I have been mulling over what makes a home for a few days now. There are the few classic sayings: "Home is where your heart is" or "Home is where I am with you". As overused those sayings are, I believe they are true. Which is probably why they are used so often.
We have lived a few different places. A duplex, a rented small house, a couple of apartments, and then finally we bought this house. Each of those places were home to us. They might not have had the best layouts or gorgeous paint colours or huge windows, but they were home.
They were a places where we could retreat, be ourselves, invite friends and family in, eat meals, laugh and cry. That is what I think home is. Not necessarily a huge (or small) beautiful home with great furniture and perfect kitchens (although I wouldn't mind!), but a place where you and your family can be. A place where if you want to hang up that piece of artwork because you like it, you can. A place where friends, family and strangers can step through the door and instantly feel comfortable.
So for me, I like to make our home look nice and feel comfortable. I also like to do that in the cheapest ways possible. Thrift stores and garage sales are the places I go to first when I want to do something different in our home. I also like to browse Pinterest and see what other people do to decorate their homes. This is my favourite place to use as a jumping off point. Not a "copy their entire living room exactly" or feel sad that my house doesn't look the way the pictures do. No - I like to take bits and pieces of different rooms that I see and try to incorporate those styles into our own home.
Home is where those I love are. Home is where I can hang up art - either in a frame or on an old pant hanger. Home is where we invite old and new friends in to settle in on the couch and share our lives over a cup of coffee or a meal.
Here is where I will share more of how we make this house our home - whether that is through stories of our life or decorating and renovations.
This is more of home.
