Helen James is a leading Irish designer best known for her Considered
range at Dunnes Stores and her much-loved food blogging. She
previously worked as Design Director for Donna Karan Home in New
York and was co-presenter of RTs Home of the Year. She is a mother to
three boys and lives in Dublin. A Sense of Home is her first book.
Copyright 2017, Helen James
First published in 2017 by Hachette Books Ireland
An Hachette UK Company
The right of Helen James to be identified as the Author of the Work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than
that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed
on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 473 63389
Typeset in Baskerville by An Design, Tara
Book text design by An Design, Tara
Cover design by cabinlondon.co.uk
Hachette Books Ireland
8 Castlecourt Centre
Castleknock
Dublin
Ireland
A division of Hachette UK,
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, London EC4Y 0DZ, England
www.hachettebooksireland.ie
Contents
To my mum and dad
two of the most interesting people Ive ever met
To my mum and dad
two of the most interesting people Ive ever met
Exploring
Your Senses,
and Mine
A house is a building
A home is a living thing
C
EXPLORING YOUR SENSES, AND MINE
reating a home , a personal haven, is not just about
painting a wall and putting down a rug. Now more than
ever, we want our homes to be a true reflection of ourselves.
Your home is so much greater than a house, more than four
walls and a roof. It is a combination of your senses, of the
familiar, the loved, the traditional. Its the warm feeling of coming through
your door at the end of a long day, or indeed after time spent away. It is so
good to be home, your nervous system relates, as it lets go and unwinds.
Homes should nurture and nourish us, be a private sanctuary, a deeply
personal place where friends and family gather and celebrate.
Every time you walk into someones home, including your own, you
are experiencing it with all of your senses, even though you may not be
consciously aware of it
The feel of a floor underfoot, hard wood, soft pile carpet? Tiles?
The smell of a burning fire or a delicious meal cooking.
The sound of music, a familiar voice, or just as important, the lack of
sound peace and sanctuary.
The taste of your favourite food, memories of childhood flavours.
The colours and the combination of colour.
You are experiencing all of your surroundings with all of these senses
and they are making you feel at ease or on edge, comfortable or anxious,
sometimes in subtle ways that you may not even realise.
So, how can you become more aware of these things and then fine-tune
them to meet your own exact preferences? The first step is to become aware
A SENSE OF HOME
of them, and then to apply what you have learned to your surroundings.
What should your bedroom feel like? What should your living room
smell like? We should approach the creation and shaping of our home with
all of these senses as our guide. How can you make each room even the
smallest room into a place that gives you the best and most personal
experience of it possible?
I want to show you how you can tune in to your surroundings and
create a home that not only looks good but smells good, where the air is as
clean as possible, where beautiful textures and surfaces abound and where
you can take the time you need to feed your soul! By exploring what you
like and applying this to your home you can create a deeply individual
space where you can entertain, luxuriate in food you have prepared and
treat yourself with indulgent natural bodycare products that will nourish
your body and soul.
They say only 10 per cent of communication is through speech; well, I
feel the same way about how our homes look. So much emphasis is placed on
how we see a room, but have you ever walked into a room that smelled really
bad? In that moment, nothing else mattered, right? Who cares what colour
the walls are or how many cushions are on the sofa if there is a bad smell it
is hard to focus on anything else: equally, a pleasing smell can help relax you
and make you appreciate your surroundings more. When the air is clean and
full of oxygen it helps us to rejuvenate and regenerate; equally, stale air, that
could be harbouring toxins, can drag us down and make us lethargic.
All of our senses are sending messages to our brain every moment of
the day but most of the time we are not aware of them. If you start paying
attention to your senses and tuning in to them, it can help you create a truly
individual home that will nourish and nurture you.
Every room should have a plant, a book
and at least one natural object.
EXPLORING YOUR SENSES, AND MINE
Today, in a digital world where screens take up so much of our time,
many of us have become cut off from fully experiencing our senses this is
why its more important than ever to pay attention to them.
Small changes can have a big impact on the way you experience your
environment. This is not about big, expensive renovations or remodelling,
but about subtle things you can do to your home and for yourself to make
being at home an experience that you relish, that supports and nurtures
you. It is about enjoying the humanity of your home and what you eat,
breathe, apply and put into your body there.
What is the layer that differentiates a home from a house and what
differentiates your home from someone elses? The answer of course is you .
It takes time to know what your style is and how to apply it to your home
environment.
Start simply by learning to really connect with things you love, to allow
yourself to discover them anew. Filling your home with colours, textures
and scents that appeal to you will make your home work for you and
ultimately help to make you happy there.
EXPLORING YOUR SENSES, AND MINE
So what do you do to begin creating the home you desire? Its important
to think of your house as a whole, rather than a set of rooms. I have a
mantra that every room should have at least one thing that is handmade
or organic in it, a stone, a plant, a handmade bowl, a piece of driftwood.
These things connect us with our humanity. So lets begin discovering what
the mantra for your home will be.
Approaching The Design of your House
How your home looks is probably the thing that people pay most attention
