You did it – you finally found the perfect place to move into and all of your boxes are sitting around you, waiting for you to unpack them. Now, the real work begins. How do you decide what goes where? And how is this strange place ever going to feel as perfectly suited to you as the last place you lived in? Fortunately, any house can be turned into a home with a very simple plan.

The first step is to select that one room you feel is most important to you. It can be the room you spend the most time in, the room you feel the most passionate about or even the room you think will be the easiest to finish. If you enjoy cooking, the kitchen may be the best place to start. Arrange your pots and pans in the kitchen cupboards so that you can make your first meal in your new home. And of course, no home is complete until you have a comfortable place to rest. Make your bed with your favorite set of sheets and comforter. Or, get your living room set up the way you always wanted it so that you can have your friends over for movie night. Whatever room is the most important to your life, start with it. The sooner you get it set up, the sooner you will have a safe haven to take cover in.

Make a special space for yourself too. You need something that is just yours, an area where you can sit and think, or show off your favorite collection – books, autographed baseballs, family photos, gadgets. Sometimes unpacking the things that mean the most to you can go a long way toward creating a home. Once you start to see the things that you have spent your life collecting sitting on the shelves or taking up floor space, you might get used to the idea of living there.

Fill your new home with your favorite smells. That might be fresh cut flowers, it might be candles or it could even be your favorite food. The more your place smells familiar, the more you will start to identify it as your own. Scent can make you homesick, so why not let it welcome you home?

Make sure your new home fits your lifestyle. If you can’t sleep through sunlight, make your bed face away from the window. If you love listening to music while you cook, put your stereo close to or in the kitchen. And if you constantly forget your keys, put them right next to the door so that you always see them before you leave.

If you feel like finding something new to make your home more complete, start paying attention to what catches your eye the next time you flip through a magazine, watch a commercial or go to the movies. The pattern you see on a shirt might inspire the fabric choice for your couch. Seeing a room filled with natural light might make you realize you would like your living room more if it had white curtains instead of black ones.

Most importantly, make sure your home makes you happy. This is the space you live in. It should be a space that calms you down, makes you feel safe or at least comfortable and in control. You are the only one who has to live with the decisions you make, so choose whatever transforms the space into a home, and pass on the things that make the walls close in. You can always rearrange it and change it up, so don’t be afraid to try something new.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Settling In!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.