What @Jugendstiel said re: treating your house as though you absolutely adore it, however different it is from what you wish you had, is so true, imo, and what we always try to do.
We've been fortunate to own some stunning, fairly unique houses of several different architectural styles (but all have been period, characterful properties). They've also been decent sizes. However, often, not in the best of locations.
Each one we've bought - even if we've had our doubts about it being 'the one' and have considered selling from quite early on - we've treated as though we plan to stay forever. This has meant throwing everything at them, renovation- and decorating-wise (not shying away from colour or bold choices), till they are absolutely beautiful internally and externally (imo, of course!).
It's completely changed our feelings towards them - particularly the last one that I went into hating it with a passion, renovated it exactly to our (maximalist) taste using gorgeous materials etc and ended up staying 6+ years. The only thing I liked about it originally was the 0.5 acre wilderness that passed for a garden, but eventually (having created a proper country garden and spared no expense sympathetically restoring the house), I admit to being very sad to sell.
Our current 200 year old cottage was a downsize. It's a third of the size of the largest house we've owned/lived in and undeniably feels small compared to what we've been used to. It has three bedrooms (the largest of which we use as a TV room), a dining hall open plan to the kitchen, a cosy snug, tiny lootility, bathroom and integral garage which the previous owners converted from a room (we plan to reverse this). There's a courtyard garden and parking for one car.
I didn't want to buy it, but moving from a cheaper area back home to a more expensive one, we didn't have a lot of options if we wanted a period house by the sea. It currently lacks storage and the character we love and miss, having been butchered in the 1960s.
But - it's cheap to heat and run (council tax band D instead of the F and G we've previously lived in), is two minutes from the sea and by starting to reinstate the period features and add our own collections of accumulated 'stuff' it already feels so much more homely and welcoming than the bland box we bought just over a year ago.
By the time we're finished it'll be amazing (🤞). Not sure if we'll stay...but if we do, it'll be done to our - very specific - style, in which case it'll be our home rather than a house we renovated blandly to suit someone else!