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Original poster

Do you love your home, even if it’s not conventionally ‘on trend’, and you’re not wealthy?

101 replies

NormasArse · 22/12/2025 22:34

I’m just sitting here with my dogs, thinking how fortunate I am to have my little house.

I doubt anyone would come in and think they wished they lived here, but I really love it!

It’s really cosy, and full of all the things I like (lots of 70s stuff from charity shops 😁). Nobody else has a house like mine, and I love that.

What do you love about your home?

OP posts:
BlackCatGoesHome · 22/12/2025 22:36

It's rented. But it's the first place to feel like home in over 30 years. It's colourful, half painted rooms on places and filled with cats. But I can relax in any of my (admittedly few) rooms and I'm happy. I feel safe and secure here. It's very quirky, but it's all me!

Cat1504 · 22/12/2025 22:39

I love my home…,it’s an 1870s cottage …we’ve got it so cosy ….it’s exactly as I imagined it when we bought it….took 2 years to get it how we wanted to…then we’ve just enjoyed it like this these past 8 years ( decorate 2 rooms a year)….I’m sitting in our lounge with 2 lamps…loads of candles and the glow of our log burner

fishtank12345 · 22/12/2025 22:42

I would if it wasn't for all the neighbours at both sides stinking the place up with drugs smells... I think...Its not perfect or big enough for us but I am very grateful for not renting now as was stuck with crappy land lords.

Cheap place to buy ( under 100k ) so that's part of why we don't have great neighbours as in a mixed area of private landlords and council. I guess my answer is no.... actually lol I am a stay at home carer and I don't bring in a wage and dh is not a high earner so this is probably as good as it gets for us. So... Grateful still.

HeadyLamarr · 22/12/2025 22:45

I do because I love my garden above all things. I like my kitchen too, but mostly I love the garden.

Gliblet · 22/12/2025 22:48

Yes. Ours is rented (in a ludicrously expensive city so even a tiny house is extortionate) and we aren't well off, comfortable but not well off. The furniture is all a mismatch, some is second hand, there are books everywhere, throws and cushions selected to colour match with the dog and if anything's on trend it's entirely accidental (I suppose it's like a stopped clock telling the right time twice a day...).

Seawolves · 22/12/2025 22:51

Mine is tiny, smaller than any of my friends homes but I support myself, no partner to help with the bills, everything in it is my own work. It's our home, our safe place and it keeps us warm and dry and it allows me to continue to foster the little one who lives with me.

IndigoIsMyFavouriteColour · 22/12/2025 22:54

I love our house! It’s too small and my husband and I sleep in the front room but we have a wood burner and our lovely Christmas tree and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else

SmallTortoise · 22/12/2025 22:54

Mine is beautiful. Every single day i think how lucky i am to live here in this house.
We bought it 10 years ago and it was a slog to do it up. We did most of it ourselves. I love this house.

Original poster
NormasArse · 22/12/2025 22:56

Seawolves · 22/12/2025 22:51

Mine is tiny, smaller than any of my friends homes but I support myself, no partner to help with the bills, everything in it is my own work. It's our home, our safe place and it keeps us warm and dry and it allows me to continue to foster the little one who lives with me.

I was a foster carer many years ago. The baby we were given to care for at 14 hours old is my gorgeous 25 year old son 🥰

I hope you and your little one have a wonderful life in your warm home. xx

OP posts:
Original poster
NormasArse · 22/12/2025 22:57

Gliblet · 22/12/2025 22:48

Yes. Ours is rented (in a ludicrously expensive city so even a tiny house is extortionate) and we aren't well off, comfortable but not well off. The furniture is all a mismatch, some is second hand, there are books everywhere, throws and cushions selected to colour match with the dog and if anything's on trend it's entirely accidental (I suppose it's like a stopped clock telling the right time twice a day...).

Those are my favourite kind of houses 🤎

OP posts:
Original poster
NormasArse · 22/12/2025 22:58

BlackCatGoesHome · 22/12/2025 22:36

It's rented. But it's the first place to feel like home in over 30 years. It's colourful, half painted rooms on places and filled with cats. But I can relax in any of my (admittedly few) rooms and I'm happy. I feel safe and secure here. It's very quirky, but it's all me!

Real cats??

OP posts:
Poddingtonpeace · 22/12/2025 23:04

I think I'm as close to loving my home as I could be. I feel safe and comfortable.

Newbie8918 · 22/12/2025 23:05

I adore my home. I feel so lucky. It was a twist of fate that we ended up here. We put an offer in and the estate agent wanted to reject it because our own home wasn’t on the market. She called me back after speaking to the vendor, who told her ‘the house was singing with us in it’ and the wouldn’t be considering anyone elses offer. It’s 170 years old and a money pit. It will take years to renovate sympathetically but I can’t believe it’s ours to restore. She does in fact ‘sing’ to me sometimes when I uncover a hidden gem (fireplace tiles, beautiful brickwork now free of render, doorways that would have been the butlers pantry entrance). This is our forever home and I love it!

Original poster
NormasArse · 22/12/2025 23:18

Newbie8918 · 22/12/2025 23:05

I adore my home. I feel so lucky. It was a twist of fate that we ended up here. We put an offer in and the estate agent wanted to reject it because our own home wasn’t on the market. She called me back after speaking to the vendor, who told her ‘the house was singing with us in it’ and the wouldn’t be considering anyone elses offer. It’s 170 years old and a money pit. It will take years to renovate sympathetically but I can’t believe it’s ours to restore. She does in fact ‘sing’ to me sometimes when I uncover a hidden gem (fireplace tiles, beautiful brickwork now free of render, doorways that would have been the butlers pantry entrance). This is our forever home and I love it!

That’s so lovely!

OP posts:
ghostbusters · 22/12/2025 23:19

We moved around a lot when I was a youngster. Our current home is the longest I've lived in any house, 3 times longer in fact! We did the house up the first couple of years after we moved in, decorating and what not, putting our stamp on it as an old lady lived here before us. It's definitely not Grand Designs standard, but it's home. It's the only home our kids know which is more important to me than I previously realised.

NeedsRenovation · 22/12/2025 23:27

Yes, despite it having been a building site for most of the five years since we bought it and the fact that I feel we’re only really starting to inhabit it. It had been a student house when we bought it, and was so neglected and dirty that you had to look hard to see its lovely bones.

BlackCatGoesHome · 22/12/2025 23:31

NormasArse · 22/12/2025 22:58

Real cats??

Show quote history

Real cats! 8 inside (with a cat flap) and two who choose to live outside. All rescues!

Dontgochasingrainbows · 22/12/2025 23:34

No I hate the house and the area.
Its in the suburbs and I need to get into the car to go anywhere.
The house itself is quite dark. Its also in a very built up area and is very overlooked. Its cold unless the heating is on all the time.
I have tried to decorate it but you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
I feel it contributes a lot to my low mood.
We can't afford to move as kids are in private schools and we can't save.

sesquipedalian · 22/12/2025 23:35

My DC think my home is old fashioned - it probably is, but it suits DH and me. We’re always pleased to come back home and be comfortable here. And I have a great kitchen - not at all the last word, but it’s a good cook’s kitchen, and as I like to cook, that suits me very well. And like others, I do think myself lucky to have a house with a garden, and space - it’s an Edwardian house - not huge, but the rooms are of a reasonable size. I love the open fire in the front room, and the fact that it has wasted space - there’s an alcove at the top of the stairs that’s just for nothing - I have a chest of drawers in it. SensibIy, I should take a piece of the landing to put in an en-suite, but I like the fact that there’s a window each end, and I have bookshelves along each side. So padding along the corridor to the bathroom at 4am it is!

rainbowsparkle28 · 22/12/2025 23:36

Yes. It isn’t big or luxurious and there are bits I want to do, but I am grateful and appreciative and proud of the roof over my head that I have worked hard for (and also incredibly thankful for the support I have had as well to do so). I think particularly as a single women, then heck yes, I am proud and fortunate, it isn’t easy and by the grace of god was I born into the time and place and means etc. which meant I could. Probably a bit deep, but you know what, I did that myself, in my own name, and it is my home that I have made. It is my safe space and sanctuary. Go me.

This thread also made me think of the song My House from Matilda the Musical 🥰

placemats · 22/12/2025 23:41

I'm very lucky to have my home. My eldest daughter and her partner, plus my youngest son live with me. The large bathroom needs sorting, but we all get along.

I've been Swedish death cleaning. I'm only 65, but you never know.

Original poster
NormasArse · 23/12/2025 21:15

placemats · 22/12/2025 23:41

I'm very lucky to have my home. My eldest daughter and her partner, plus my youngest son live with me. The large bathroom needs sorting, but we all get along.

I've been Swedish death cleaning. I'm only 65, but you never know.

I’m doing that too. I’m 59…

OP posts:
DarkEyedSailor · 23/12/2025 21:25

Oh I do. Very much.
It's a little one bed council flat that's too small for my daughter and I, but it's lovely.
I've painted it bright colours and it's full of charity shop vintage furniture, crochet throws, books and toys. The kitchen is miniscule but it's rammed with all my herbs and spices and cooking things. I've got nearly 200 onions in my bedroom. (Also have an allotment.)

I was homeless once, sectioned, in a refuge, homeless again: this is heaven. I used to pass houses at night with the lamps on and Christmas lights in winter and feel like I wasn't really part of the world at all.

Carandache18 · 24/12/2025 22:12

Very much, it's only 1970s breeze blocks, and the living room carpet is worn down to the canvas in places, but it's full of books and paintings and there are 2 Christmas roses out in the garden.
I am so glad to have it. DH and I, both with no families to get help from, used to walk the streets looking at homes in our renting days, and wonder how on earth people managed it. But in the end, we did.

Allbymyself123 · 24/12/2025 23:09

Yes - generic, bland, square box, new build and i love it! We spent 17 years in our old house which was bigger but never felt like home. Went into negative equity when market crashed then it needee a lot of work doing to sell & thought we’d be stuck. I used to go round developements for fun (which was actually depressing) just to imagine living in the shiney new show homes!

couple of years ago we got a decent part exchange deal on a development i’d looked at (10 mins from where we lived, high school catchment, handy for work and kids clubs etc) and took it as our old house was a style which took ages to sell & a location not that popular where as round here houses sell quickly (start of estate been here a few years longer & some have sold recently) it’s not my favourite development or even show home i’ve been in but i remember properly being able to picture living in it. We have decent neighbours too & have got friendly with a few (last place we had horrible neighbours) & kids have made friends. Even my husband who hates new builds likes it - we are all so much happier but mainly me as it’s genuinely like a cloud lifted

don’t get me wrong it’s not perfect we’re all hemmed in as so many houses but it’s perfect for now and the stage of life we are at - we want to retire so 15 years max here then we’ll sell give kids some money and downsize somewhere quieter and smaller with more privacy so yes whilst it’s not an exciting house or a house of my dreams house i still smile whenever i come home and i do love it