A Guide to Optimizing Your Home for an Effective Self-Quarantine

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing everyone under quarantine, your home is now your place for everything. This means you’ll be working, exercising, cooking and eating in roughly the same place. Most people are still figuring out how to maximize their available space and it’s something that plenty of us are struggling with. There’s no certainty as to when the quarantine will be lifted, which means you’ll be spending a whole lot of time in your home for the foreseeable future.

The good news is that you can reconfigure your entire house and optimize it for a more effective self-quarantine. With a little bit of elbow grease, you can set up your home for the perfect isolation space. Here’s how you can make your living space work for you.

Create different sections of your home

If you’re working with a small space such as a studio or one-bedroom apartment, you may find it difficult to perform your daily activities. Staring at the same four walls all day can be counterproductive and in order to address this, you want to create different sections for your home. The key is to decide how you want to spend your time around your house and assign dedicated ‘zones’ for each activity.

For example, you can roll out a yoga mat near the front door and use that as your workout space. Or, you can use the table near the window to read books and check emails. What this does is break the monotony in your home and make everything a bit less stir-crazy. Just make sure those zones have enough space for you to comfortably go about your routines.

Have a designated work area

Chances are you’re working from home and if you are, then you’ve most likely assigned your dedicated work area. The thing is, working from home can sometimes feel too convenient and you may end up slacking off more than you should. Ideally, your workspace should be as distant to your bed as possible to ensure high productivity levels. Move your desk away from the bed and place it a location where you’re free from any creature comforts. The trick is to make your work area feel as office-like as possible to allow your mind to shift from rest mode into work mode.

Declutter your home

With so much time under your hands, now is the perfect time to declutter your home. Start throwing away empty boxes, containers, and other disposable items that you don’t need. Clutter can quickly pile up when you’re home all the time and this can really limit the amount of space you have. If you want to free up even more space, you should consider storing items you rarely use. Think of several home items that you haven’t used in the last six months and store them away in the garage. The less clutter there is, the roomier your home will be.

Allow more natural light inside the house

Dark rooms feel gloomy and sad. The last thing you want is to read headlines in a dimly-lit room which makes everything feel more depressing. Consider replacing dark-coloured window coverings with lighter ones to allow sunlight to pass through. Roll up your window blinds and let natural light illuminate your home. If you don’t already know, having increased natural lighting during the day equates to better nighttime sleep due to increased serotonin levels in our body.

Make use of vertical space

People are always searching for additional storage space inside their home. Thankfully, the only place you need to look for is up. The top shelves in closets are typically empty because they’re hard to reach. The same thing applies to kitchen cabinets where only the bottom-portion of the shelves are always full. Make use of your vertical space by storing products you may have recently stocked up on like toilet paper or paper towels. Vertical spaces are much roomier than you think and it’s also a great place to keep items safe from the hands of children.

Re-arrange your furniture

Sometimes all it takes is a bit of furniture re-arrangement to give your house a bit more breathing room. Take for example a bedroom where the bed is usually placed right in the middle. To open up more space, you can consider moving the bed to the side and have more usable space across the room. The same thing applies to the living room where you can move couches and sofas a bit further back. Strategically placing furniture around your house can make a huge difference in terms of how spacious each room will feel.

Being under quarantine can definitely feel monotonous and can feel even worse when your house isn’t optimized for it. By following these steps, you’ll be able to make your home a more comfortable space while self-quarantining for the time being.