Home is where the heart is. This saying resonates stronger than ever before, especially in the face of the pandemic that is COVID-19. Many are stranded away from home due to work or personal reasons, with the majority of the countries locking down their borders. Although we know nothing compares to your actual home with your family and loved ones, let’s try to make the best out of the situation to transform your current dwelling into the next best thing – a home away from home. Here are five easy tips!

Lighting, lighting, lighting.

This is so important, we feel the need to emphasise it thrice! The one most crucial element for any room or space to look bigger and more spacious boils down to the lighting. Natural light works wonders in opening up the interior of a room. If you don’t have access to natural lighting, consider painting the walls and ceiling white for an open and airy aesthetic. No more feeling cooped up and confined in a small space!

Revamp your bedroom

For many, the bedroom is a sanctuary. It’s where we spend a majority of our lives for resting, sleeping, studying and working. There’s no place safer than the comfort of our bedroom. In a new country, it’d be best to replicate as closely as possible to your own bedroom back home. This gives you a sense of familiarity as well as a sense of security. Zest it up a little, of course, with scented candles and a good sound system!

Channel your inner Gordon Ramsay

Missing the food back home? With the wide array of digital tools online these days to help us learn and pick up cooking, you’ll be able to learn and whip out a dish in no time! Some of us actually find grocery shopping therapeutic, and it’ll be a thrilling experience to explore the local market and foods of the area where you’re currently residing. Cooking traditional food from home is one of the best ways to cure the homesick!

Keep in touch!

 Thank God for technology, right? Connections are now so much easier with tools such as WhatsApp, Facetime and practically dozens of other applications out there! Although you may not be there in person, you could at least be there in spirit and in video for events that you may be missing out on back home.

Keep your home clean and tidy

Coming home after a long day of work to an empty house or room may be disheartening, but on the bright side, it’ll look amazing if you keep it clean and tidy! Being in a foreign country is a daunting task, and many of us would pack more than what is needed. As my mother used to say, you’ll never know when you may need this. From experience, these items would just be lying around taking up space. Should you have too much stuff around, consider decluttering your space and store what you don’t need with us at Extra Space Asia. Where you can access it any time, any day as our facilities are open 24/7!

There’s no place like home. But while we’re somewhere else, let’s soldier on and we do what we must to rise above these unique times.