5 Ways to Bring Nature Indoors to You
Posted on January 28, 2020 by Nymland™E D k
Winter can sometimes bring some of the most depressing months of the year when things typically look dead outside. It does not have to be that way. In fact, bringing nature inside your home to you can not only help spruce up your decor, but can lift the spirits during those gloomy months of winter. We came up with 5 ways to bring nature inside your home for your enjoyment.
1. Fill your home with real, or nearly real, plants
Filling your home with plants is perhaps the most obvious way to add greenery to your home. Real plants are the best to use, giving you the feel and look of something living, as well as the added benefit of converting some of that carbon dioxide to oxygen, which we all need. However, we know not everyone has a green thumb and it is sometimes difficult to keep plants alive, especially in those darker areas of the home. Thankfully there are now faux plants on the market that look incredibly real. The benefits of faux plants are that you do not have to worry about keeping them alive or that they receive enough sunlight. A little dusting or washing now and then will keep them looking great for a very long time. Be sure to keep them out of direct sun to prevent them from fading. Those areas are probably best for the real thing.
2. Add outdoor imagery to your walls using pictures or murals
Pictures with great outdoor scenes, and especially wall murals because of their larger sizes, can create the sense and feel that you are not in your home, but have escaped to the great outdoors. An outdoor painting or mural is a flat, 2 dimensional depiction of nature, but artists and photographers can do a great job with shadows to give them a 3 dimensional appearance. This is usually an easy and dramatic way to bring nature inside.
3. Include a trickling fountain to your decor
In nature we often see and hear running water. Adding a trickling fountain can be another great way to bring what normally occurs outdoors, indoors. There are many fountains on the market today to choose from that stand on the floor, while others are smaller and more appropriate for a tabletop instead. For larger fountains, here is a good reference article for successful implementation as a centerpiece.
4. Play nature sounds or music over a sound system
Aside from running water, there are a plethora of nature sounds that can easily be transported into the home environment by playing nature sounds or nature-oriented music over a good quality speaker system in your home. Playing nature sounds can sometimes be the most relaxing as well. Hearing outdoor sounds or music can also stimulate outdoor memories, which can help us escape the four walls of a house and take our minds on a journey outside.
5. Fill your home with fragrances normally found outdoors
Stimulating as many of the human senses as possible with the outdoors will help give us the sense and feeling typically experienced outdoors. Today, there are many ways to disperse fragrance. They include adding live plants that have a pleasant scent, or dried plants that retain their fragrance and are crumbled into potpourri. Other means of dispersing fragrance indoors include sprays, diffusers, or oil warmers. Popular scents from the outdoors include lavender, pine, grapefruit, as well as several others.
In summary, bringing nature into our homes can help wart off the gloom sometimes associated with winter. Five ways to bring nature into our homes include adding houseplants, outdoor imagery, running fountains, playing nature sounds, and filling the air with some of nature's finest fragrances. For more ideas on home decor, visit our ideas blog.