Creating Your Joyful Home: Inspiration to Make a Home Planning Journal

If you are planning a home makeover or remodeling project, here are some ideas to help you.

Inspiration to make a home planning journal from "Joy to the Home Planner:"

"Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -- a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan." - Eliel Saarinen (Finnish Architect)

Declaration of Intent

Form your unique design plan encompassing your entire home, from the first glimpse, all the way throughout your home, and to the far reaches of the back patio, garden, or yard.

Think about the feelings you want to bring about: joy, peace, comfort, and contentment. Add in ease, simplicity, and economy. Start with your feelings and the emotions you want to bring about for yourself and those you share your home with.

Write down your ideas. Start with your desired emotion and expand until you create your personal design goal. Something like this:

"I desire peace. I want my home to sing in perfect harmony with the universe. I need to encourage nature's music of bird songs and plan a birdbath."

"I want natural warmth. I want the sun to shine in! No heavy window coverings will block out natural daylight. Ethereal light will be encouraged with soft, sheer window dressings for privacy."

"I feel like relaxing. I desire a padded rocking chair on my back porch with a table nearby for iced tea."

"We want joyful rooms to play together in. Only necessary furnishings will take up valuable play space."

When you first think of how you want to feel in a space, then you can choose the decorating details that will bring about your emotional well-being. I want everyone to feel welcome to my home, so I planted yellow and white flowers. I want my friends to feel refreshed when they park their car, so I planted shade trees. I want all who come to the front door to feel happy, so I painted my door a joyful shade of red.

Enjoy writing your desired feelings and playing with this concept!

Joy to you!

(c) Copyright 2004, Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.

Professor Jeanette Fisher, author of Doghouse to Dollhouse for Dollars, Joy to the Home, and other books teaches Real Estate Investing and Design Psychology. For more articles, tips, reports, newsletters, and sales flyer template, see http://www.doghousetodollhouse fordollars.com/pages/5/index.htm

In The News:

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In this handout image provided by the Israeli Defence Forces' Spokesman's Office late Wednesday Jan. 7, 2009, handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners are seen after they were arrested, during the army's operations in the northern Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/IDF's Spokesman's Office/ho)AP - Israel resumed its Gaza offensive Wednesday, bombing heavily around suspected smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt after a three-hour lull to allow in humanitarian aid. Hamas responded with a rocket barrage. Despite the heavy fighting, strides were made on the diplomatic front with the U.S. throwing its weight behind a deal being brokered by France and Egypt.



President-elect Barack Obama gestures during a news conference at his transition office in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009, where he introduced Nancy Killefer, not shown, to the newly created position of chief performance officer. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)AP - Pointing with concern to "red ink as far as the eye can see," President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs — even as he campaigned anew to spend the largest pile of taxpayer money in history to revive the sinking economy.



Illinois U.S. Senate Appointee Roland Burris, center, meets with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., right, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., left, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)AP - Senate Democrats beat a hasty retreat Wednesday from their rejection of Roland Burris as President-elect Barack Obama's successor, yielding to pressure from Obama himself and from senators irked that the standoff was draining attention and putting them in a bad light. Burris said with a smile he expected to join them "very shortly."



Workers put bullet proof glass on President-elect Barack Obama's Inaugural Reviewing Stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in Washington, Monday, Jan. 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)AP - The upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama is an attractive target for international and domestic terrorists, but U.S. intelligence officials have no information about specific threats to the Jan. 20 event.



President-elect Barack Obama is welcomed by President George W. Bush for a meeting at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009, with former presidents, from left, George H.W. Bush, Bill  Clinton, and Jimmy Carter.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)AP - Confronting a grim economy and a Middle East on fire, Barack Obama turned Wednesday to perhaps the only people on the planet who understand what he's in for: the four living members of the U.S. presidents' club.



Vice President Dick Cheney waits for senators to arrive to administer re-enactments of the Senate oath, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday it would be a mistake for President-elect Barack Obama to scrap the Bush administration's terrorist-fighting policies designed to prevent future attacks on the U.S.



New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson answers questions from the press regarding his withdrawal as the nominee for secretary of the Commerce Department Wednesday Jan. 7, 2008 in Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Craig Fritz)AP - One of Gov. Bill Richardson's close friends and advisers worked as a consultant for the California firm at the center of a federal pay-to-play probe that derailed the governor's appointment as commerce secretary.



This undated handout illustration provided by The Johns Hopkins University shows the massive 30-foot wingspan of the toothless pteranodon, left, was surpassed by that of Hatzegopteryx, right, at 40 feet or more. Pterosaurs, sometimes weighed more than 500 pounds, and yet they soared above the other dinosaurs. Experts couldn't figure out how  because no bird can get that big could get off the ground. A new study has figured out how they did it: By leaping into the air from all fours - unlike any other flyers in history (except the vampire bats). (AP Photo/Johns Hopkins University, Mark Witton)AP - The Jurassic version of jumbo jets — huge flying creatures weighing hundreds of pounds — is a mystery of dinosaur-era flight: How did something so big get off the ground? A Johns Hopkins University biologist thinks he has figured out the answer.



AP - An eastern Pennsylvania man may face up to 37 years in prison for tearing open a neighbor's door with a chain saw. Police say 34-year-old Robert Kane began sawing through the front door of Jamie Zaleski's apartment in Scranton while Zaleski and several friends ran out the back.

In this Nov. 30, 2008 file photo, New York Jets coach Eric Mangini looks up at the scoreboard during the fourth quarter of an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. The Cleveland Browns have agreed to hire Eric Mangini as their head coach, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun, File)AP - Eric Mangini is the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns, a week after being fired by the New York Jets. A person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press that Mangini will be introduced Thursday at a news conference at the team's headquarters in Berea. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because Mangini's contract has not been finalized.



An Israeli soldier jumps off an armoured personnel carrier (APC) after crossing into Israel from the northern Gaza Strip January 7, 2009. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)Reuters - Israeli aircraft and tanks pounded the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and troops battled Palestinian guerrillas on the ground as U.S. backing for a proposed truce raised expectations of an end to the 12-day-old offensive.



President Bush greets President-elect Barack Obama at the White House, November 10, 2008. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)Reuters - The U.S. budget deficit will swell to a record $1.186 trillion in fiscal 2009, congressional forecasters said on Wednesday, the result of an economic recession that has cut tax receipts and caused massive government bailouts of banks and automakers.



Senate-designate Roland Burris talks with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as Senator Richard Durbin sits in Reid's office on Capitol Hill, January 7, 2009. (Larry Downing/Reuters)Reuters - In an abrupt switch, Democratic leaders began talks on Wednesday to swear in Roland Burris, appointed by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.



United Auto Workers (UAW) President Ron Gettelfinger (C) addresses the media as UAW Vice-Presidents listen at the UAW Solidarity House in Detroit, Michigan December 12, 2008. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)Reuters - United Auto Workers bargaining teams are arriving this week in Detroit as the union gears up for negotiations with General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, which are mandated to cut labor costs under a $17.4 billion federal bailout.



Eggs are stacked up at an egg farm in San Diego County, July 29, 2008. (Mike Blake/Reuters)Reuters - An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning has made 388 people sick across 42 states, sending 18 percent of them to the hospital, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.



Reuters - The case of Ali al-Marri, accused of being an al Qaeda "sleeper" agent and held for 5-1/2 years at a U.S. military prison in South Carolina, will be an early test for President-elect Barack Obama.

A door gunner on a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter keeps a watch on the terrain during a resupply mission in eastern Afghanistan December 25, 2008. (Bob Strong/Reuters)Reuters - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has told Congress that a planned buildup of U.S. forces in Afghanistan could add $5.5 billion to U.S. war costs in the current federal fiscal year, officials said on Wednesday.



Bernard Madoff is escorted in a vehicle from Federal Court in New York, January 5, 2009. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)Reuters - Accused swindler Bernard Madoff should be jailed for violating a court order by mailing $1 million worth of diamonds, watches and other jewelry to friends and family, U.S. prosecutors told a court on Wednesday.



Smoke billows following an Israel air strike in Rafah near the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt. Israel on Wednesday approved an even tougher war on Hamas, warning residents to flee southern Gaza ahead of planned bombing of cross-border tunnels, as the Palestinian death toll passed 700.(AFP/Said Khatib)AFP - Israel on Wednesday approved an even tougher war on Hamas, warning residents to flee southern Gaza ahead of planned bombing of cross-border tunnels, as the Palestinian death toll passed 700.



A local worker controls a gas valve and the gas pressure at the gas-main center of FGSZ Natural Gas, in Vecses, Hungary. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday laid down terms for a resumption of Russian gas shipments via Ukraine to Europe as tens of thousands of Europeans suffered heating cuts amid freezing weather.(AFP/Attila Kisbenedek)AFP - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday laid down terms for a resumption of Russian gas shipments via Ukraine to Europe as tens of thousands of Europeans suffered heating cuts amid freezing weather.




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