How to Add Value to Your Home:

As we celebrate this years’ Mother’s Day, on the 9^th of May, I thought this article would be helpful in raising awareness for all women especially mothers to realize the effect they have in making a home feel like a home, even in its most modest location. It does not matter where you live, and how small or big your home is, any place can be home sweet home with creativity and a holistic sense of life and living. Therefore, adding value to your home does not need to be expensive, neither does it need you to renovate or extend your already built home. It just needs you to be literate in how best you can be creative in levelling up your understanding of life to improve your lifestyle and make it as creative and holistic as possible.

At Unique empowerment, we do not just look at literacy in isolation, but in its inclusive and holistic sense of understanding the essence and meaning of life, especially in the present-day world.  Holistic literacy in its most creative and functional sense makes you a creative and innovative being who can appreciate what you have and can afford with a holistic and humane mindset in living life to the full for a positive influence to all people you love and cherish. Holistic living is synonymous to creative living and simple and practical lifestyle. This is what has not yet been realized and quite figured out by most homeowners, especially those with splash suburbs of mansions. A thing that makes most of them end up getting bored and frustrated with their surroundings and their lives. Most, who can afford end up even thinking of going away for a vacation, instead of creating a vacation like atmosphere around their home sweet home or in the neighborhood. The homes themselves end up depreciating in value, instead of appreciating in value. This is what I experienced when I had an opportunity of visiting friends and connections who are living in the deep hidden splash suburbs of my home country during the festive season.

Most homes I managed to get to and observe even from a distance were cloudy and moldy with a melancholy and monotonous atmosphere of a dull and unexciting exteriors. They lacked that humane touch and creative sense of holistic life and living. This feeling is not basically because of the isolated locations where most of these homes are found. It is basically due to lack of creativity in livening up the atmosphere with some sense of hospitality around the homes. You know, homes are expensive to maintain. Keeping it really exciting and fulfilling within your beautiful walls and surroundings can be a challenge especially with limited literacy sense in hospitality and entertainment.

 That is what I avoided at this mansion I am writing about in this article. The house oozed charm with its vast expanse of virgin land. The front was warmly inviting and welcoming with tiled built in flower beds blooming with a variety of petunias and different species of flowers in bloom and lush green. It is a home that spells out peace, relaxation, and an escape zone for freedom from the troubled world.

 As a visitor you cannot miss the peace and tranquility of its surroundings. However, because of its location which is at the middle of nowhere, one might end up feeling bored and lonely especially without the holistic literacy sense in life and living a creative lifestyle that inspires being creative and practical in life and living. So fearing to be caught up in the same situation of lacking creativity and living a boring and unexciting lifestyle, for the ten days I was going to stay in such surroundings, I decided to turn our ten day stay there into a mini tour and turn the whole house into a cat walking walkway. This allowed me to capture all the special features, the surrounding and the whole scenery of the house and blended them with my fashion sense. Here is how I decided to capture it all and creating value by turning it into a hot fashion shoot setting. With no models, I had to casually do it myself and my home made capri pants and white flared cotton top came to my rescue as you can see in these shots.

Though still being polished up as a home, it felt completely habitable and very habitable. However, without getting creative, the house could have ended up getting gloom and dark like a dungeon. So with a holistic and creative approach to your interiors as well, life can become more practical and exciting to live in your home without that oppressive feeling of laboring under the traditional fear of being yourself and being the free hearted individual who has the power to live the way you want in a creative and holistic way of being you and being the best of yourself for generational blessings to those people you love and cherish. Here below you can see me patrolling the exotic and charming scenery.

Basically, when you stay at a mansion on a big expanse of sprawling land, it can end up being under-utilized and depreciating in value. So, you need to be creative in how best you can enjoy your home, your surroundings and add value to your home. You need to see and work out how best you can liven up the atmosphere and make it more interesting. Suburban areas can be dead quiet. If you are not creative enough, you might end up feeling lonely and lost. So, being creative I decided to use the scenery and surrounding as a suitable and enticing setting for a fashion shoot for my Practical and simple fashion pieces, highlighting the theme of feeling free, fresh and feminine as you saw on the above shots where I managed to capture the beautiful surroundings of the home.

The other creative and holistic way for making your home sweet home is to bring in the delicious aroma of food in a variety of exotic dishes that you can create without getting bored with the usual plain traditional staple foods like pap, sadza, fufu, or rice. There is nothing as uplifting as having some delicious smell of a creative food dishes from your kitchen. Especially when the food has been prepared just from the basic ingredients you can easily pick from your backyard garden or from the basics of your stocked pantry and your freezer. You do not need a heavily stocked pantry to turn your kitchen into a restaurant. All what you need is creativity and common sense to use only the basics you have with love and an open heart and soul.  Any home food prepared with some aesthetic sense and taste of deep appreciation of life and beautiful surroundings always adds value in your own life and that of your home and its surroundings.

 Oyster mushroom and Leftover rice pancake:

The delicious aroma of fresh and  simmering hot food in the kitchen adds value to your home by making it ooze a warm and inviting atmosphere that most people especially children find reassuring and trustworthy to make them feel inspired, happy and secure. You will never see them running away from your home and sit in the bridges across your home or outside the gate as is common in most children from these locations. They will always stay indoors or go out only for special errands or for well-planned outings in the neighborhood. So, be creative with your dishes to add value and an interesting atmosphere to your home. Here you can have a look at some of the food dishes I had to prepare to avoid getting bored with the melancholy of staying in this mansion. 

Fried Chicken pieces and Mashed Irish potatoes.

As I conclude this article let me share with you five interesting and creative ideas for bringing life into your home sweet home.

1, Learn the basics of entertaining friends and those positive people you love and cherish to have around your home over the weekend or special holidays.

2. Bring in a lot of nature around and into the home through natural furniture pieces and your favorite green plants.

3. Being creative in the kitchen can be awesome in uplifting your spirit, so get creative with your cooking and turn your home into a homely and personal restaurant.

4. Create a relaxed atmosphere with yourself by practicing relaxing activities like outdoor swings, ball games and tennis games with your children or guests.

5. Appreciate your whole surrounding by giving yourself time to relax and walking around in the garden, you can even take shots of your favorite spots and upload them on the internet like on free photo platforms.

If you find this inspiring and helpful and want more ideas of making your home sweet home, you can get hold of the ‘The Art of Simple Living’ here on the link below. This book explores all the basics of living a simple but fulfilling life as a woman or mother in the present – day world. You can buy the book for yourself, your friend, or any woman you appreciate and cherish in the role they are playing in your life.  

The Art of Simple Living: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1727450183.         

Happy Mother’s Day!