How To Make Your Home Feel Like Home

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…