may be the wrong place, how do I engage with my house?

[NeverKnowinglyUnderstood]

I feel totally disconnected from it, from the mess, from the routine that is needed to keep up with it.

I know what routine is needed, I am aware that I LOVE the house being ordered and tidy.

I have spent the last few years reconnecting with the idea of being here suffered badly with menta health issues however am now convinced, and wonder how to now go through a similar process of making this house feel like a home that I want to look after?

Do you know what I mean? I don't feel that I am being just lazy,

desperate bump

I'm not much help as am a slattern, but how about starting by titivating a room in real interior design style so you can be really proud of it ? Make your mark on it ?

This isn't a recommendation as such, as I haven't tried it, but there is a website called habit hacker that offers daily emails on this very topic. Sorry I can't be more informative, but just having a process to engage with, any process, might help?

Hmm...I think the way I do it, and this is perverse and wrong probably, is to buy something for it. Then that changes everything, and inspires me to do things like tidy up or re-organise things and it makes me happy for a while.

The house stays untidy and there's alays stuff everywhere but I love it when it looks pretty despite all this.

Glad you are feeling a bit less down, now, well done for coming through all that x

Sorry, always.

I only mean something small...shower curtain, cushion, change the curtains around or something. Or move the furniture a bit.

I do it far too much though. It's good fun.

thank you!
I think that is some of it, the house was all decorated and stuff before my breakdown, the kitchen was done in the middle of it and I just don't have buy in iykwim.

I will go for it and choose some new cushions for the sittingroom and see if that helps.

I hope it does. I dunno, did you love the house when you moved into it?

In my experience it's very hard to fake it if you don't feel that connection instantly...bit like a boyfriend, or something, you have to look at it and feel something, or it's never going to work properly.

This place was a sh*thole when we moved in but it had such glorious big rooms and ceilings and garden, and the light was great, it just was easy to think 'Yes, we can do something special with this place'.

I've lived in places that bored me to tears, like the 60s house I grew up in and always hated...I just wouldn't ever be able to love a place that didn't have the basics iykwim.

I do love most of it. it is wide with lots of windows and patio doors at the back over the garden which is south facing. the light is something that I am loving on a day like this.
I don't like th dining room, but that is dark and north facing, however in the winter it feels nice with the lights on and having dinner with friends.

I guess part of this may well be a late winter malaise (how do you spell that??)

Yeah malaise is right I think

It sounds lovely and like you DO like it, hmm, I think you and the House will be Ok

TK Maxx is good for bits and bobs on the cheap.

Thanks Betty, just sat in the garden having a cuppa in the sunshine, feels a bit better already

Never knowingly I do empathise with you, I have disengaged from mine too and dont enjoy it, can only see what wrong. I used to potter around beautifying it in my every spare moment.

I suggest we both get our arses off the internet and get on with making friends with it again

starting tonight Cybbo or are we going to start tomorrow? or after the weekend, ??

Its an age thing and I am an interior designer! You just can't be arsed

I have one lot of very posh friends and one lot of very tidy friends coming for dinner tomorrrow so I can't be disengaged with my house then.

It will be a sea of tranquility and tealights to hide the scuffs on the paintwork

Just hope the weird smell that farts out from under the kitchen cupboards doesn't rear it's ugly head

right cybbo are we starting tomorrow then?
Monday morning.
I reckon we should start by the front door. do something to make it feel welcoming, be it sort out the pile of shoes or add a nice smelly candle or something like that??
You in?

Never I've been switched on all weekend. Have cleared mountain of clothes in bedroom and utility, kept on top of diswasher and tidied as I ahve gone.

have made conscious effort not to be on here a lot

And yes to lots of candles, had them on all day

Ooh good question. Watching with interest.

OP I get you. You need to take possession again.

I find having a really good tidy up helps a lot, and getting some flowers - even just a few daffodils or something. The process will alter your thinking.

Evening all, have bought tulips for the sitting room and started on the ironing pile.
the shoe locker by the door has been cleared out and post has been sorted to recycling or filing and has been replaced with a candle!

You still on it cybb?

Yes have 3 lots of flowers in kitchen /diner and as I watched telly in there tonight thought how nice it looked. Shame the ponky smell from under the cupboards was wafting ts way towards me though.....