If you’ve just purchased a house or have recently moved, then it’s understandable that like most people you might be feeling a little unsettled. Our home environment profoundly affects our emotional state, and when you move house, it’s a bit like someone thrashing around a stick in an otherwise serene lake… it’s disruptive and unsettling. People often buy a new house with the expectation they will feel ‘at home’ straight away, but it doesn’t tend to happen instantly as home is not a place - it’s a feeling- and this feeling can take some time to develop. Furthermore, there’s a need to mourn the loss of your previous home in order to embrace the new, and it can take a little time to adjust - therefore, if you’re feeling unsettled and like your new house is yet to feel like home, take reassurance in the fact this is normal.
In many ways, home is a sense of belonging that brings comfort to our lives. While it can help to undertake maintenance tasks and interior design changes to your new home, it’s important to understand that home is a feeling, not a place, and that feeling is something that will develop over time. Spend as much time as possible in the new property, familiarise yourself with it. Invite friends over, get used to seeing it at different times of day and in different weather conditions. Find your favourite spot to sit and read a book, the best place to do your makeup. Get used to things like cooking and cleaning in the new place. The more you spend living at the property the more it will feel like home.
One of the best tips with regard to turning your new house into a new home is to take immediate action with regard to unpacking boxes and setting up the home. The best time to get started is right now... as in, you might want to stop reading this and get straight to unpacking boxes, as the longer you leave things in boxes the longer you will feel unsettled and the more overwhelmed you will become. Indeed, moving home can feel very overwhelming, particularly when faced with a mountain of boxes. The best way to approach this is to chunk it down into more manageable segments. Rather than have twenty boxes to get through in one room it can be helpful to separate them into four piles of five boxes. This way, things will hopefully start to feel more manageable and you can get through these in short bursts, rather than feel overwhelmed, and in using this short-burst activity you will develop momentum which will fuel your motivation and drive to get onto the next little pile.
The other factor, is that you want to make your home feel like “yours” as soon as possible. From finding real estate agents in Knoxville, TN (or wherever you're from) who can make the house buying process as easy as possible, to being organised with your move, theres plenty you can do before you even exchange contracts to get off on the right foot. Then when you finally have the keys, you're ready to put your stamp on it and start life in your new home in the best frame of mind. There’s a good chance your new house will have remnants of the previous owners tastes and stylistic preferences. There’s often a feeling that the house belongs to someone else, when you first move in, and it’s important to make your mark, cleanse, and connect with the space. For instance, you could change up the bathrooms with granite sinks in order to make your mark, clean the space in order to feel more connected with it being yours, and then put out certain items that hold a particularly strong emotional connection.
In essence, it’s important for your new home to be filled with your energy so that you can start to associate your new house with being your new home.
