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This Substack explores a simple but often overlooked idea: that our homes are never neutral backdrops to our lives, but active participants in our health, mood, behaviour, and sense of self.

I’ve spent the past two decades researching this, working across design, wellbeing, and culture. Over time, my focus has shifted away from how homes look and towards how they make us feel — in the body, in the nervous system, and in daily life.

Here is where I think these ideas through, in public. Everything is free to read. Some pieces are practical, some exploratory, some merely musing, but they are always based on evidence-based research, not rhetoric.

The archive is organised into several sections, which overlap by design — but they should help you find your way around depending on what you’re most drawn to.

Home as Health

This is the foundation. Essays that explore why our environments matter — psychologically, physiologically, emotionally. The science, cultural context, and bigger picture behind the idea that the home is a health tool, not just a lifestyle choice.

Room by Room

Pieces that ground the thinking in real spaces: bedrooms, hallways, living rooms, materials, light, clutter, sleep — how specific domestic conditions shape how we function day to day. Plus all your decorating intel.

Inner Life

The reflective strand. Writing about grounding, rituals, uncertainty, discipline, beliefs, seasons of life, and the quieter inner shifts that often accompany changes at home. Some personal, some philosophical, all connected to how we live.

Cleanest Greenest

Work on sustainability, materials, energy, toxins, renovation, and the practical ethics of creating healthier homes in the real world — with all its constraints, compromises, and trade-offs.

Japan

A recurring lens inspired by Japanese ways of seeing and living. Reflections on ritual, seasonality, simplicity, and care, returned to over time.

Interior Design Masters

Observations on taste, judgement, creativity, personal essays and reflections, and what Interior Design Masters reveals about the value of good design.

Monthly Letters

My monthly letters draw all of these threads together across home, health, and inner life. Less instruction, more orientation. If you loved my Editor’s Letters at ELLE Decoration, these are for you.

Michelle x

PS If you’re interested in going deeper — for example, more structured work, Diagnostic Consultations to room-by-room resets, and at a supported pace — see Working With Me on my About page or go straight to michelleogundehin.com.