Making Your New House or Apartment Feel Like Home

Many people move frequently and have to reestablish their home life in a new location. One of the most important things that people can do in order to make themselves feel comfortable in their new surroundings rather quickly, is to do things that mean “home” to them.  Most of us can do things that give us that “home on the range” feeling even before we’ve finished unpacking everything.

I once read an article about a woman who moved around a lot with her family. When packing, she put all her curtains into one box and it was unpacked as soon as she arrived in her new home. Those curtains were hung up right away. Each time she found a different way of hanging up those same curtains, which gave her and her family the comfortable feeling of being home. “What a great idea,” I thought, "something so simple as putting up curtains to give your new home such an important feeling of familiarity. While this actual idea has been impossible for me to implement since we have been using basic horizontal blinds in the many homes we lived in and there was nothing special or homey about them, I've been able to implement her idea in different ways. 

One of the first things that I’ve begun to do is make sure that I’m comfortable with the layout of the furniture, even before all the boxes are out of the way. Sometimes this is easy. The rooms are big and it is very obvious to me how to place the furniture. (It also makes my husband’s job easier, since he’s the one who does most of the furniture moving and shifting.) More often than not, however, this takes a good deal of work since each house has differently shaped rooms with different dimensions; often closets and windows are not in convenient places. “If I was building this house or remodeling,” I’d say to myself, “I would have put the windows here and put the closets there.” But of course, since I was doing neither, the best I could do is find a way to arrange the furniture that looks good and feels right to me. I do, ultimately, hit upon just the right setup that looks natural and works well with the layout of the room.

Our last move, a little over a year ago, was to a different continent; making my home my own (so to speak) was even more important this time, since so much of my environment was unfamiliar. In addition to arranging the furniture to my satisfaction, I also made sure to buy a number of plants, mostly for our terrace. I love plants and caring for them and watching them grow, gives me a lot of satisfaction. 

Not everyone changes homes frequently, but for those of us who do, it’s nice to have different tricks which can quickly make our new house or apartment into our home.