The pandemic has altered our outlook and perception of our home.

The importance of functional, comfortable and visually appealing interior designs could not be emphasised more than now when everyone is spending their entire day within four walls. DefineHomz, as one of the top interior design firms and housing a team of best interior designers, understands the significance of a home that is inviting, which is highlighted through the following text.

Our occupied schedules and busy lives that constantly entail a fast-paced manner of day-to-day traversing, whether on the professional or personal front, have led to situations where we fail to remember the solace and calm of our own homes as an individual and as a society. When was the last time you soaked in the streaks of sunlight illuminating your house, spent quality time in your balcony with your family, or just admired the family portraits hanging on your walls? The answer would be such that it will elicit in you a desire for introspection as to what the meaning of a home has become to you and how it evolved during the pandemic when the four walls of your house became your office, playground, cafe, hotel, kid's classroom and whatnot.

With the progression of months and the lockdown becoming synonymous with the new normal, our houses have become akin to a bubble of reality that we can't escape, bringing us face to face to the habits, rituals and daily activities that we once left behind. It has enabled us to engage with the corners of your home that you once remodelled with great fervour but gradually disregarded it with other matters gaining quick prominence in your life. Now, what's interesting to observe is the different ways one is interacting with the same spaces, sometimes turning it into a gym, a salon, an office and other times a movie theatre and much more. The pandemic has provided enough undivided time for us to collectively ponder the relationship we share with our home and readjust it after some scrutinising.

Our home as the safety haven

There is no denying that the meaning of home over the years has evolved from a space that protected us from external disturbances to a place that provides comfort, retreat and relaxation. However, the nationwide lockdown restricted us into the safety bubble of our homes, making it our refuge and redefining its meaning for us again. Some relationships were tested, some were strengthened, with families, roommates, and partners shoved into full-time inseparableness. This definitely led to clashes, but also the formation of collective hobbies, performing activities like stargazing while lazing around on the terrace with your family, or just sipping tea quietly in the calming and inviting environment of the balcony. Funnily enough, we have even managed to create a routine out of this chaos that differs greatly from the one we lived before.

Finding the new meaning of home

When work, studies, recreation and cooking are crammed in one space for all times, with no distinctive boundaries or demarcations for shifting your mind from one mode to another and lack of social interactions, some displeasure and discomfort are bound to happen. Even spacious flats can quickly turn restrictive and appear like confinement when the human limits are stretched, and they are compelled to narrow down their sense of living to a few square feet. Thus, the past months' experiences, while reintroducing us to the sheer joy of a happy home, has also brought us closer to its limitations imbibing new ways of thinking about our homes into us. Perhaps the future that awaits us has in store homes designed to be more adaptable where one can do a multitude of activities without losing their sense of self with the passing time.

Whatever inner changes we might have felt regarding our home, what remains fairly common among many is the daydreaming sessions of transforming our homes to better suit our lifestyle and the urgency to actually achieve it. For some, that might mean redecorating their balcony, changing their home's layout, turning up the functionality of the home, or just creating separate spaces within their home for varied purposes such as office work or work out sessions. Overall, there is no denying that our home is the most intimate space of our lives where we create and share memories, witness the transitions of our lives, observe our surroundings grow and develop, live large unapologetically, which after the pandemic might change in appearances, design and purpose along with our altered perception.