How to Make Your Care Home Room More Homely

Moving into a care home in Leicestershire is a significant change, whether for long-term residential care, respite care, or dementia care. While care homes and nursing homes provide a safe and supportive environment for older adults, it can often be a difficult transition as it is unfamiliar. However, there are several ways to make a care home feel more like home, including by personalising your en-suite bedroom. Creating a familiar space filled with personal touches can have a huge impact on well-being, particularly for people living with dementia, where familiar smells, familiar faces, and sentimental items can bring reassurance.

In this blog, we are exploring ways you can transform your new bedroom into a place you can call home.

Bringing a Sense of Home into a Care Home Room

A care home room is a new environment, but that doesn’t mean it can’t feel like home. The key is to personalise the space in ways that reflect the individual’s personality, history, and preferences. Adding personal touches can make all the difference in creating a living space that brings comfort and a sense of identity.

Bring Personal Items with Sentimental Value

One of the easiest ways to make a care home room feel more like home is to bring items that hold sentimental value. Family heirlooms, framed photographs, or a treasured ornament from their own home can be a great idea to create a space that feels familiar. These small but meaningful items can help residents feel connected to their past and to family members, even when they are not physically present.

A memory box filled with keepsakes from special occasions, such as birthday cards, postcards, or small trinkets, can also be a brilliant way to spark memories and conversations with visitors or staff.

Use Familiar Bedding and Soft Furnishings

Nothing makes a room feel more comforting than sleeping in your own bedding. Bringing in favourite sheets, pillows, or a cosy throw from home can make a loved one’s room feel instantly more inviting. Soft, familiar fabrics provide comfort, and familiar smells from freshly washed bedding can help residents feel more settled in their new surroundings.

It is important to remember that bedding and furnishings brought should meet safety requirements, including fire retardant regulations to ensure a safe environment for residents.

Incorporate Favourite Colours and Familiar Decor

The colour scheme of a room can have a significant impact on mood and well-being. If possible, incorporating a resident’s favourite colours into their care home room can help create a sense of familiarity.

Soft pastels and warm tones are brilliant when creating a calm and welcoming environment, while adding small decorations, such as artificial flowers, can make the space feel brighter without requiring maintenance.

Bring Familiar Scents and Sounds

Scent is one of the strongest triggers of memory and emotion, so is key when you are trying to replicate a homely environment. Familiar smells can bring great comfort to residents, particularly for people with dementia. Using a lightly scented air freshener, a familiar perfume, or a favourite soap can make a care home room feel more like home.

A small CD player or music device loaded with favourite songs can also provide entertainment and a sense of peace. Many residents enjoy listening to music that reminds them of special occasions or their younger years.

Arrange the Space for Comfort and Easy Access

Furnishing an en-suite bedroom creates not just a homely feel, but also practicality. Ensuring that furniture is arranged in a way that allows easy access to essentials—such as a favourite book, a hot drink, or personal items—is key to making the space functional and comfortable.

A well-lit space with plenty of natural light can also make a difference in how welcoming the room feels. Avoiding shiny surfaces can help reduce glare, making the space easier to navigate, especially for residents living with dementia.

Incorporate Familiar Faces and Shared Memories

A care home is a new chapter in life, but it is important to still incorporate the past. Surrounding a resident with photographs of family members, friends, and pets can help create a sense of connection and warmth. Many residents enjoy sharing stories from their past with staff and fellow residents, which helps build relationships, make the care home life feel more like a community and allow the team to provide a continuum of care.

Continue Meaningful Activities and Comforting Routines

Creating a setting that feels like home isn't just about decor, it is also about ensuring daily activities feel familiar and fulfilling. Continuing personal hobbies, such as knitting, reading, or puzzles, can help residents maintain a sense of purpose. A dedicated team of carers can support residents in continuing their favourite activities, whether it’s enjoying a morning hot drink in their room or listening to a favourite radio show.

For those receiving dementia care, maintaining familiar routines can be particularly important. If a loved one has always enjoyed a particular TV programme in the evening or a certain type of tea before bed, ensuring these routines continue can provide reassurance and comfort to not only them but their loved ones.

Creating a Familiar Environment Where Residents Can Thrive

Adjusting to a new environment takes time, but it can soon become a place filled with warmth, familiarity, and personal meaning in no time. A well-designed space that incorporates sentimental items, favourite colours, personal touches, and familiar scents can transform a care home room into a place where residents feel safe, valued, and connected to their past.

Care home teams understand the difficulties associated with moving into a new environment and are on hand to support you every step of the way. Whether you need support with any questions or moving your own furniture, they are on hand at any time of the day.

Premium Care in a Luxury Home at The Amwell

At The Amwell Care Home, we offer exceptional Residential Care, Dementia Care and Respite Care in a place that you can call home. Each of our residents is assigned a beautiful en-suite bedroom to customise how they wish. We want our residents to consider our care home in Melton Mowbray as their home away from home and have a variety of in-house facilities including a salon, gym, cinema room, landscaped gardens and a varied activities programme to ensure they can continue to do what they enjoy the most.

Our friendly team of care experts are on hand around the clock and they take great pleasure in witnessing the creativity and style that our residents bring to their new space. To find out more about what you can bring with you when you move in or want to see our purpose-built care home for yourself, get in touch!