Fall Back in Love with Your Home - 4 Easy Free Steps

Have you fallen out of love with your house?

It was lovely when you bought it, and you had such great plans for it. Now every little thing wrong with it just annoys you.

The carpet is old. The walls need new paint. There’s no pantry or laundry room. The bathrooms are too small. (Hmm those complaints sound awfully familiar.)

I know what you mean. I’ve spent years being frustrated with my tiny galley kitchen, lack of a pantry, and cramped bathrooms. My husband is probably sick to death of hearing me utter things like, “I need more counter space!” “Where am I going to store all this food?” and “I wish I could park in the garage too.”

The reality is that constantly buying newer, bigger, better homes (along with everything else newer, bigger, and better like cars, TV’s, etc.) is completely unsustainable in the long run. I don’t think it actually brings happiness either.

If you are unhappy with your current home, moving onto something bigger and better may not magically fix all your problems. Consider how ubiquitous aspirational advertising is – it’s on TV, it’s on social media, it’s in so many magazines (as a home and lifestyle blogger I’m constantly bombarded by it). It’s hard to get away from the idea being pushed on us that if we just bought a home that was bigger/better/somewhere else that life would magically be better.

If you want to be happy with your home, you may not need a different one. You have to fix the current problems you have with your home, learn to live with your home’s flaws, and feel gratitude for what you already have – otherwise, even if you move on to something bigger and better, you will eventually feel the same malaise.

Here I’m sharing a few easy and free ways to fall back in love with your home. Make the home you live in right now a more inviting and comfortable place that you feel happy in.

How to Fall Back in Love with Your Home

Remember what you originally loved about it

Think back to when you first saw your home, when the realtor walked you through it. Did you immediately know it was The One? Did you think, “Wow, that’s a nice kitchen! Or were you thinking, “Once I fix this place up it’ll look like a million bucks!” What drew you to your home? Was it a good place to raise your children? What were your plans for your home?

Walk through your home and look through it again through that lens. Remember why you bought it in the first place and what you originally loved about it.

Give it a good cleaning

A clean house is a happy house. If you’re focusing on how small your bathroom is when you haven’t even cleaned it in a few weeks, then your priorities may be out of order. Try giving that bathroom a good scrubbing and throwing out the detritus. Wash the shower curtain and floor mats. I bet that, when all’s said and done, that bathroom won’t feel quite so small.

It’s easy to focus on the negative things in our home when it’s messy or dirty. Giving it a good cleaning and straightening everything up refreshes the whole energy of a room.

If one of your complaints is that a space is too small, think about how grateful you are for the size of it the next time you clean it. It takes so much less time to clean a small space than a large one. (Which is why I’ll never live in a large house!)

Declutter

If you feel you don’t have enough space in your home, it might not be that your home is too small. It might just be that you have too much stuff.

One of the things Marie Kondo said in one of her books that stuck with me was something to the effect of, “Your house has enough storage space.” If you’re constantly complaining about lack of storage in your home and are considering moving to a larger place just to fit all your stuff, consider instead that you may be doing it wrong. Try working through the Konmari Method or any other decluttering method to get rid of the extra. When you get rid of all the things you thought you needed or were holding onto “just in case”, it may turn out that your home actually has enough storage space after all.

If you live in a really small space, you may benefit from a storage unit. If your space is tiny, and you are already utilizing your storage space properly, but have some extra things – say, a lot of Halloween and Christmas decor that bring you great joy to put up every year but the rest of the time you need to store it – a storage unit is a cheaper alternative to higher rent for a larger place.

Get things fixed

If you don’t fix things that are wrong in your home in a timely matter, they’re likely to cause more problems. Fix problems as soon as you can afford to.

It’s easy to feel negatively about your home when things are wrong with it. Address the issues. If the cracked tile has been driving you crazy for years, look into getting the floor re-tiled. If the carpet is gross, consider getting new carpet or switching to a different type of flooring.

Rearrange furniture and decor

Sometimes a room feels stale because it has not been rearranged or redecorated for a long time. The easiest way to refresh the energy of a space is to rearrange it.

Try moving your sofa to a different wall, or even not against a wall at all. You could even – gasp – consider arranging your seats conversation style, instead of facing your TV. Now when you have company over, everyone can talk to each other, instead of facing a screen. (This helps with cutting back that TV habit too, *wink wink*.)

Hang up artwork and photos in different places for a new look. Switch out your decor from different rooms. Put out different throw pillows.

House plants bring a lot to a space. If you’re able to care for plants, find some that can thrive in the kind of light in your room. (Pothos and spider plants can tolerate almost any kind of light.) Have a black thumb? There are lots of gorgeous faux plants available.

If you want to spend a little money, you can consider a new color scheme. Fresh paint, curtains, and throw pillows can go a long way. However, it’s not necessary to spend money on refreshing your space.

I’d love to know: have you fallen out of love with your home? What can you do to make your home a better place?