The Danish word Hygge (hu-gah) is a feeling or mood that comes from taking genuine pleasure in making ordinary everyday things simply extraordinary; whether it’s using real lights on a Christmas tree or breaking out the good wine when friends come over. It’s about owning things you only truly love or that inspire, being present in yourself and your life, putting effort into your home without being Martha Stewart or buying a bed in a bag. It’s about being conscious and authentic from home to work to friends to celebrations and making all events {no matter how big or small, mundane or exciting} matter. Words like cosiness, security, familiarity, comfort, reassurance, fellowship, simpleness and living well are often used to describe the idea of Hygge.

Some refer to Hygge as the Art of Creating Intimacy (with yourself, friends and home). Technology and modern day busy-ness has removed Americans from themselves, their homes and ordinary tasks, making them feel as though these things are hard to do, have no importance or are too time-consuming. Danes, however, only like to do things that are fun, nourish the soul and are familiar so they find ways to incorporate that into their daily life. By creating simple rituals without effort {such as brewing real tea with a little china cup every evening to stopping at the farmers market every week to buy flowers} the Danes see both the domestic and personal life as an art form and not every drudgery to get away from.

Taking pride in what you have now and not just what you dream are part of Danish life and Hygge. Think of it as what Chic is to the French; a lifestyle that can explain a table top to a dinner party to a charming house or a personal way of being. Basic, uncomplicated, un-exaggerated – Hygge!

About Alex Beauchamp

An Aquarius who doesn’t believe in astrology, Alex is passionate about sharing information, living well, and dresses (not necessarily in that order). She grew up on a farm in a small town in a family that was as creative as they were practical. Her clothes were hand made, toys were built out of wood, vegetables were grown in the yard not because it was hip but because that’s what one did. She was a tomboy who loved pretty things too. This meant she fished in petticoats, played sports in skirts, built forts then decorated with linens and helped her parents renovate houses by choosing paint colours and carpet.

Her bike is her preferred mode of transportation, as is good linens over jewellery and baking to cooking. She gardens for the cut flowers (peonies, tuberose, sweet peas), shops only when necessary, and dreams about sleeping for more than four hours at a time. She adores Thursdays, small houses (1000sf is her best friend), tea, hats and glossy home mags.

She grew up in a creative family of social vagabonds which sparked her intense love really seeing the world by living all over. She began her own travels at the age of 18, living in France, Denmark, New Zealand, Cayman Islands, UK, and Canada. In 1999 Alex immigrated to America and lived all over it: Franklin Tennessee, Bowling Green Kentucky, Seattle Washington, Austin Texas, Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Santa Monica California.

Currently, she resides in a very hygge 1920′s restored cottage by the beach in Santa Barbara, California with her dog, Jack Darcy and her cat, Grace.

Other sites run by Alex:

Alex created her first web site in 1995 and has been a staple online ever since, creating award-winning online sites, communities that connect and sharing ideas that really get people motivated. Mostly, she’s just passionate about using the online world to help help people create amazing lives offline.

Girl at Play: Her company which began in 2001. It began as a blog to chronicle how she left a corporate job to be creatively self-employed but now focuses on business in general.

Another Girl at Play: Showcasing over 30 women who run creative businesses with Q&A’s to answer just how they do it.

Girls Guide to City Life: An International travel site with the best scoop on big cities.

Anywhere Everywhere: Personal travel site with some articles from my travel writing days.

Pet the Pretty Things: Favourite product finds of mine.

Hygge House Gives Back

This site is about connecting people to ideas, to living well, and to each other. And an important component of that is giving back to charities we believe in. You might have noticed Google Ads on the site and product links to Amazon Pages. These aren’t here just to annoy you or make money – they’re here to earn money to give back to two very important charities we believe in – Women for Women and Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build! Program.

These programs are very dear to us because they support others in living better and that’s why we do this blog. So each time you click an ad or purchase something from Amazon via a link on this site, the money earned will be donated to both charities as a way to give back. So thank you for your support and we encourage you to donate directly or find your own favourite charity to continue the gift of giving.

How the House is Run

Hygge House was designed, coded, and implemented by me and a lot of tea. It’s hosted on the very amazing, wonderful, easy, inexpensive company, Dreamhost. We’ve used them for over 10 years for several major web sites and can’t say enough about their service. They truly make it easy to sign up, register your domain and then host your site. They even have one-click install for WordPress which is fabulous because WordPress is what I use to run this site.

Disclosure:

Hygge House is not a job for me – it’s a personal project that I do because I enjoy it. I began blogging long before you could make money and get free stuff so that’s never been my motivation. I have my own company that pays me well so that I don’t have to rely on ad revenue here. I also am not paid to write posts or talk about products. 99% of the things I mention I’ve paid for (products, trips, hotels etc.) so if I share something I like, you can trust that I really do.