rid of one or two of those lip liners because if I decide that that's my favorite lip liner again, I'm going to have the means and the capability and the ability to afford another. I went into this clean out process. Letting go of this lack mindset. Letting go of this mindset of trying to predict what my future is going to look like, trying to predict what I might need in the future. If that was the case, my house would be full. My house would be so full of things that you would ask me if I had a nickel and I'd know exactly where all my nickles are. You would ask me if I had a very specific camisole from 2019 and I would know exactly where she is. If we don't get rid of things that don't bring us joy or get rid of things that are no longer useful to us, or no longer align with who we are in this moment, then you are not making room for. You, you are not making room for the next version of you, the next chapter of you, your home is a version of you now and you are allowed to change it. Move around furniture, paint the wall you've always wanted to paint. Put up the pictures of being hypocrites saying this. Put up the pictures on the wall that you have been waiting to put up. Just because you rent does not mean you can't put curtains on your windows hypocrite. Again, just because you have purchased this home does not mean that you can't go do things that you have been wanting to do to it. Just because you think you are going to move out of this home in a couple of months doesn't mean that you can't make it a home. There are so many things in your home that is within your control, if not everything that is within your control. I rent my townhouse, so there are definitely some things that are not within my control. There are things that probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to do anything to because I rent. But that doesn't mean that I can't do other things or move things around to make this feel more like me in this chapter of my life that I'm in right now. So I don't think you understand how freeing it is to make even just a small change in your home. So switching the cabinet that something belongs in. Throwing out a ton of things that you don't need. Donating clothes that don't fit you anymore and haven't fit you. But I want you to discern this. If it brings you joy, if it sparks genuine joy, don't get rid of it. Keep it, even if it's a T-shirt you don't wear anymore, it has sentimental value every single time you look at it and you remember the last time you wore it. Keep it. Keep that T-shirt, but the T-shirt that is thrown into the back of your closet that you don't wear anymore, that doesn't have any sentimental value, that is too oversized on you, has a hole in the bottom and a stain on the front that you just don't care about anymore. Throw it out. Time to say bye tlu tlu to you. Before we close out this episode, I wanna give you some things that I think make my home truly a home. I would say five or six days out of the week, you will walk into my home and hear jazz playing on the tv. Mm-hmm. It is so calming. It really just grounds me and. I would, I would rather listen to jazz or piano all day than on like a very low volume. I'm talking like just background noise than have a sound machine play, like the jazz, the piano on volume five is my background noise is my ocean sounds. And every time I play it, it allows me to focus if I need to, but be calm and fully rusted and just feel ay cozy at home. What makes my home a home full of love, full of comfort as an incubator for my growth and the betterment of me. My partner is that we have had many, many, many, many conversations and have had conversations over and over again about how to best take care of our home, how to best live in this home. As I mentioned, we have our separate spaces and then we have our communal spaces. We have worked together to figure out what are the things that help us upkeep our home in the best way possible. We definitely bicker back and forth about certain things. The dining room is always a mess because I have events and all of that is exactly where all the stuff goes for a set events, and I definitely have a thing or two to say about all of his socks that are usually on top of the dresser. We have come to terms with who is better at taking care of what and what that looks like in order to keep up with our home, to make sure that our home is clean in a sense of being livable, but not putting pressure on either of us to make sure that the home is perfectly spotless 24 7 because that is unrealistic. If I am being honest and truthful with you, there is something that I want to do even though I don't know if or when or how long we are going to still be in this home for. All I know is, is that the two things that I want to do to truly make this home a space that I love is, number one, continuing to let go of things that I no longer need. Things that do not spark me joy. Things that are just filling a void, taking up space in my spaces, in my life, in my home that. Just are no longer needed anymore. I am ready to let go of all of those things. And while I have done the biggest feats of them, which is going through most of my papers and notebooks and beauty products, skincare, haircare, and my closet, there is still so much to do and I can't wait. I'm actually excited to continue to do that. And the second thing, I have so many. Beautiful art pieces and prints and accomplishments and things that I just never hung up on the wall. We have been living here for over three years now, and I've just never hung up really anything on the wall, and I think it is time, even though I don't know if we are leaving in a year, if we are staying. I need to make this my home. I need to make this a space that I love, and if that means putting things up on the wall to make it feel more lived in, to make it feel like someone fucking lives here, then so be it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and watching. The spring Equinox is around the corner, and that in and of itself means that it is time for new, new everything. It means that it is time for change means that it is time to leave this cold winter weather behind and start anew. The sun's gonna be out longer, everything is going to bloom, and the rain is just going to wash away everything that we no longer need and that we are letting go and putting behind us. And this goes far beyond just our home. I hope you enjoyed. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks so much for watching. Thanks so much for listening, and I will see you next week. Same time, same place. I love you. Bye.