If you are moving into a new house, the thought of leaving your past life behind can be distressing. Here's what you should know about you feelings during the moving process and how to make you new house feel like home:
During the first few weeks of moving to a new house, you may feel strange and the new house will seem like a foreign place to you. However, once you start setting up personalized areas, celebrating your birthday, and decorating the house for the holiday season, this feeling of being in a new place will slowly go away.
A house shouldn’t only be a building where one lives; it should instead feel like a welcoming place as soon as you open its main door. Of course, a new house will not feel 'homely’ until you personalize it by making a few transformations after moving into it. The types of transformations that you should make are ones that make the house feel cozy and warm feeling of home.
What is a homely feeling?
All of us have different idea when it comes to choosing an interior for a house. Likewise, we also have different definitions of what makes a house feel homely. The key here is to add some personal touches as well as decorations, which may sound more like a luxury instead of a necessity. If you want to make your house feel homely, you will need to make considerate purchases that focus on aesthetic over practicality.
Here we will explore a few important strategies that will help you make your new house feel like home:
Create composure in your bedroom
It’s important to have a comfortable and organized place in the house where you can relax at the end of the day. This room is your bedroom, and it’s very important during the first few weeks after your move when you will still be in the process of settling down.
Organizing the bedroom should be your priority, here’s what you need to do:
- Make your bed quickly, regardless of whether you must assemble the bed using a toolbox or set up a mattress directly on the floor.
- Make sure to fold the rug, arrange the lamps or nightstands, and hang a few artworks and a mirror which can make you feel at home.
Stay organized from the beginning
Regardless of whether you want to organize by yourself, hire a closet designer, or a professional designer, we suggest you focus on keeping a few important spaces neat. This will make your new house a pleasant place to stay. Here’s what you need to do:
- Don’t hurry while putting your belongings in your new house.
- Invest some time in planning the right ways to organize your new house.
- Focus on organizing your closet, garage, and drawers after you move to your new house.
Organize your bookshelves
Another good idea is to fill up your bookshelves. If you are a book lover, nothing will give you a better feeling than reading your favorite book with a cup of coffee. Even if you don’t read much, a full bookshelf will add presence to your room. Also, you must think about the best way to organize your books before you unpack them in your new house. For example, you may want to sort the books according to topic, mood, genre, or even alphabet.
Regardless of the way you choose to organize your books, we recommend you put them on a bookshelf as soon as possible and avoid delaying the process.
Organize a casual kitchen dinner
You may find it difficult during the first few days to make food at home since your kitchen will likely not be organized yet. However, we suggest that after you have settled down, you start cooking in your kitchen as soon as possible. This is a great way to quickly acclimate and connect to your new house.
It’s also a good idea to call over a few friends with whom you can chat while you are cooking in your new kitchen. It’s not only about cooking, but about creating an opportunity for you to create your first memory in your new home.
Put some strong hooks
Hanging hooks on the wall is important for almost any room of you’re a house. Here’s what you need to know about it:
- You can use the hooks in the hall room to hang your coat and hat.
- Aprons and grocery bags can be hung on hooks in the kitchen.
- Hooks (or holding racks/rods) in the bathroom can be used to hang towels.
- You can use hooks in a closet to hang necklaces and other pieces of jewelry.
If you don’t want to stay in a mess and keep the house clean while getting settled in your new house, we suggest you hang sufficient hooks in the house so that at least part of that mess can be relegated to the walls.
Create your windows
When you relocate to a new house, the house will likely already have curtains. However, these curtains might not be extremely attractive or of good size. If you want your new home to feel welcoming and reflective of your style, we recommend you change the cloths found around the house. For example, you can add attractive curtains to enhance the look of your new house as well as control the temperature. Adding drapes that don’t cover a window can also be fashionable and fancy: definitely worth considering.
Enhance the aroma
If your house doesn’t have an enticing aroma, it will be difficult to feel the warmth of a home there. It may not seem important, but our senses can subconsciously make us feel many things.
You can buy room refresheners, scented candles, and incense to spice up your house. Another promising idea is to start baking and cooking in the house which will make the house feel more like a home with tempting aromas of familiar cuisine as soon as you open the door.
Put up an entertainment center
In the rush to set up an entertainment center in your new apartment, you may not pay heed to awkward power outlets, messy cords, and the inappropriately angled television screens. You must should invest some time in clearing up such disturbances or hire a repair professional if required. This will make movie nights and gaming time more entertaining.
Put up family photos
You may feel reluctant to drill holes into the pristine walls of your new house, but displaying family photos on the walls is one of the most excellent ways to create a homely feeling in your new house. If you aren’t sure where you can best place family photos, we suggest you hang hooks on the wall instead of using a hammer and nails.
Clean the entire house
A new house will usually be relatively clean when you first move in, but lots of grimes and dust can settle in during the moving process. Also, if the house has been built or renovated recently, a layer of dust can accumulate on the surface of the floor. We suggest you clean the house from top to bottom before you fully settle in.
Use houseplants
A houseplant will bring fresh air into the house, making it more important that most people thing for making a place feel homely. If you have made a long-distance move, it is more than likely you might not have brought your houseplants with you. Here’s what you can do to maintain a beautiful garden in your new house:
- Note down the light conditions in every room of the new house and make sure you consider them while buying new houseplants.
- Don’t forget to purchase flowerpots, a watering can, and any other supplies which you may need to support the healthy and happy living of your baby plants.
Overall, if you need any help relocating to your new house, you can hire professional movers. However, if you have planned to make a DIY move, we suggest you plan it ahead of time since leaving everything for the last moment might create more chaos.
If you have read this guide, you can apply the strategies discussed to make your new house feel like a home. Talk to your friends or relatives who have experienced this before and ask them how soon they were able to adapt to their new home.