Forever home

[rainsbows]

We are approaching the finishing line of a total renovation:
New kitchen
New bathrooms x 2
New windows
New wiring
New smoke detectors
Painted and decorated 11 rooms
New carpets
Refurbished wood flooring
New furniture
You name it, we've done it.

We are a family of four. In a very spacious 4 bed detached house.

How do you know your house is your forever house? I guess because we've lived on a building site it doesn't feel like home yet though it does all look stunning and sparkling and in time it'll feel less of a glossy mag.

I just want it to feel like home

In the nicest possible way, I think you have to recognise that this is one of the most first world problems ever committed to a keyboard.

Honestly, the best advice I have is to go and volunteer in a refuge or a homeless unit. You may find that you don't really have any real problem at all.

We’re in our ‘forever’ home and nearing the end of the renovation.

I suppose it’s all beautiful and done up to our liking but equally it was ‘the best compromise’ as opposed to love at first sight. So we like it a lot, there’s nowhere else we’d rather live but at the same time we’re not madly in love with it. I wonder if it’s more a case of special life events happening in a particular house that builds that emotional connection to it, eg getting married, having babies, 1st school, big birthdays etc

I don't think the house itself or how it's decorated makes any difference at all. For me, it's about the life it gives you - proximity to schools (if you have school aged children), activities, work, friends, neighbours, part of the community to the extent that you can't imagine living anywhere else.

We're in our forever house because we have a happy family life there. All the things you listed don't make any difference at all really - although you can presumably now get on with enjoying your lives without the stress of a renovation!

We finished our total refurb in August and now all our bits and pieces and ornaments are up it feels like home and I get enormous pleasure just from wandering around and looking in every room! It didn’t stay as a showhome for very long at all

Good. I want it to feel snug and homely. The house was derelict virtually so it's been satisfying to watch it develop but I don't feel I can slob on the sofa yet. I suppose we need more bits and bobs, pictures etc.

I think you have to have a mindset for a forever home. Whenever i hear the phrase i think "carried out in a box".
However. You just need to live in it! It will soon fill up with all the stuff that makes it a home.

Is this a real post/problem?

Not a problem no. But we're now totally skint that's for sure. I appreciate we're lucky but we saved and saved and made huge sacrifices. Thanks for the tips, you're right, one and memories will make it a forever home.

Totally understand the OP. People who've not spent months in a building site may not!

Feeling comfortable and relaxed in your home (I've found) is important to your mental health. You wake up and go to sleep there every day, it can go a long way to affecting your mindset, and by default everything else.

Give it time OP, it does take a bit of getting used to - second PPs who've said about thinking about the life the house gives you. Also get all your stuff and put it where you want it, after a while it will all sink in.

I think it is all about layering -- so you have the new shiny bones in place. Now is time to dress it slowly - this should be an evolving process over time which reflects your own unique family, experiences, stories, tastes, travel etc. So not a supermarket sweep style trolley dash around John Lewis / Dunelm / Harvey Nichols (delete as appropriate) so that it is staged in afternoon with Dec 2017 clobber.

I do know the craving for warmth and cosiness after the cold, wet, windy, dusty, dirt of renovating.

Maybe just focus on one room at a time.

I actually think it's more about the feel of a house without wanting to be woo about it.
I would have happily stayed in our second to last house even though it was tiny if t was just me. I loved it and felt so happy there. We moved as we had dd 2 on the way and it would have been too small. We moved to s bigger perfectly nice house. I hated it the whole time I lived there. I decorated it to my taste etc but I just didn't like it and couldn't enjoy doing it up however hard I tried.
It just didn't speak to me.
The house I've just moved to I'm a bit in love with. It needs so so much work. It will be tricky and expensive. But I feel so at home and at ease here, I hope I don't have to leave for a long time! Again I felt it was right for me as soon I went to view it.

I’m not home till I’ve put the photos of DH and DC on the countertops, mantle etc. Fresh flowers and light a candle. I have thousands of books, as soon they were on the shelves, I felt at home.

You're setting the bar very high with all this "forever" business. This is our home now, and in future we will downsize. It only needs to feel like home, not like forever home.

Maybe you just need the kids to trash it encourage a lived in look.

Start with Christmas decorations perhaps?