Healthy Home Design

Designing homes for health and well-being may seem like a new design trend, but creating healthy homes is a concept that's been around for thousands of years thanks to the practice of feng shui.

After learning more about feng shui I was amazed at the correlation between the healthy home design principles I follow and the principles of feng shui.

That's why I was so excited to talk with feng shui expert Peg Donahue on this week's Healthy Home Design podcast episode.

Peg gives us the feng shui basics we need to start including the principles into our homes.

I learned so much from our conversation together, and I can't wait to start implementing these strategies into my future home designs.

What You'll Discover:

• Principles of feng shui
• How feng shui relates to healthy home design
• The most important areas to focus on from a feng shui perspective when designing a home
• What a bagua map is and how it relates to your home

Connect with Peg:

Download Peg's feng shui Bagua Map

Visit Peg's website: Feng Shui Connections

Email Peg: [email protected]

Peg's newest book, Money is an Energy Game is soon to be released in print! Order an advance copy now and save 20%. Click here to learn more.

More about Peg:

Peg Donahue is a feng shui consultant, personal empowerment coach, teacher, speaker, and author. She has an MBA from Boston University and a BA from Georgetown University, along with three professional feng shui certifications and certifications in coaching, intuitive development and healthy buildings. In 2015, she received Southern NH University's 2015 Excellence in Teaching Award as an Adjunct Instructor.

After a successful database marketing career, Peg founded Feng Shui Connections in 2001 out of a strong desire to help people succeed and easily achieve their life desires and dreams. She co-authored Money is an Energy Game in 2020, contributed to Success Manifesto with Brian Tracy, in 2016, and co-authored Dorm Room Feng Shui in 2005.

Peg enjoys helping people to live and work in healthy and vibrant spaces, to master the art of thriving with ease and joy.

This week's episode is a helpful guide to choosing healthy paint for your home interior painting projects. What you'll discover:

• Why it's so important to focus on healthy interior paint
• What you want to avoid when buying paint
• What to look for in a paint
• The best non-toxic and natural interior paints
• Tips for being safe while painting

Starting a big project like renovating or building a new home can feel very scary. Of course it's exciting, or should be exciting! But for many people, it's daunting. Where do you even begin? How do you turn all the ideas floating around in your head into something cohesive that you can pass along to your builder or architect? This could be especially true if you have an idea in mind, such as green and healthy living, but you don't know how to articulate it. Feeling like you won't be able to explain what you want for your home may be holding you back from making progress. So today I want to help you over come the overwhelm and get your project started on the right path. The very first thing you need to do when starting a renovation or new build is to figure out your purpose. We are going to fine tune the vision and goals you have for your project so that you have a clear path to follow throughout your design and construction journey. Download the worksheet and the video version here. Schedule your clarity call with me here.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed by the idea of creating a home that will enhance your family's health and well-being? If so, I can definitely relate. When I started transforming my house into a healthy home back in 2015, I was completely overwhelmed from all the research I did online. I was full of information, misinformation, and conflicting information. And I had no idea where to start. Finally, I just dove in, and through extensive research and lots of trial and error along with my expertise as an architect, I worked through creating my own health and wellness focused home. If you're at this point of information overload and lack of direction right now, then this week's Healthy Home Design podcast episode will be exactly what you need. This week, I'm sharing 10 easy, high-impact ideas to start creating your healthy home today. Whether you are transforming your existing home or designing a new home, these ideas will help you focus on what matters most. At the beginning, it's really important to focus on easy, high-impact changes because this will give you the momentum to keep going. By making the changes I recommend in this episode, you'll be able to see and feel the changes you're making to your house pretty quickly. I'm covering ideas that will:

• Improve air quality
• Improve water quality
• Improve light quality to align your circadian rhythms
• Make your home more thermally comfortable
• Make dinner prep easier
• Create a calm environment
• Keep your family safe

Listen to this episode to end the overwhelm and gain clarity on where to start your healthy home journey. Helpful Links:

Some of these links are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Water filter resource

Kitchen layout video

Bedtime Bulb for circadian rhythm alignment

​Blog post on bringing nature into your bedroom to improve sleep

It's the season of heating, which means you might be feeling the lack of insulation in your house, both because you're cold and because you're energy bill has gone way up. Insulation is one of the main factors affecting your comfort in your home. If you're planning to build a new home or renovate your existing home, it will pay to get the insulation right. In today's Healthy Home Design Podcast episode, we're diving into all things insulation. This episode is packed with good information to get you started on making informed insulation decisions for your home. Here's what we'll cover:

• Why you need insulation on your house
• Where on your house insulation needs to go
• The 4 main categories of insulation
• The best way to insulate your healthy home
• The healthiest insulation options out there
• The insulations you should try to avoid in your home

Do you have an insulation question? Email me at [email protected]

Have you ever picked a paint color for a room and then realized you didn't enjoy being in that room anymore? I have (more than once)! When I was in college (early 2000's, yikes!) it was trendy to paint a single wall of a room red. Although, to be honest, I can't remember if it was actually a trend, or if I saw it in a Sex and The City episode and mistakenly thought it was a good idea. Either way, the color didn't work for my bedroom, and I never enjoyed being in the room. This week on The Healthy Home Design podcast, color expert Mehnaz Khan explains why red probably isn't the best choice for bedrooms and so much more. Mehnaz talks about how the colors you choose for your home will affect your emotions. This is fundamental when creating a home designed to help you reduce stress and improve well-being. Mehnaz also goes into the color traits of many colors, helping you figure out what color will be right for the different rooms in your house. Having this information is a great starting place if you are planning on making over any rooms in your home. To get you started on choosing colors, Mehnaz created a color workbook that'll help you understand your color preferences. Links:

Mehnaz's helpful tips for a better sleep.

Learn more about the psychology of the color blue!

Mehnaz's color workbook.

Is this your year for creating a home that will allow your family to thrive?

Find out how teaming with a healthy home consultant for your renovation or new home build will elevate the success of your project and have you living in a home that keeps you healthy, makes you happy and encourages living your best life.

In this week's episode, I'm switching things up a bit, and providing information on what a Healthy Home Consultant is and how working with one on your renovation or new build will be a game changer for your project.

https://www.balancedhomebalancedlife.com/services/

Email Me: [email protected]

Did you know that you can design a kitchen that will help you eat healthier? This may sound too good to be true, but it's not!

The way a kitchen is designed plays a huge role in how we eat.

We know that eating organic fresh fruits and veggies is best for our bodies.

We are paying more attention to the fact that we shouldn't be eating processed and packaged foods.

And we might even try to prep our meals or at least our veggies ahead of time to make our weeknights easier.

But unfortunately, right now kitchens are hindering our health!

They are keeping us from nourishing our bodies and our minds the way we know they need to be.

This week's episode is going to take a look at how we can design kitchens that make it easy to nourish ourselves and that align with our healthy lifestyles.

Extra Credit: If you are ready to start creating a more wellness focused kitchen, check out these eight tips for creating your own wellness kitchen.

Questions/ Comments / Ideas for new episodes? Email me at [email protected]

We are talking about something a little bit different from my usual topics on the Healthy Home Design podcast this week, but it's something that is equally important. This week's topic is about creating an energy efficient home that in turn produces a comfortable, healthy home for you and your family. Since it's the first of the month, this is another 10 in 20 episode. I run through tens steps for creating an energy efficient, comfortable healthy home in 20 minutes. I only have two minutes to spend on each step, so this is not an in-depth guide to net zero energy homes, but instead a good overview if you have been wondering what goes into making an energy efficient home. (FYI, if you are building a new home or doing a major renovation and would like to create a more energy efficient home, I can work with you to make that happen!) I think this is an important topic because there are some misconceptions about what an energy efficient home is and what the best practices for creating one are. (Have you thought about putting solar panels on your roof? Find out why that's the last thing you should do for energy efficiency.) It is also important because we can't have healthy people on this planet if we don't have a healthy planet. Reducing our energy consumption is an important piece of creating a healthier planet. Email me: [email protected]

Back with us today is Mehnaz Khan. Mehnaz is a fine artist and color consultant. She was on the show last week giving us an introduction on how color can affect your happiness and well-being. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, please do! You will learn a lot about the basics of color psychology and why it is so important to understand how color affects your mood before you do any upgrades to your home! This week Mehnaz is diving into the topic of seasonal affective disorder, known as SAD or the winter blues. If you live in a place where the sun is now setting at 4pm and there are more gray days than sunny days, you may notice a change in your mood and energy levels. I definitely have! I live in New England where the winters are long, dark and gray. (But they're also a lot of fun, so I wouldn't trade it up!) Mehnaz is going to explain what the winter blues is all about and how we can combat the low energy feeling by strategically using color in our homes. Link to Coupon Code for Mehnaz's Art: https://www.mehnazkhanstudio.com/color-is-joy Connect With Mehnaz:

Website: https://www.mehnazkhanstudio.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mehnazkhanstudio/

Email: [email protected]

Connect With Kate:

[email protected]