Turning Your House Into A Home
Making a house distinctly yours is one of the first things that should cross your mind when you see a potential living space. Without furnishings or decorations, a house is the best blank canvas with which to put forward your personality. Unlike art, music or almost any other creative craft, your home is unique in the way it can represent almost everything your life, ultimately creating a safe space which is at once intensely private yet inviting, whilst saying something to all others that enter yet something else entirely to you.
Turning a house into a home is not only good for your sense of comfort and wellbeing, but also your sense of belonging. Knowing you have a domestic space with which you have created an emotional connection can be very important in times of need. So beyond the building itself, its contents or their meanings, how can we create that important emotional investment that turns a simple house into a loving and inviting home?
Artistic expression
We’ll start with artistic expression because it’s mainly a concept, and one that cannot be simply explained as it hugely varies between each person. It’s the theory that’s important here; living space doubles as the best artistic space imaginable, free from outside inference and constructed solely for your own enjoyment, as well as those you choose to share it with. Expressing yourself in a domestic sense could be as simple as using horseshoes for decoration, putting a hammock in the middle of your living room, or creating a 6 ft. high cat castle for your intrepid feline friends to live in.
The point is that there’s no wrong answer here. Conversely, scouting out properties to buy or lease can be difficult when they’re empty, because it’s hard to visualise it as the comfy home-living space you may be seeking. This is why many sellers use rentalfurniture to give potential buyers a visual image of what they can accomplish in a living space.
Clear the clutter
It can be very difficult to send any kind of creative signal when there’s clutter taking up every inch of your living space. Clutter constitutes crap which you may think is valuable in some way, but it’s tantamount to hording and it’s rather counterproductive if you’re seeking domestic bliss. It has also been suggested that too much clutter in your home is bad for your mental health, and can potentially cause unwanted behavioural problems and cognitive impairments.
In order to make your house the home it deserves to be, you need to be absolutely ruthless when it comes to this stage. Of course, you shouldn’t part with anything sentimental, valuable, or other useful (define this by asking yourself if you’ve used said item in the past six months). Everything else should be on an express trip to the charity shop, street corner, or local rubbish dump. It can be hard to get past this stage, but given the opportunity to create a perfect home environment, don’t waste it being stubborn and holding onto unnecessary objects.
Let it be lived in
Following on from the previous point, it’s also important to let your house be lived in, to create the sense of comfort that welcomes you with open arms after a hard day of work, studying, or whatever it is you get up to on a daily basis. Without it, your home environment is at risk of feeling sterile and uninviting, so make sure you’re not too compulsive with your cleaning and let the house lie naturally.
Again, this doesn’t mean letting your dirty dishes pile sky high in your living room, or indeed leaving your filthy socks strewn about the place like you own it (even though you do). Have some respect for your domestic space; this is one of the most important parts of making that transition from convenient living space to cherished home environment happen.
Make the most of your space
You may feel inconvenienced that your home is too small, but this presents an opportunity to find creative ways to overcome and make full-use of the space you have. Do some online research and you’ll find a myriad of creative approaches to utilising small space, as well as tips such as using wall space to ensure you have full and free navigation of your entire home, or utilising all your furnishings as storage spaces.
There’s also decorative tricks you can utilise to make your living space appear much larger. This includes using reflective objects such as mirrors and glass to bounce light around your room and create a feeling of depth. Also recommended is leaving your windows unfiltered, which means no drapes, curtains or anything similar blocking out lighting and hampering the depth which an outside view can bring to a smaller room.
Follow your gut
Despite us laying down some stern home-improvement rules, the truth is that there’s no set blueprint for what makes a home truly special. Everyone is different and unique in what constitutes a special space for them, and as such, you follow your instinct and strive to create a domestic dream which falls in line with your own vision. We just hope we can be of some help!