So here we are, festivities in full swing and another year almost complete! It’s the time of year when the craziness of Christmas ramps up around us, while nature is telling us to slow down, retreat and rest. December can be a conflicting, exhausting month if we allow it to be. But more than ever, this year at Hygge & Cwtch we’re focusing on the simplicity of finding joy at home and what that looks like for us. We’ve also done quite a bit of reflecting after a busy old year of work and renovations. Keep reading to see what effect this journey has had on us and how it’s influences changes to our interior design services for 2025.

Contrast and balance to appreciate joy at home

Finding joy in our homes doesn’t mean we have to be home-bound and hibernating for the whole season. It simply means discovering what makes us feel most happy and content when we’re there. We love nothing more than socialising, celebrating with friends and seeing all that our fabulous city of Cardiff has to offer at Christmas. But we enjoy those external moments of pleasure even more when we know we have our safe place to retreat and reconnect. It’s all about balance and contrast, you need one to truly appreciate the other.

A key ingredient to a hygge life

The meaning of the Danish concept of hygge is to find contentment in the simple pleasures. This is where we believe most of our joy comes from as humans. Not from extravagance or material ‘things’ but from life’s simple moments which bring us a feeling of ease and peace. And without a doubt, hygge is linked to our surroundings. It’s difficult to find that sense of ease and peace if the environment we’re in is chaotic and cluttered. 

The lovely book by Meik Wiking, ‘My Hygge Home: How To Make Home Your Happy Place’, shares a statistic that always stops us in our tracks. When asked as part of a survey, ‘What has the greatest impact on your happiness?’, 15% of people answered ‘satisfaction with my home’. This is second only to ‘mental health’ at 17%,. We firmly believe that the two very much go hand in hand.

Our homes are where we spend the majority of our time (a whopping 68% according to another question in Meik Wiking’s survey). So let’s not underestimate the power they can have on our wellbeing and happiness. 

Invest in your wellbeing

To say we’ve had a personal reminder of that this year would be an understatement! We’ve had our own renovation going on at home. Cue months of upheaval, mess and no reliable timeline to hold on to. I’ve felt disconnected and stressed and struggled to find my usual moments of joy at home.

It will be a familiar story to many of you going through renovations. For us, as we finally begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s ultimately been a reaffirming process. We can truly see the benefit of our investment. We understand first hand how a lack of order, balance and calm at home can wreak havoc on our senses and make us feel disconnected. It’s been a great reminder of how our work as interior designers is serving the wellbeing of others. So we’re all fired up for 2025 to help as many people as possible find their pockets of peace and joy in their own home.

Moments of inviting joy and calm at our Heol Wen, Fidlas Rd and Marshfield House projects (L-R). All photography by Aga Hosking

Creating alignment with your home

Consider how much money you’d be willing to spend on a beautiful hotel or a day out to ‘escape’ the chaos and hum drum of daily life. You’d potentially go to great lengths and expense to find a place that gives you that ‘and breathe…’ moment, if only temporarily.

At Hygge & Cwtch, we believe in investing in our homes to create that special feeling every time we walk through the door. We shouldn’t have to ‘escape’. We deserve to feel contentment, calm and joy every single day.

While initially our plans for our home renovations were driven by more practical needs, the investment we’ve made has delivered so much more. Our home is now aligned to our needs and our personalities and it feels so good! We threw the rule book out of the window and did what felt right to us. One of the best decisions we made was to consider the space we have as a whole. Bringing the same intentional design and personality to both the interior and exterior. A pop of colour on our external walls never fails to make us smile as we make our way to and from the garden studio. Now more than ever, our home is our sanctuary and we don’t want to be anywhere else.

Time to celebrate and set my 2025 intentions

By finding this alignment and appreciation for our homes, it naturally brings a sense of joy. Just being there is a renewed simple pleasure, a moment of hygge. And with the season upon us, there’s nowhere we’d rather be to celebrate with our loved ones than gathered around the dining table, connecting over good food, reflecting on the year we’ve had and making plans for the year ahead.

The journey I’ve personally been on this year has brought me a lot of clarity around my ‘why’ for setting up Hygge and Cwtch Design Studio. It’s not just about making things look beautiful. My passion is the human experience at the heart of it all. That feeling of enabling others to thrive in their homes in a way that they maybe didn’t even know was possible. Supporting people through the upheaval and stress of renovations by giving them a sense of direction and purpose. Knowing how it truly will all be worth it in the end.

My experiences of 2024 have triggered a renewed clarity on what I want Hygge & Cwtch to be. I’m taking the quieter days of December to review my offerings and will be back in 2025 with services based around helping people live their best lives in their homes. I’m so excited to work with more of you next year, shaping your homes to help you feel your best in your own home, surrounded by everything that brings you joy.

Because there really isn’t anything more special than home. A place where you can relax, celebrate special occasions, feel connected and proud to invite people in. Because that’s what life is all about.