How To Make Your House A Home (Beyond Decor)

Having a house isn’t the same thing as having a home. A house is a structure where people live, but a home is much more than that. Sometimes it’s humble, sometimes it’s luxurious, but style and design choices aren’t the most important things. What truly makes a house a home is the feelings of warmth, connection, and safety it brings to those who live there.

To create a home, set up daily rituals and incorporate meaningful items. Engage all of your senses, using sounds and scents to enrich your space. Invite friends and family over, focus on comfort, and set your home up to work with your lifestyle. A home isn’t about perfection; it’s about creating a space that serves you and everyone who lives in it.

It’s not that color choices, decor, and things like lighting and space planning aren’t important. These points certainly play a part in creating a home that speaks to you. However, they aren’t the only things that matter.

Seven Ways To Create A Home (That Don’t Involve Decorating)

Even the most perfectly decorated house won’t feel like a home until you look beyond the decor. To create a home that welcomes you with a warm embrace every time you step through the door, here are seven things you need to do.

1. Establish Daily Routines In Your Home

Set up special routines that imbue your home with more meaning and spirit. It could be morning stretches before you enjoy a steamy cup of coffee or writing in your journal on the back patio. 

When you have habits and traditions centered around your home, it gives the place you live a whole new meaning. These daily rituals introduce emotions within your four walls that provide your house with qualities that are distinctly you.

2. Incorporate Things That Mean Something To You

Chasing after the latest Pinterest trend or making your home an Insta-worthy showroom might look great, but that doesn’t mean it feels like a home. If you surround yourself with a bunch of trendy design pieces, you may still feel like something is missing.

Instead, incorporate meaningful items into your home, such as pictures of friends and family or mementos from your travels. Cozy up on the couch with the afghan your grandmother knitted for you when you were three.

Drink your morning coffee out of your dad’s old “World’s Greatest Fisherman” mug. Proudly display your attempt at DIY art or your kid’s school crafts. When the things in your home share a story, they add depth and interest to your space that even the trendiest decor can’t match.

3. Think About All Of Your Senses

Great style looks incredible, but if all you focus on are visuals, you’ll likely always have a sense that something is missing. To make your house a home, concentrate on engaging all of your senses.

Play soft music or your favorite songs in the background. Place a small tabletop fountain in your reading nook to add a relaxing vibe. Use wax warmers, diffusers, or candles to layer in pleasant aromas that stir up fond memories and good feelings.

4. Invite People Over

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase that goes something like, “Home isn’t a place, it’s the people.” The sentiment behind this phrase makes a lot of sense because sharing your home with others invites the opportunity to create countless memories.

These memories add to your home’s history, and they also influence how you feel when you’re in your house. Therefore, invite friends, family, or even neighbors to visit and enjoy a game night, dinner, or simply to kick back and watch a movie.

5. Create Spaces That Support Your Lifestyle

To truly have a comfortable, functional, and meaningful home, it should adapt as you live in it. The spaces should reflect how you use them, and you should set up rooms to support you at whatever season of life you’re in at the moment.

Do you find yourself suddenly into designing and creating clothing? Maybe the spare bedroom becomes a sewing room. Are you expecting? Perhaps it becomes a nursery.

Are you eager to have a family member visit from out of town? Now you might need a guest room or some type of flex space that can wear multiple hats.

The biggest takeaway here is to design your house for what you need it to be, not how a magazine tells you to do it. Then, don’t be afraid to rearrange, swap, and tweak as needed. The more your house supports your lifestyle, the more it becomes your home.

6. Stop Chasing Perfection

Stop trying to make your house look like the showroom at the furniture store or a post on Instagram. That isn’t what a home is supposed to be, and it’s not realistic either, since you have to live in it.

Social media sets up lofty expectations of homes, but they aren’t grounded in reality, so stop trying to be perfect. Embrace imperfections, like the sofa covered in dog hair and the grape juice stain on the easy chair.

These imperfections tell a story about the people who live in the home and the events that have transpired there. Don’t rush to wipe them out or erase them; instead, let them declare a tale of a life lived to the fullest.

7. Focus On Comfort

Style is great, comfort is better, at least when you’re in your own home and want to relax and unwind. Warm lighting, cozy blankets, plush rugs, and personal items help add an inviting ambiance to your home that brings peace.

There’s also comfort in letting go. Get rid of clutter to reduce stress and give you some breathing room (physically and mentally). When you’re creating a comfortable home, it’s about the physical but also about how your home makes you feel, so focus on both.

Comfort also applies to others who come to your house. As fun as it might seem to show off some picture-perfect home to your friends, it’s not always what you might expect.

You might be surprised to learn that visitors don’t always feel at ease. Your home may seem so perfect to them that they’re afraid they’re going to mess something up!

Does Your House Feel Like Home?

A house becomes a home when it reflects not just your taste, but your values, habits, and connections with the people you care about. Decor might help set the stage for how you want your home to look, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

What really makes your house a home is how it makes you feel. Therefore, focus on what you can do to create a comfortable, inviting space full of love.

Your home should tell your story and support how you want to live your life. It should also give others a sense of who you are.

So, does your house feel like a home? Here’s a hint. If you’re not sure, then you still have some work to do. But the good news is that creating a home isn’t about a remodel. It’s about reinventing how you use and see the space, so that it serves you best.

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• Creating “Third Places” (from Libraries to Yoga Studios) In Your Home