After more than a year, “home is where the heart is” is a phrase that is now more real than ever. Houses have become multi-use spaces with work, learning, working out, and entertaining, taking place in our homes. Where all these activities would take place outside the house, they have forced people to stay home.

As a result of spending significantly more time at home, previously unused spaces were organized and utilized to accommodate all the activities. Some of the ways the pandemic has changed home living are:

Making Use of Unused Spaces

The need for work areas, gym spaces, and entertainment areas has made homeowners utilize previously unused spaces. Spare bedrooms, under the stairs, storage spaces are some of the rooms that have found new uses during the pandemic period.

For instance, basements can be used as a gym space, while the area under the stairs can have a small foldaway desk and chair and serve as an office.

Use Of One Room Serving Multiple Purposes

For homes with no spare rooms or spaces to transform into multi-functional spaces, desks, workspace furniture, and organization storage items have transformed corners of living rooms, bedrooms into offices, gyms, and learning spaces, in addition to their other functions. The rooms are transitioned from one role to another. For instance, when using a kitchen table as a school, once the learning is done, the children's learning materials are put away in an organized storage unit, and they can have their meals on the same table.

Use of More Storage

With the need to have multiple activities taking place, there has been a need for better storage solutions. Where you would use unattractive storage bins to store your things out of sight, there is a need for lovely storage solutions that are visible. Organization solutions are coming in more attractive packages, and you can use them as decor pieces in addition to their function.

From Open Plan to Traditional Floor Plans

Traditional floor plans have gained more popularity because of the increased need for privacy. When several family members are involved in different activities in the same space, it can be inconvenient.

Open floor plans popular in the recent past are becoming less attractive for people who want more defined rooms with privacy.

Improving Outdoor Spaces

With the claustrophobic nature of the pandemic with curtailed movement, people have improved their outdoor spaces to spend some much-needed time outdoors. With more time at home, we have been able to do more gardening, enhancing outdoor spaces.

Areas such as balconies, backyards, and patios have been improved to accommodate entertaining guests and doing fun activities. Better organization of garages and backyards has made these previously unused spaces ideal for playing, entertaining and relaxing.

Better Entertaining Spaces

Whereas people would meet family and friends in restaurants and other entertainment spots, the pandemic has curtailed these interactions outside our homes. People are transforming their indoor and outdoor spaces to host and entertain friends and family when they come over.