5 Problems With Designing Your Home Entirely Around 'Calm' — And What Experts Do Instead so a Space Doesn't End Up Boring or Impersonal

An earthy living room with a curved sectional sofa, brown suede chairs, a wood coffee table, a vase of tulips, a brown hanging fireplace, a stone kitchen, and the balcony doors drawn open.

As a home wellness writer, I find that most of the homes I explore are designed with calm at their core. However, there's a difference between designing a home entirely around this feeling and interspersing pockets of relaxation to envelop you at the end of the day.

The main problems with a home curated solely to calm include a lack of emotional registers, monotonously neutral palettes, rigid visual perfection, impersonal spaces, and rooms that fall flat. As with most aesthetics, it's about finding the balance between making your home feel calm without compromising dimension.