Maybe your home is smaller than you'd like, lacks natural light, or doesn't have any outdoor space. Whatever the issue, it can be hard to love your home if it's not quite the place you'd pictured for yourself.
But if moving house isn't an option right now, it's important to make the most of what you have. After all, how you feel about your home has a huge impact on everything from your mood to your family relationships.
Instead of lusting after a perfect home that's not yours, you need to make your current home work for you. This means taking steps to turn your home into a lovely living space that you and your family can fill with happy memories.
Want to know how to love your home? Keep reading to find out!
1. Layer Lighting
Lighting has a much bigger impact on the feel of your home than you might realize, with bright ceiling lights creating the wrong atmosphere for a cozy evening, or dim lamps making reading in the corner a chore rather than a pleasure.
This is why it's important to create the perfect ambiance for every occasion by using different lighting sources throughout your home. As well as your main lighting fixture, supplement this with sconces, floor lamps, table lamps, and spotlights. With layered lighting like this, you'll soon start to see your home in a different light, both literally and figuratively!
2. Clean and Tidy Every Day
Cleaning your home from top to bottom goes a long way to creating a lovely living space. But that doesn't mean you should let the mess pile up between deep cleans. Instead, make a point of tidying clutter away and doing a little light cleaning every day. This will take a matter of minutes but can really help you keep on top of things and maintain some semblance of order and calm.
Some helpful household rules you could start might include making your bed every day or always cleaning the kitchen before going to bed. Although these small changes won't take much time or effort, they'll make it easier to see things to love about your house as you won't get distracted by a messy bed or piles of dishes in the sink.
3. Add a Statement Piece
Bring life to your home decor by adding a statement piece into the mix, such as a bright orange armchair in a living room full of neutral colors. Remember though, you want the effect to look intentional rather than haphazard. To pull it off, work the statement piece into your overall color scheme by adding a decorative item or two in shades of peach, orange, or coral.
As well as adding personality and charm to your living space, a style statement like this will bring you joy every time you see it. Although, you can make a statement with any kind of eye-catching piece you love if experimenting with color isn't your thing. This could be anything from unique wall art to a piano in the hall, depending on the kind of style statement you wish to make!
4. Bring Life With Plants and Flowers
Plants and flowers are the easiest and most effective way to bring life to a room and create a lovely living space that you enjoy coming home to.
If fresh flowers are too expensive, consider a hardy potted plant for the kitchen windowsill or an oversized palm in the living room. Another great tip is to mix faux and real plants. This way, even darker rooms benefit from the personality and charm of some added greenery.
5. Reflect Your Personality
It can be hard to find things to love about your house if it lacks that all-important personal touch.
While following themes and home decor tips can help you express your style, it doesn't make for a unique home. Nor does it make for a space that's a true reflection of your experiences and tastes. After all, many people love wooden floors, candles, neutral colors, and soft fabrics. But those people aren't the ones living in your home.
Turning your home into a lovely living space means not losing sight of what speaks to you on a personal level, even if it's not to everyone's taste. From your teapot collection to that quirky flea market lamp, from personalized decor items to your child's artwork, incorporating these meaningful pieces into your decor will ensure that your home is one of a kind.
6. Let the Light In
Natural light and fresh air are mood lifters so make sure to open your curtains and windows as much as possible. Letting the light in also helps warm up your home in winter, while opening windows and doors helps create a refreshing breeze in the hot summer months.
7. Remove Your Shoes
If you want your home to be a lovely living space, you should make removing your shoes when you come inside one of the new household rules.
Not only is it far more hygienic to leave your shoes at the door, but it also creates a symbolic shift toward comfort and relaxation within the boundaries of your home. To make sure this doesn't create more problems than it solves, place a storage bench in your hallway to make removing and storing your shoes efficient and convenient.
8. Start New Traditions
There are more things to love about your house than the objects in it, including the time you spend with your family and the activities you enjoy together at home. A great way to make the most of this family time at home is to start new traditions. From measuring your children's heights with marks on the doorframe to playing board games every Friday night, you'll soon start to cherish your home for the happy moments you've lived within its walls.
9. Enjoy Small Daily Rituals
Whenever you get the chance to spend some time at home, make an effort to slow down and turn small acts into rituals. For example, rather than gulping down a cup of coffee while multitasking in the kitchen, take five minutes to sit on the couch and look out the window. Or in the evening, instead of scrolling through your phone in front of the TV, run yourself a warm bath and enjoy some quiet time while the kids are in bed.
Often, we can only enjoy small pleasures like these in our homes. By taking time to indulge in these at-home self-care practices, you can boost your mood and find new things to love about your house.
10. Focus on Fragrance
Coming in from a hard day at work to find the house a mess is bad enough. But if there's a distinct whiff of cat litter, yesterday's trash, or last night's dinner in the air, it might just send you over the edge.
To avoid this, use cleaning products fragranced with lavender, fruit, and fresh-smelling scents. After dinner, burn fragrant candles to help diffuse cooking and food smells. You might also want to alter the household rules about how often you take the garbage out to ensure that you always come home to a sweet-smelling house.
11. Make Memories
Even if your house isn't perfect or your home decor plans are still unfinished, don't put off the chance to make memories by inviting people over for a movie night, to celebrate the holidays, or to try out your sweet new barbecue equipment.
Other people can help offer a new perspective on your home, and might even shine a light on things to love about your house. But, more importantly, making memories with friends and family will fill your space with the kind of love, laughter, and good times that turns a house into a home.
12. Create Designated Spaces for Activities
It's easy for a home to create discord and mess if you don't have clearly defined spaces for certain activities.
For example, if you work from home but rarely have overnight, turning the guestroom into an office avoids having to clear your work things from the dining table at mealtimes. Or, you might decide to turn the basement into a man cave so your partner's gaming unit doesn't take up half the bedroom. Not only will carving out an area for certain activities mean fewer arguments and untidiness, but your new designated spaces will give you even more things to love about your house.
Learn How to Love Your Home
As these tips show, being happy with your house doesn't have to involve making big changes. Often, learning to love your home means taking time to cherish the little things.
Whether it's taking the time to enjoy a cup of coffee, adding a personal touch to your home decor, or making your bed each morning, showing your home a little love and appreciation can only make living there a healthier and happier experience.
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