Daniel and I recently moved into our rental property while we wait for our new home to be ready. We packed up all of our stuff, sorting it into piles of "don't need for 6 months" and "essentials". After the sorting and loading up the moving trailer we spent our first night at the new place. For obvious reasons (boxes everywhere) it didn't feel like home.
I spent a week unloading our stuff while Daniel worked and went hunting. I am an organization nerd so I enjoyed all of the unpacking and finding a place for everything...like REALLY enjoyed it! I knew it would take a while to find a place for everything but I thought after it was all neatly tucked away the new place would feel like home. It did not.
I had a minor crisis. Without the distraction of boxes to unpack it was just us in this house that was nice, but not ours. This brought me to the question, what makes a home? When asked this question people always share the cliche that "the people make the home". I think this is true to an extent but the people (aka Daniel and I) were there and the place still didn't feel like ours.
So that brings me again, what makes a home?
It took me a couple of weeks but I finally figured out what my answer is to this question.
For me home is a well designed place where I can relax but also look around and see beauty within the walls.
After realizing that part of what makes home for me is the design we decided to repaint the entire place. The tenants had done a lot of damage so when I looked around all I could see was paint spots and wall damage that I had no memories associated with. We chose a slightly lightened Swiss Coffee by Benjamin Moore to add some warmth and brightness to the space and the transformation was drastic.
The next thing that makes a house a home for me is memories. I need to look into a room and be able to associate a memory with it. Daniel and I had a movie night, cooked some dinners together, played some board games and it honestly all helped. I looked around and could now see us in each space. Although we're moving again in a few months it's nice to feel settled for now while we wait to make yet another home.
What about you? What makes a house a home for you?
-SM
Comments