Transform Your Home Into the Sanctuary You Need This Year
- Feb 5
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 5
When the World Feels Chaotic, Use These 5 Tips to Create Your Personal Oasis
As an interior designer in LA, transforming homes into sanctuaries has long been a part of my job. Many of my clients live very public lives. While they love their work, its intensity requires a space to recharge and escape. They need a place away from the paparazzi to let down their guard, raise their families, and immerse themselves in creative work.
While most people don’t have to ditch the paparazzi, nearly everyone feels the intensity of current events. We recognize the importance of having spaces that encourage peace and rest. According to The American Institute on Stress, stress is a defining feature of daily living for millions of Americans. Between financial concerns, work-related stress, and the political climate, many of us are emotionally and mentally exhausted.
We Need Our Homes to Be Sanctuaries That Lower Our Stress Levels
In my two decades in the interior design industry, I’ve realized that most people aren’t quite sure how to create sanctuary at home. So, that’s the topic we’re covering today. It matters deeply, especially now.
Here are my 5 tips to make your home a sanctuary in 2026.
1. To Create a Sanctuary at Home: Embrace Nostalgia
If you’re feeling a little disconnected, remind yourself of happy times. Scroll through the thousands of photos stored on your phone and print some of your favorites. When you display photos of loved ones, meaningful events, and favorite travel destinations throughout the house, you give your mind little touchpoints throughout the day. These reminders bring up the pleasant feelings associated with those happy memories.
Unpack a few family heirlooms you typically leave in storage. Let them remind you of people and places that bring you joy. Bust out the fancy china you usually save for special occasions. Or, make a playlist of familiar songs and listen to them over a hand-crafted cocktail at the end of the week. Any ties you can create to soothing memories and experiences will deepen your sense of connection and peace.
2. To Design a Sanctuary at Home: Create Boundaries, Not Walls
A really important part of creating a peaceful home is having clear boundaries between spaces. In a remodel, this can be done with physical walls. But you don’t need to hire a contractor to carve out some personal space at home.
There are lots of simple ways to visually divide open rooms:
Freestanding screens or room dividers
Bookcases
Console tables with tall lamps or accessories
Large plants or potted trees
Wall moldings and trim
All of the above can break up long sightlines and give a more intimate feeling. While they don’t break up sightlines within the room, area rugs are key to defining seating areas within an open floor plan.
3. To Create a Sanctuary at Home: Make It Soothing and Restful, Yet Inspiring
Soothing spaces and a peaceful home are important, no doubt. But home isn’t just where we come to relax and lay our heads. Home is now a place where we also work and create.
I think that’s where a lot of the disconnect comes in — trying to make your home serve so many functions simultaneously. To create a home that’s both peaceful and inspiring, you need to do two things:
First, designate spaces for different mindsets and activities. Create these boundaries as mentioned in the tip above to divide the spaces.
Then, design each space according to its purpose.
Take a cue from commercial design for a moment. Every hotel, restaurant, and retail space is thoughtfully designed to evoke a specific mood or feeling. Your favorite romantic restaurant likely has a very different color scheme and mood than, say, an Anthropologie store. Because the function is different.
Take the same approach with your home’s design. Think about how you want each space to function and feel, and choose colors, furnishings, and accessories accordingly.
4. When Creating a Sanctuary at Home: Choose Your Colors Wisely
Color theory plays such an important role in interior design. We all have our favorites, so it can be a bit of a balancing act to select colors that you’re drawn to personally and ones that will create the feeling you want from your home.
Again, consider commercial space design. A spa or yoga studio will have a very different color scheme than a gym focused on high-intensity training. One is focused on creating a relaxing, soothing environment. The other is designed to boost energy and invigorate the senses.
I’m not a feng shui expert by any means, but I have had the chance to collaborate with a few on various projects throughout my career. I’m fascinated by the mystical side of interior design, especially when it comes to color theory.
Here are some basic notes on color theory and feng shui principles:
Fire Element — Red, orange, pink, purple, and bold yellows. These colors evoke feelings of passion, drama, high energy, and excitement.
Earth Element — Pale yellows, earthy, sandy colors, and skin tones. These hues create a sense of nourishment, stability, and calm. Even pale yellows can be energizing, though, so they may not be the best choice for a bedroom.
Metal Element — Gray, black, and white. Common neutrals in any color scheme, these hues provide precision, calm, and clarity. They make wonderful accents in any space. Bringing in metal finishes is another obvious and lovely way to incorporate the metal element into your spaces.
Water Element — Blues. From baby blues to the richest navies, blues provide calm, balance, serenity, and abundance. Blue is a fantastic color to incorporate into peaceful home design.
Wood Element — Greens, browns. Evoking the natural world around us, greens and browns create feelings of restoration, vitality, and growth. Filling your home with natural elements, wood tones, and plants is key to creating calm, soothing spaces.
We often think of color theory in terms of paint colors, but these principles apply to any surface — from rich leathers and stone countertops to metal fixtures and finishes. Color selections go a long way in creating the overall feeling and mood of your home.
5. For a Sanctuary at Home: Don’t Forget the Other Senses!
Many designers focus only on the visual and functional aspects of home design - as they should. But if you really want to create a serene home, you can’t stop there. Our other senses play key roles in our emotional and mental well-being. A crowded, noisy bar is wonderful when you’re in a social, energetic mood. But if your goal is focus and calm, that noise level would be incredibly stressful.
One aspect I love incorporating into my clients’ homes is custom scent design. Like color, scents have the power to invigorate our minds or help us relax, so choose accordingly. If you’re looking for scents to soothe, aim for:
Bergamot
Chamomile
Geranium
Lavender
Vanilla
Whether you opt for a diffuser, scented candles, or natural soaps that transform your bathroom into a fragrant apothecary, I encourage you to incorporate soothing scents into your routine. I love Flamingo Estate for soaps and candles for my home and as gifts for friends and clients.
Located in the hills of Los Angeles, not far from my home, their offerings rotate seasonally. My current soap obsessions are their Exfoliating Peppermint soap and Activated Charcoal Lavender soap. Both are lovely, elevated, and feel like a small daily ritual. For candles, their Heirloom Tomato and Jasmine & Damask Rose are two favorites. I love these scents because they're not overly perfumy and bring the outdoors inside. They both smell very LA to me.
Here's to Finding Peace This Year!
Transform Your Home Into the Sanctuary You Need.
My challenge to you? Take one or more of the tips above and intentionally integrate them into your home. Because we all deserve a place for restoration. Especially now.
Cheers to a New Year, Friends!
May it bring you health, happiness, and peace. Until next time,
XO
PE
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