Dont Hire Someone to Steal Your Joy: Decorate Your Home Yourself!

In researching what makes people happy, I discovered that "Planning" makes us happy. Therefore, why should a homemaker turn over planning to an interior designer who creates homes to make money and impress others? Furthermore, most designers ignore the important outcome of creating a home, which is to support the emotional well-being of the residents.

Most of us enjoy looking for that perfect accessory, daydreaming about colors for our rooms, and planning a new look for our home. You know yourself best. Don't give all the happy moments of planning and choosing decorating details to paid professionals. Reserve the enjoyment of designing your home for yourself.

Homes decorated to support desired emotions create happy spaces for joyful living. Design Psychology, a new method for residential exterior and interior design helps you choose home improvements and furnishings for your happiness and productivity.

Follow the first and only rule of decorating for happy living: "Design happy spaces." Choose design ideas for your pleasure as well as individual needs. Design spaces to give you and others comfort, reassurance, and merriment.

For instance, take the use of a room and ask yourself how you need to feel in this space? Did you answer calm and serene or awake and energized?

Beyond issues of style, elements of color, textures, patterns, and lighting influence the way we feel both physiologically and psychologically. This means that your body reacts to the design details in your home; and, your emotions react as well.

Home decoration is not a permanent state because our rooms evolve as our lives change. Don't be afraid of making mistakes -- enjoy the process and focus on your goal of providing pleasurable daily moments in your home.

(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

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Auto industry executives, from left, General Motors  Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner; Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Robert Nardelli; and Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008, before a House Financial Services Committee hearing on the state of the auto industry.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)AP - The Senate's top Democrat has called off a planned vote this week on a $25 billion auto industry bailout. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that he wanted to figure out some way to help Detroit's struggling Big Three but that efforts to do so had stalled.



Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)AP - A growing fear of economic deflation helped take the air out of the stock market Wednesday, and another white-knuckle final hour on Wall Street pushed the Dow Jones industrials under 8,000 to their lowest close since the financial meltdown began.



In this Oct. 20, 2004 file photo, then-Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., talks with a supporter during a campaign stop in Redfield, S.D. Democratic officials say Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. (AP Photo/Doug Dreyer, File)AP - Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday. The appointment has not been announced, but these officials said the job is Daschle's, barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews the background of the South Dakota Democrat.



Rev. Amos Brown,  a national board member of the NAACP, raises his hands as he speaks to a large crowd of supporters of same-sex marriage, as they cheer in front of San Francisco City Hall on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008.  Thousands of demonstrators gathered to listen to speakers and protest the passage of Proposition 8, a ballot measure amending California's constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The event is part of a simultaneous protest planned in in hundreds of communities.  (AP Photo/Darryl Bush)AP - California's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear several legal challenges to the state's new ban on same-sex marriage but refused to allow gay couples to resume marrying before it rules.



In a frame from a video provided by IntelCenter, posted on the Internet Thursday, April 13, 2006, al-Qaida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri praises insurgents in Iraq. Al-Zawahri insulted Barack Obama in the terror group's first reaction to his election, calling him a demeaning racial term implying that the president-elect is a black American who does the bidding of whites. Al-Zawahri said in a message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008, that Obama is 'the direct opposite of honorable black Americans' like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader. (AP Photo/IntelCenter)AP - Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites. The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.



Lavennia Coover of Decatur, Neb., who gave up her 11 year-old son under Nebraska's safe haven law on Sept. 24, 2008, fights back tears while testifying before the Judiciary Committee, during a public hearing in Lincoln, Neb., Monday, Nov. 17, 2008, on bills that would amend Nebraska's safe-haven law.(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)AP - A 30-day age limit in the Nebraska safe-haven law appears headed for final approval. The state Legislature voted 41-6 Wednesday to give second-round approval to the limit. A final vote is expected Friday and then the bill will go to Gov. Dave Heineman, who has said he would support a 30-day age limit.



This undated handout photo provided by Stephen Schuster, Penn State University, shows a ball of permafrost-preserved mammoth hair containing thick outer-coat and thin under-coat hairs. (AP Photo/Stephen Schuster, Penn State University)AP - Bringing "Jurassic Park" one step closer to reality, scientists have deciphered much of the genetic code of the woolly mammoth, a feat they say could allow them to recreate the shaggy, prehistoric beast in as little as a decade or two.



The remains of a sarcophagus believed to be King Herod's are on display during a press conference at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008. Israeli archaeologist Prof. Ehud Netzer announced at a press conference Wednesday that analysis of newly revealed items found at the site of King Herod's mausoleum at Herodium provided researchers with further proof of the site being the actual grave site of the Jewish King. (AP photos/Bernat Armangue)AP - King Herod may have been buried in a crypt with lavish Roman-style wall paintings of a kind previously unseen in the Middle East, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The scientists found such paintings and signs of a regal two-story mausoleum, bolstering their conviction that the ancient Jewish monarch was buried there.



AP - Three male and three female inmates at a southern Indiana jail face charges that they devised a way to sneak between cell blocks to help pass their time behind bars by having sex.

In this Aug. 14, 2008 file photo, Boston Red Sox's Coco Crisp watches the flight of his RBI single off Texas Rangers' Tommy Hunter in the second inning of a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston. The Boston Red Sox have traded outfielder Coco Crisp to the Kansas City Royals for reliever Ramon Ramirez. A baseball official confirmed the trade to The Associated Press Wednesday Nov. 19, 2008 on condition of anonymity because it had not yet been officially announced.  (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)AP - The Kansas City Royals picked up the leadoff hitter they had been seeking, acquiring center fielder Coco Crisp from the Boston Red Sox for reliever Ramon Ramirez on Wednesday. Kansas City was 12th among 14 AL teams in runs last season and added power last month, obtaining first baseman Mike Jacobs from Florida.



Leaders of the U.S. automotive industry testify at a hearing held by the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill, November 19, 2008. From left are General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner, Chrysler Chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli and Ford president and CEO Alan Mulally. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)Reuters - U.S. auto executives went to Capitol Hill for a second day on Wednesday to argue their case for $25 billion in aid as legislators proposed changes to help a bailout pass Congressional and White House muster.



The Federal Reserve Board of Governors are seen during a Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington, March 28, 2006. (U.S. Federal Reserve/Handout/Reuters)Reuters - Federal Reserve officials slashed economic growth forecasts through 2009 and some believed even deeper interest rate cuts may be needed if growth slows further, minutes of their October policy meeting show.



Newlyweds Sharon Papo (R) and Amber Weiss (2nd R) pick up their marriage certificate after exchanging wedding vows at City Hall on the first full day of legal same-sex marriages in San Francisco, California June 17, 2008. (Erin Siegal/Reuters)Reuters - California's Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a legal challenge against the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage and let the ban stand until it ruled.



Former Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) applauds during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, in this August 27, 2008 file photograph. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)Reuters - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama selected Tom Daschle, a heavyweight former senator, to be his health secretary on Wednesday, while former President Bill Clinton took steps to help secure his wife the nation's top diplomatic job.



People walk past the JPMorgan Chase  and  Co building in New York March 17, 2008. (Chip East/Reuters)Reuters - Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co , Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp tumbled to multiyear lows on Wednesday on expectations that deteriorating credit conditions and a contracting economy will weigh heavily on the three largest U.S. banks.



A shopper passes a window display at high-end luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton along 5th Avenue in New York, November 19, 2008. (Mike Segar/Reuters)Reuters - Consumer prices fell at a record pace in October and new-home building slumped to fresh lows, according to government reports on Wednesday that suggested the economy likely is already in a recession that may be long and deep.



Senator Hillary Clinton is helped offstage by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, after her remarks at her South Dakota and Montana presidential primary election night rally in New York, June 3, 2008. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)Reuters - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has offered to allow ethics reviews of future business and charitable activities should his wife be picked by President-elect Barack Obama as secretary of state, Democrats familiar with the issue said on Wednesday.



A foreclosure sale sign sits in front of a house in Falls Church, Virginia, July 23, 2008. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)Reuters - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will loosen terms of its foreclosure-prevention effort so that the program, meant to backstop $300 billion in home loans, can be more effective, the agency said on Wednesday.



A picture taken in 2007 shows the Delight cargo ship anchored in the port of Hamburg, Germany. Somali pirate attacks have spun AFP - An Indian warship destroyed a pirate "mother vessel" in the Gulf of Aden, the navy said Wednesday, as bandits demanded a ransom for a Saudi super-tanker seized in the most daring sea raid yet.



This IntelCenter image shows a new al-Qaeda video entitled: AFP - Al-Qaeda number two Ayman Zawahiri ridiculed US president-elect Barack Obama as a "house negro" and warned him against sending more troops to Afghanistan, in an Internet audio message released on Wednesday.




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