We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast for a quick patio progress report: the wallet-draining patio supplies (mentioned here) have arrived. And now we kind of get why they were so expensive. They’re bigger than our car, it took a giant truck to haul them, they weigh over 19,000 pounds (that’s not a typo or an estimation, it’s on our itemized delivery ticket) and they completely monopolize the carport. John’s out there working away today (T minus one week until Clara’s big par-tay) so I thought I’d slip in this sneak peek of the craziness that is the current patio project. More details soon.
But now back to the whole question of “Home Sweet Home?”
Anyway, the first few weeks of living in our house didn’t feel like it was our house. It didn’t necessarily feel like the previous owners’ house either. But it just didn’t really feel like ours. Call it House Limbo if you will.
Even after moving in every last box and setting up Clara’s crib and sleeping in our new bedroom for thirty-ish days in a row it still felt kind of like we were living here but not exactly “home.” Then we painted the master bedroom (the first room besides Clara’s that we tackled) and somehow something shifted and it felt a little more like ours.
Maybe it just took a few of those bigger “alterations” (like changing the wall color) to help it sink in that it’s really our house and we can do whatever we want to it.
I remember how novel that concept was back when we moved into our first house. The whole “wait there’s no landlord to tell me I can’t paint or hang curtain rods?” thing. It took a while for us to fully grasp the concept of home ownership. And it was surprising to have those feelings again with our second house. It wasn’t like we were expecting someone to come in and tell us we couldn’t switch out the light fixtures or knock out the wall between the kitchen and the future dining room, we just sort of felt like we were playing house. Courting the place but not married to it yet, you know? We were in that “seeing where the whole relationship would go” phase. Haha. But lying in bed at night after painting our bedroom we both talked for hours about how it finally started to feel like ours.
And that’s sort of a huge concept – the whole “this house feels like our home” thing. So something so large and hard to grasp must need to happen slowly in stages. Because we only recently reached another “deeper” level of the whole “it really does feel like home” journey. What triggered that feeling? The personalized frame gallery that we made in the hallway…
… and the fact that we finally had a real working dresser and an organized closet.
They both really were game changers, as lame as that sounds. I can’t believe we waited so long to add something personal to the walls (the hallway gallery took us over three months to start and over a month to finish). And to create an actual sock and underwear drawer for myself after months of living with crazy piles of clothing on the floor of the closet was definitely a huge relief. I guess we felt more like ourselves with the sentimental stuff hanging up and the unmentionables tucked away. Like we were getting back to ourselves and the real way that we like to live – as opposed to feeling like we were on vacation with nothing on the walls that was really ours (and piles of clothes on the floor “temporarily”).
And of course it always feels the most like our house when we have people over. Because they show up and it just feels cozy and full. Even if we just order pizza…
…or lounge in the living room.
We’re actually anticipating another level of the whole “this really is our house” feeling when we finally complete the patio. I guess just the idea of creating an outdoor zone that no one before us has ever hung out on feels especially unique and ours-ish. Here’s an up to the moment shot of John’s progress so far out there:
Have you guys noticed that it takes a while to really feel at home in a new house too? Or did you move right in and feel amazing and call it “home” right away? It’s funny because it didn’t not feel amazing to us. At all. We were floating. Every night for the first month we marveled at the house and were so happy that it was ours (in fact we still do that at least twice a week). But it’s just kind of weird how certain things have to take place to feel settled in a new space. What did it for you guys? Was it cooking your first big meal in your new kitchen? Or painting every last room and piece of trim for a totally fresh canvas? It’s weird how such mundane (or major) things can totally change how you feel about your four walls.
Psst- We announced this week’s giveaway winners. Click here to see if it’s you.
Psssttt- Have you heard that Mariah Carey named her son Morrocan after “an interior decoratoring theme of a floor of their apartment”? Do you have any feelings about that? And furthermore, should we name our next baby Quatrefoil after our favorite mirror shape? Quatrefoil Petersik does have a nice ring to it…
Sarah says
It took us a loooong while for our home to feel like ours. Two weeks after we bought the house, my husband was deployed overseas for 18 months with very little notice (less than 20 days). A year after coming home from his deployment, he was deployed again for 12 months. So, that’s like my husband being gone more than 2.5 years in a 3.5 year period! During his absence, I made many, many much needed renovations, but it didn’t feel like home. Additionally, we often had family members living with us. We were glad to offer our home to them, but it certainly split up the space. Finally FIVE years later, when we were all under one roof and had no extended family members sharing our space it finally felt like home.
karen @ our slo house says
I can’t wait to have that feeling (again.) We are supposed to move into our renovation project at the beginning of June, and I know that it’s going to feel like “home, but not really home.” And then ever so slowly, as items find their individual nooks and homes, we will feel settled.
I feel like June, I’ll finally be able to “Just breathe…” line from Drew Barrymore in Ever After.
Melissa @ HOUSEography says
Totally! After we renovated our house and moved back in our house did not feel like our house any more. That’s one of the reasons I started the blog – so we could document making our fully renovated house into a home again. So much fun though and now it really does feel like home and not like some weird version of our home that we stumbled into.
Crystal @Beautifulhaven says
When I moved in my first home after 6 years of renting, I was thrilled to start making my home my home. I went crazy and painted EVERY room. I never put much thought into what I wanted the rooms to look like, I just painted away. Afterwards I was exhausted and realized I should of did some planning first. Everything has since been changed.
gemma@thesweetestdigs says
It totally took us a while for our place to ‘feel like home’ too. And now that we’ve been away from it for almost a year (we’ve been living in England while I do my Masters), I won’t be surprised if we have that feeling all over again when we get back! Can’t wait to get back to my regularly-scheduled DIY projects. Living in a rental when you know you’re there for the short-term just ain’t the same!
And the two Mo’s? Hmm. Monroe is kinda pretty, but poor Moroccan isn’t gonna have such a rockin’ time with that one.
Alecia says
This reminded me of your laundry room:
http://pinterest.com/pin/19748660/
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- that is so so so so charming. Thanks for sharing the link! We definitely have been dying to add some built-ins. Someday!
xo,
s
Jenna says
I love this post.
This is exactly what I can’t wait to feel when we move. My husband and I are moving back to our hometown at the end of the month and we are buying our first house! We are so excited!!
I like the original moment idea for your new patio area, it reminds me of one of the cutest moments from one of my favorite movies; Garden State.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I love that part!
xo,
s
Sandi says
My husband and I closed on our house on July 28, 2009 and still to this day there are some aspects that still don’t feel like our home. Just yesterday we were inspired by y’all photo collage wall and did a very small replica in our living room (this is the 2nd time we hang something on our walls since patching/painting). The only other picture hanging is on our fireplace of our wedding. I know what you mean by putting a coat of paint on a wall all of a sudden means it’s yours and you can do what you want with it. I love watching/following y’all progress and can’t wait to see what y’all have up y’all sleeves next!
Keri Beth says
We bought a 1955 ranch last fall that had been owned by the same woman since it was built. The place was in great shape, but was filled with plush carpet and glass figurines and other old lady knick knacks. Before we moved in, we had the carpet pulled up, the hardwood floors beneath refinished, and the wall between the kitchen and the dining room taken down and replaced with a granite bar. The place immediately looked a lot more up-to-date for our young family. Hanging our own family photo gallery and homemade postcard shelves (thanks!) also made it feel like our space. And, even though the pale yellow walls throughout the house are fine, I’m itching to paint just to mark my territory. :)
Jenny says
Our house was a huge renovation. It was built in 1890, slightly renovated in 1970, and was beat up by renters and then abandoned for several years before we bought it. We didn’t have hot water for a month, and we didn’t have a kitchen for 6 months. When I say we didn’t have a kitchen, I mean there was a huge scary lath and plaster room with absolutely nothing there. I cooked in an upstairs bedroom with a plug in skillet, microwave, and crockpot. We also had contractors doing some of the really big renovation stuff (like the foundation work.) Having those guys in the house really kept it from feeling like home. The day the bee keeper came to take the beehive out of the living room wall, the house definitely did not feel like home!! We had to keep the poor dogs sequestered in the upstairs landing area whenever we left the house. We didn’t have any grass in the back all through winter, so it was a giant swamp. I don’t think the house felt like home until the day the refinished floors were dry, which coincidentally was right before Christmas. We ran out and got a Christmas tree and set it up, and I think that’s when it finally felt like home.
Stephanie H. says
We just moved 2 weeks ago and we are renting. I had big worries about this place not becoming our “home”. Man, you should have seen this place before we moved in; navy blue carpet, purple walls, ugly curtains, and honestly it was where glass dolphins came to DIE! I was unsure about moving in because I thought it was so ugly. You would be amazed at the difference of moving the old lady furniture (and all her glass dolphins) out. In a weeks time I painted all the walls a soft grey, put in new curtains, and put up my original decor. It is amazing how modern it looks even though the navy carpets arn’t my favorite. My new couch will be delivered next week and so I think once that missing piece is in, it will all come together and become “home”.
ann says
definitely takes some break in time. of course, I still grin like an idiot every time I realize our new house is actually ours. and we’ve been there for about 8 months!
Whitney Kirsling says
Well I think your place is coming along amazingly! I am smack in the middle of an entire remodel and addition so I can relate. We’ve been stuck in a sad little rental for months now and I am dying to get into my place to get my grubby little fingers on my new home. You’ll have to stop by and see it, the floors should be finished this week and I can move onward.
P.S. I love lamp…..signed The Anchorman fan hehe
Barbara says
Nah, I really think you should name your next baby “Low VOC” or “Green”. That fits your family well!
YoungHouseLove says
Hmm, what about Vaughn Octavious Charles Petersik? Aka: VOC Petersik.
xo,
s
KathyG says
I literally L.O.L. Love It! hahahahahahahaha
Gaidig says
You know, I think a lot of people never really feel like it’s their home and they can do whatever they want. They don’t do the things they would like because of “resale value”. For example, my boyfriend and I are planning to totally redo our kitchen, adding a wall of cabinets and moving the fridge to what is now the unused eat-in area, but his mom thinks we shouldn’t because of the sale value of an eat-in kitchen — even though the current kitchen is tiny with barely any counter space and none on either side of the stove!
Keri Beth says
Why do so many people seem to think homes need two or three eating areas in two adjacent rooms? We renovated and got rid of our teeny-tiny eat-in kitchen too, and the kitchen feels sooo much bigger. Go for it!
Kathleen says
Our furniture is all set up, but we’re still dating the house. I did a lot of disorganized decorating in the last place and want this one to have more of a theme (actually, I’m still searching for my own Sue), and we still have to sell the old place (hubs is actually there now repainting some of our bright paint to white)… so yeah, courting, dating – we haven’t really decided which faults we can’t live with and what kind of shirt he’d look better in. Such a good analogy.
kristel says
my husband and i have talked about this a lot since moving into our (first) house last week… we decided that it feels like we’ve *rented* a house and are exploring it and the neighbourhood. i think that really is true to how we feel, because like you said, it feels like it’s not really our house, but not really someone else’s either.
Stephanie H. says
The day we moved into our house was 90 degrees and so, so humid … in April … in central Maryland. We had movers, but the stress and the start of putting all our things away was intensified by the heat. And my husband refused – refused – to turn on the A/C. Something about it being April and not wanting to start things off with an energy suck.
The whole house smelled like wet dog and the previous owner wasn’t the best house cleaner. The bathroom has those round globe lights, like in a theater dressing room, and there are 8 of them. And they put out so much heat! I remember taking a shower at the end of the day and just crying. I was so uncomfortable, even while taking a shower. What had I let my husband talk me into, I thought. I just wanted to go back to our cute, clean apartment, instead of living in someone else’s dirt. I was depressed and almost miserable.
Six weeks later, we pulled up all the carpet in the house – and what a difference! It was cathartic. Absolutely cathartic. I went from hating someone else’s house that was my husband’s idea to loving our first home. I don’t know why. Maybe all the perceived dirt of someone else life went out the door with the carpet. Two years later we have made many changes – and now I think our house is charming and even has a little bit of character.
Colleen P. says
Yes, yes, and YES! It took me 3 years to feel like this house was ours and to like it well enough to want to improve it. And that seems very strange because when we looked at it we loved it, I even kept the spiral bound information packet and in my handwriting it clearly says “when can we move in?”.
Possibly because absolutely every working system in the house needed to be replaced within a month after we moved in, I lost my enthusiasm along with my entire savings account.
We recently bought six yards of dirt to fill in the raised beds we’ve built in those 3 years-I too was shocked at the size of the truck they used to bring it, I had no idea it would be so heavy! LOL! I told the hubs that we might want to just stick with bags in the future, that much dirt was an awful lot like work.
Brenda says
I think it only took me a few days, I remember thinking I’d rather not take a shower in our bathroom because it felt weird, but what am I supposed to do, never take a shower again? Needless to say I got over that quickly : ). I do have to say though a lot of my confidence to change things came directly from you guys! I started stalking your site a couple months before we bought our house, and even started refinishing my dining room table while we were still in our apartment (I was also 9 month pregnant!).
Anyway, since we moved, I’ve done several furniture redos and we painted the wood paneling in our family room. Also, our entire basement has been refinished (though professionally, not by us) and I love our house! Still work to be done but totally feels like home.
Here’s the facebook links to all our redos if you’re interested:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150161668767251.295032.550152250
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150156866067251.285655.550152250
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150161661447251.295021.550152250
-Brenda
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- you’ve been busy! Love it! Thanks for sharing the links.
xo,
s
Claire says
I think I might have been too much in awe of moving in with the man that would be my future spouse to really feel the “this is home” feelings when we moved into the house we bought together. Making home related purchses (a gorgeous area rug, new windows for the first floor, garden supplies) solified the ownership, for sure. Maybe things really sunk in when we hosted our house warming party and then a Thanksgiving dinner, where my husband ended up proposing. Actually, it was that proposal that really made it difficult to leave our home behind. We went from boyfriend/girlfriend to fiance/fiancee to husband/wife in that home! I miss it dearly, but we have feathered out our rented nest to the point where it still feels homey, even if we don’t own it.
Danielle says
After we lived in our home for about 4 years, we finally ripped up the atrocious brown shag carpet for some delightful wood floors. Finally felt like we had completely moved the previous owners out. Had no idea the difference “smell” could make.
carolinaheartstrings says
Your house looks wonderful and is progressing so well. The hallway is to die for.
Alexis says
We didn’t purchase our home, we’re just renters. But for me it almost instantly felt like home because I had lived there before. During some of my middle and high school years I lived at the townhouse I live in now (confusing sounding). My family and I moved out in April 1999 and my husband, stepson and I moved in June of 2010. I guess it felt a little bit like coming home mixed with moving into my parents’ house. It was just a really good familiar feeling.
Kendra says
We just sold our home and are moving into a rental for about 6 months while we wait for our new house to be built. I’m having a real hard time with the whole ‘perching’ instead of ‘nesting’ aspect of a temporary home. Six months seems like a long time to be living out of boxes and not decorating anything. I know my husband is going to physically have to stop me from painting a wall or two in the rental. Haha! But, I’m sure once we finish the process of moving into our new home, it will feel like home as soon as we move in since we will have been watching the progress the whole time.
How about Karl Petersik? I know you love that couch!!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, John might not go for it. Besides, then we’d be confusing the sofa with the baby. Haha.
xo,
s
Donna Huebsch says
Yep, I totally relate to being in “House Limbo” – that’s where we are right now…it’s kind of like the DIYer’s version of Purgatory. I can remember moving into our first house years ago – in all my rushing around I managed to run smack into the sliding glass door so hard that I knocked myself off my feet. As I rolled around on the patio holding my nose, I moaned, “I wanna go home!” Hubby said, “Honey, we ARE home!” which didn’t help my feelings a bit.
I think once we finish renovating ONE entire room – I don’t care which one – it will begin to feel like ours.
Katie says
It may sound crazy, but our house became my home the first time I took my shoes off…literally. I was busy with school and work when my fiance saw our house and put an offer on it and before I knew it we were closing (I had only spent 15 minutes total in the house when we closed). However, the day we moved in I got to the house early to clean the bathroom and kitchen cabinets (so I could quickly unload my kitchen). That morning it was raining and I was the only person there. Between carrying in loads of cleaning supplies I kicked off my muddy shoes so as to leave our pristine carpet spot free, and I was home. The shoes made all the difference. The first second I felt our new carpet on my bare feet I was home.
It’s been home ever since. We’ve owned the house for 5ish months and the majority of our stuff is unpacked. EVERY SINGLE wall has been painted (by me and me alone), and in 29 short days I will officially be moving in. (He’s been living in the house alone since November, and after our wedding in 29 days we’ll finally be there together.) Since my heart has always been there it has always been home to me.
Amelia @ House Pretty says
Yes, yes, yes! My fiance and I just bought our first house and it definitely doesn’t feel like ours yet. With every project – painting, yard work, bathroom overhaul, etc. – it feels a little more like our place, but I don’t think it will feel completely ‘ours’ until we can look around and know that the house reflects our choices instead of the choices of the previous owners. Although it’s funny, I went back to our old apartment to collect some mail recently and I was surprised by how much that didn’t feel like our place anymore!
Heather says
I love you guys – you make me believe I can take a house with good bones and make it a great home. We are currently looking for a new house and I see houses that are not so hot and see beautiful things for them. We recently saw a ranch style (not our fav) that has vaulted tongue and groove ceilings throughout…..thoughts? They are currently wood stained but I would want to paint them and cottage the whole place up. Any feedback on T&G ceilings?
YoungHouseLove says
Love them! What amazing character you found! I love that they’re vaulted so it feels airy. And I’d totally paint them white so they feel architectural and sculptural without being too heavy!
xo,
s
Stephanie says
I’m still in the “apartment” phase of life, so I’m living vicariously through you guys, dreaming of the day I own a home and can paint the walls! The only problem is that now I have too many ideas of fun things to do someday.
Also, if you name a future baby Quatrefoil Petersik, I think he’d have to go to Hogwarts and wield a wand. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, that sounds like the perfect upbringing for our little Quatrefoil.
xo,
s
Chaucea says
*chuckles*
Ya know what I LOVE about your blog? Lemme tell ya!
So here I am, puttering along through my daily bookmarked design/diy blogs and so many of them have postings of absurdly artsyfartsy, totally unlivable, totally staged settings with entirely too many fussy and overly trendy bits jam-packed into each unrealistic scene…
And then I tab over to your blog and the first thing I see is… big bags of sand and stuff! How AWESOMELY refreshing and real and truly wonderful. Thank you so much for keeping it real and possible and obtainable and very very enjoyable! :-D
Angela says
“Zeus’ beard! ”
Anchorman quotes are the gifts that keep on giving.
Love it.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, such a good one.
xo,
s
Mollie says
I’m a fairly new reader, so apologies if you were already aware of this, but I saw on etsy and thought of you!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/73582201/winston-the-elephant-planter-succulent
YoungHouseLove says
So cute! I love it!
xoxo,
s
Kathryn says
We’ve been in our house for 3 years (actually- our “house anniversary” is this monday!) and it STILL doesn’t feel like our home. I don’t think it will until we get everything organized and touched up- my houses only really feel like home once I’m in the “maintenance” phase, where you’re just keeping up with house and garden work, and fixing things as they need it (as opposed to doing massive overhauls or big changes, like repainting the whole house).
jeannette says
not exactly on topic, but what are the big tote bags full of concretey earthy looking stuff? and, can you tell us what the layers of patio are in the pic?
i am so psyched by this patio adventure and j’s iron man efforts, i need to know what’s going on with that every second. don’t torment me with hints!
YoungHouseLove says
Those are bags of gravel that go down (about 3″ of it) and then that’s covered with an inch of sand and then come the pavers. Wahoo! More details soon. John’s still out there working away!
xo,
s
jeannette says
thank you. how does j lift them from the carport to the site?
YoungHouseLove says
It’s complicated, but we have a whole post with pics and all those details in the hopper for early next week! He’s working away as I type this so we’re definitely going as fast as we can!
xo,
s
Lotte says
hi guys!
We’ve moved a couple times now, and regardless of the major and minor projects we tackle in our new house (all of the walls get painted, pronto. I can’t live in someone else’s paint colors. Weird?), it takes us about 6 months to feel at “home” instead of “living in our new house.” So, just time does it for us.
Jamie says
We have lived in our home for 5 years, it took a few months but once all the boxes were unpacked and everything had a place it really started to sink in that we were home.
I realized a few months ago as I was taking pictures to list our house how much it truly has become home.
Rachel says
We bought our house almost a year ago, worked on painting and updating it on weekends for 4 months, and my son and I have been living in it for 3 months now, and there are times when it feels like home and still a lot of time when it feels like we’re just surviving. My hubs is finishing up school, and I think once we’re all back together full-time it will help a lot.
The new house is a lot bigger too, so we don’t have enough furniture, and there’s a lot of landscaping to tackle. Methinks it will be a multi-year process . . .
Kirsten says
We just bought our first house, but we really feel like we’re in super house limbo right now, because I’m finishing up school (graduating on the 14th–same day as Clara’s birthday, so what an awesome day that will be :-)), so we’re dividing time between the new house and our apartment. It’s funny, though, the closer we get to the official move in day, the more the house feels like home each time we “visit” and the apartment feels more strange (though I never feel completely at home in an apartment). I hoping this means it’ll feel like “home sweet home” when we’re finally there all the time.
Good luck with party plans and I can’t wait to see the results of the patio! So exciting!
Julie says
I love this post! We closed on our first home at the end of February and have been working on it like crazy since then, and it still only sorta feels like ours. I’m an organizational freak and it still makes me anxious that there’s piles of “stuff” everywhere and my closets aren’t organized the way I’d like. I keep having to remind myself to take a step back and realize not everything is going to be perfect right away.
I also have yet to cook a single proper meal (that is, one that doesn’t involve frozen french fries or grilled cheese) in the new kitchen. I think it doesn’t really feel like “mine” yet and it freaks me out. That and horribly painted cabinets really just make me sad every time I look at them.
paintergal says
I totally understand about not feeling like your new house is really yours. We purchased our house from an elderly man who had owned it (with his wife) for 65 years. That’s a lot of history!
Even after starting the renovations, it wasn’t until we heard that the previous owner had passed away, did I feel like it was ours.
Of course, I still occasionally talk to our p.o. when something he did in the name of modernizing the house confounds me. I find myself saying,”Lyle, what were you thinking??”
Kaitlyn says
Hi there!
Just FYI, there’s a typo in the very last sentence of the “Pssst”. The first time, you wrote “Quartefoil” and then the second time, you spelled it “Quatrefoil Petersik”. I only noticed because I had never heard that word before and was intrigued! Quatrefoil is the correct spelling, right?
No biggie! Just thought I’d say something since no one else had mentioned it. :)
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks! All fixed!
xo,
s
rosita designs says
um, i was a complete & total lunatic when we moved into our house. moving from an apt that gave me a false sense of security because of its gates (it was in DT seattle, for goodness sake!), to a house with only 4 walls btw us & the outside world made me cah-razy. i couldn’t sleep for weeks, did a sage burn, and said ‘what was that? did you hear that?’ every 5 seconds. sheesh!
looking back is funny, because now i couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, and don’t remember life before ‘home’. we started making it ‘ours’ pretty much immediately, and now it looks NOTHING like it did when we moved in, save the dining room paint color (red, b/c i knew i’d never convince mr man to paint that on my own).
one of the funniest things for me to hear is empty houses don’t sell. i disagree. our house was empty when we bought it, and i’m glad – i didn’t want to feel bottle-necked into putting things, etc where the previous homeowners did.
glad things are finally feeling like yours. loving watching the progress. i’m super jealous of the patio project. ours is fine, but i REALLLLLY want something different. howevs, after reading john’s play-by-play, i know i’d be way in over my head trying to do something like that!
good luck!
Condo Owner says
I love this question you’ve posted and will be very interested to read through folks’ posts for their own insights on what transformed their places into feeling like a real home.
In my own case, I moved out of a rental that I had for many years and adored even though it was small and shabby (I started a garden from scratch in a relatively barren backyard and grew it to fruition, etc.), because the small building (which had been in the same family for 2 generations) sold and the new landlords evicted me so they could take possession of my unit and use it for themselves along with the rest of the building.
So, I had never considered moving, and wound up buying a condo in the suburbs at the end of 2006 (just under the wire in terms of the short notice the eviction terms gave me).
It’s been an “arranged marriage” in real estate terms, and, between how busy I am at work and the whole real estate downturn and the huge amount of equity that I’ve lost, I’ve only slowly made changes to my place.
All of this info is my longwinded way of saying: After 4 years here, my place *still* does not truly feel like home, even though there are things about it that I love (especially the large patio with the big trees, or the paint color I put up in 2 of the rooms). That’s probably largely because I still have lots of my art and wall pieces squirreled away in boxes until I get more work done on the place. I’m hoping that, this year, after those projects are done, it’ll feel more like home.
It’s interesting: Some places you walk into, and they feel like home immediately (a small cottage with a porch hit me that way, when I was looking at places, even though I’ve never lived in such a place before). This place did not hit me that way, but I think (without sounding too New Age woo-woo about it) I have to somehow get over my lingering feelings of loss and resentment about being evicted and really COMMIT to my current place and give my HEART to it so that we can bond.
Jessicah says
You should DEFINITELY name your next baby Quatrefois!! I think it might be better on a girl though…you could go with the nickname Cat? :)
Although I read that Mariah Carey is calling her son Roc, so that’s slightly better than the whole Moroccan thing…
Karen F says
Hahaha…. We’re military and we had better move in and feel like it’s home *really quickly* before it’s time to move again. Sometimes we were in and out of a home in 6 months. Right now I’m in my 12th home in the last 20 years.
Kathy says
After looking at dozens of houses, I KNEW this was our home as soon as we walked in– and the previous owners were still living here. Maybe that’s why… they were a cute little family, like you guys!
I’d heard that it takes 7 yrs to make a house your own, and now, 10 years later, I’m just finally feeling like I ALMOST have things the way I want them. It’s an ever-evolving creative process that I love. :-)
Rachel Witthaus says
We went from renting for 4 years to building our first home. Despite the fact we chose everything for the house from the floor plan to the wall colours and fittings, because we didn’t actually do any of it, it still doesn’t seem like “ours” – even 3 years later. It took us over a year to put up some large pictures on the walls – because we’d never owned them when renting and it felt quite strange putting holes in the walls!
Devon @ Green House, Good Life says
I would have loved to know how much the 48 cubic yards of soil/compost and seven yards of gravel we recently had delivered weighed. I’m pretty sure the half-ton of river rock mixed in with the gravel weighed about a thousand pounds, though. : )
What I know for sure is that everything weighed more when I was hauling it around in my little cart.
Ana says
I feel at home in the right house (on the second one so far) immediately, but it takes a while to figure out how to make it home-y, if that makes sense. In my current house, I’ve only painted one room since I’m saving up to do lots of major changes at once (and cut the amount of time I’d have to be out of the house — only 1 bathroom!).
In between the 2 houses I’ve owned, I rented a house I was going to buy. It was a great 1950s limestone bungalow, but ultimately it was too much structural work and too close to an interstate — the fumes and exhaust were killing my allergies despite running an air purifier 24/7. I never felt comfortable or at home there though I initially convinced myself it would work. And my dogs didn’t like it — one lived in a state of panic and the other kept having digestive distress.
When I found my current house, I knew just from the listing photos it was *my* house. And the dogs loved it immediately and were totally calm and happy in a way they weren’t at the rental.