How long to feel like home?

[Hohumbums]

Inspired by another thread on here recently. How long did it take you to like your house when there’s a lot of work to do? We’ve been living here since January this year, was unhappy when we moved but we’ve done slot of work; new bathroom, kitchen, redecorating of most rooms. Still doesn’t feel like home and smells funny 🤦‍♀️ How long did it take you to feel like home? Our previous house felt like home straight away.

When my ex finally moved out and I changed everything

Four years plus, lol! Loads of (DIY - DH is a builder, although this is a change of career for him) building work and still not done, but finally feels more like our home now 😁

Like you, @Hohumbums our previous home - also a project and larger size-wise than this one, but overall more immediately liveable - felt like home straight away. I think in my case, it was partially because I loved the style of the last house and this one I never felt the love.

If you've been having lots of work done I think it will take a while to acclimatise to the finished house and by adding all your personal items/finishing touches it will gradually begin to feel like home.

On the other thread someone mentioned that having a party (dinner or otherwise) and getting friends family round helps. I think it can be all to do with making memories in your new place so there's something to connect you to it, iyswim?

We are doing a whole bungalow (& garden) renovation & unfortunately have been living in it throughout 🤦🏼‍♀️.
We have been here for over two years, and it has frequently been grim, but the more that gets done, the more I like it.
When it is finally all finished, it won’t be a day too early!

Thanks everyone. I guess I just need to give it time. We’ve never done work in a house before, not done anything structural but always lived in new builds so maybe I just need to take a bit more time to adjust

Old thread but @Hohumbums wondered if you felt more at home now. Im home sick for my old house which sounds ridiculous! Only been in a few weeks but also came from a new build!

Hello tea@Toastandmarmiteandtea. Wowzers this thread brings back memories. Erm, yes ultimately it does feel more like home now we’ve been here over a year and I’m not as desperate to move (I really wanted to sell asap before!). I found a lot of things that helped were house plants, removing any traces of the previous owner and lots of pictures! Still doesn’t smell like ‘home’ though!

I’ve stopped worrying about every little thing - I know new builds sometimes have problems but I was paranoid the roof was going to cave in, there was subsidence, damp you name it. There were none of the these issues though! What sort of house have you moved into? I think the shock of coming from something modern and new to something a bit older (we’re in a 50’s house) was something that took a lot of getting used to.

Also I dont really miss my old house now I’ve been here a bit; miss the neighbours etc. a few weeks is such a short time, I really think it will get better ❤️

Thank you so much for replying. I’ve had a bit of a look on mumsnet and it seems that this is so common. Your original post could have been written by me! I just feel quite low and like I want to move home to my old house. The new house is only 20 years old but everything is original and dated and not to my taste. We plan to change things but can’t do it straight away. So I can see potential. But it’s just not home.

Are you me? 😂

It was when carpets started to go down after t(e building work was done that this finally felt like our home , rather than our furniture in someone else’s house

I should add that after our first night in this house I knew it was home

Oh I felt exactly the same. Before we moved I loved the idea of an older house- the plot itself is fantastic but I hadn’t quite taken into account that moving into a fixer upper would mean living with it as it was and I really got quite down about it. I told myself I’d give it a year and to be honest I didn’t think I would be able to do that - however here we are over a year in and we plan to stay til the end of our fix in 4 years. I never would have said that last year when we moved in!!

honestly, for me the little things helped. So put drawings my children had done all over the walls, house plants everywhere which instantly freshened things up. Also paint really does make a difference.

i found lots of threads similiar to this when we moved in and the advice given on them was really good - a lot of people commented on the fact it’s a home because of what you do there. So for us, we did lots of baking with the children in the kitchen so regardless of what the house looked like we had good memories of being in the kitchen having family time etc.

I really hope you feel better soon. It’s horrible and I know how you feel ❤️

About a week.

But we'd been living in a cramped little temporary flat, and moving into the house was a huge relief even if the kitchen needed ripping out and all the windows leaked. 😊