How to Design a Healthy Home for the Mind + Body
A well-designed space should be beneficial to your health and wellness and make a positive impact on your life. Adam Gibson, principal of Adam Gibson Design, located at the Indiana Design Center, speaks across the country about how to design a healthy home. Gibson suggests the following design tips to help improve your overall well-being.
Healthy Home Tip #1: Bring Nature Inside
Being outdoors offers a sense of reprieve from our everyday, technologically over-connected lives, so using natural elements in your home helps achieve a calming design scheme. Accessorizing with greenery like a succulent garden or using materials from the earth, like natural stone or a grasscloth wallcovering, will heighten your connection to the outdoors.
Healthy Home Tip #2: Improve Indoor Air Quality
The industry term “off-gassing” is used to describe the release of chemicals known as VOCs (volatile organic compounds) by household products and is linked to serious health concerns. To reduce your exposure to VOCs and improve indoor air quality, always choose paint that qualifies as zero-VOC and be mindful of flooring selections, because carpet and hardwoods produce the most VOCs in the home. In the construction or remodeling phase of design, you can add air filter systems to provide cleaner “makeup air” which pulls air in your home from outside when using an exhaust fan, rather than pulling it from an attic or crawl space. When in doubt, ask a professional to guide you in making safer product and design selections.
Healthy Home Tip #3: Embrace Natural Light
Nearly 50 percent of people in the U.S. are vitamin D deficient, which can trigger low serotonin levels related to depression and anxiety. Just as athletes achieve the “runners high” that results from serotonin released through exercise, serotonin levels can increase with exposure to natural sunlight. Consider window treatments such as sheers or adjustable shades that allow privacy but do not completely block sunlight. Well-appointed skylights, whether conventional or tubular, are also great options, and the infusion of natural light will cut down on your electricity bill.
Want to learn more? Contact Gibson with questions and visit the Indiana Design Center showrooms to see the products and resources that can help you to achieve a healthy home. The Indiana Design Center is located at 200 S. Rangeline Road in Carmel (indianadesigncenter-staging.lc453fem-liquidwebsites.com) and Adam Gibson Design can be reached at [email protected] (www.adamgibson.com).
Ths article was originally written for Indianapolis’ Active Life Magazine.
About Adam Gibson Design: Warmth, Simplicity & Clarity in Design
Adam Gibson is a design professional specializing in luxury home additions, kitchens and bathrooms, entertainments spaces, and commercial suites. Known for an infusion of clean lines, natural light, warmth, and efficient use of space, Adam brings an outside-the-box imagination, an ear attuned to his clients’ needs, eco-friendly technologies and the desire to create a healthy indoor environment to each of his designs.
Comprehensive construction documents along with color renderings, contractor-client liaison and construction management are all services available to clients. Adam is a Certified Master Kitchen and Bath Designer as designated by the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA).