What makes your house a home?

Obviously for most people, the family and pets will score high on the list, but what material possessions make your house feel homely to you?

As a student, when I was moving regularly, I always unpacked my bedding and photos first.  I never felt that I belonged there until the wall was covered with photos.

Today I would still score my bedding highly, but also my spotty teapot and my crafts.

Comments

  • https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/400961_10150602890675731_581220444_n.jpg

     First thing unpacked when we moved in January...

  • Hog-mouseHog-mouse ✭✭✭

    My house is a home because it feels like it. It is very welcomming. It's brick built so always feels warm, it has open fire places, windows that let in the light. I feel relaxeed at home.

    yes, my cats, my garden, the space around me. Having good neighbours.

    Music.

    Lots of my stuff - stuff that you need to focus on. I like crafts so I have a lot of craft objects. I like stones so there are lots of stones in every room. Strange little things that I pick up. Stuff.

    lots and lots of stuff.

  • E mmyE mmy ✭✭✭
    For me it's the following:

    - kettle, tea bags, mug

    - pictures

    - arrange boxes into fort formation for a few days....image
  • Just my wife. Material things don't really matter at the end of the day
  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    A couple of neighbours of mine were discussing the relative merits of their properties and lifestyle when one of them declared that his adjoining neighbours place was a house whereas his place was a home. She countered this by agreeing her's was indeed a house but his was in fact a sty. It was a very very dirty house.

    🙂

  • My books, photos, CDs and the old vinyl records I can't play any more as I have nothing to play them on.  Friends in the village, favourite pub in the next village, familiar running routes.

  • Dave The Ex- Spartan wrote (see)
    Just my wife. Material things don't really matter at the end of the day

    +1 This image

  • MartenkayMartenkay ✭✭✭

    I suspect SuperCaz has deliberately excluded spouse, family and friends from her question to focus on what helps you to feel good about your private space.

    Photos of the excluded subjects if they make me feel happy and I remember good times. Good bed - i like to wake up fresh. Shower - I like to be fresh. Books. Those would be the minimum to help keep me mentally and physically comfortable. I could not have a radio or music constantly in the background.

    All the best SuperCaz.

  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭

    Other than people - I like to have things to make me comfortable (bed, pillows, blankets), my books and a fully equipped kitchen. I also like to have photos and music image

  • Kids, Husband, Dog, Sea Monkeys and my assortment of wooden boxes brought from various medieval fayre's which are filled with my odd little bits and bobs including my prized collection of sea glass retrieved from various points along the essex coastline image

     

  • MartenkayMartenkay ✭✭✭

    My Kindle - books are so last year!image

  • The kitchen. Not that I'm a domestic godess or anything. but I don't feel like it's "home" until I can go to a cupboard for something without having to think where it is. 

    Thereafter, my bed & bedding go a good way to making me feel at home, as does getting the books on bookshelves. 

  • Anywhere I have called home has a lot of books. Proper books.

    And a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses prominently displayed. Ha. try that with yer kindling.

  • booktrunkbooktrunk ✭✭✭
    My adsl line and computer, as long as I'm on the net I can live anywhere.
  • MartenkayMartenkay ✭✭✭
    bos1 wrote (see)

    Anywhere I have called home has a lot of books. Proper books.

    And a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses prominently displayed. Ha. try that with yer kindling.

    Oh no! you are welcome to your prominently displayed copy of Ulysses.

  • Hog-mouseHog-mouse ✭✭✭

    I love my picture books. Kindle couldn't handle those, or my art books. I'll take Ulysses and double with Milton's Paradise Lost.

    Plus my illustrated poems.

  • Familiar smells. Laundry washed with your usual washing powder. Smelly candles. Coffee. Toast.
  • I don't have much 'stuff' that I'm emotionally attached to. My books could all be replaced, ditto my music. I have a large collection of old and out-of-print books and Depeche Mode rarities, but I don't require their physical presence to feel 'at home'. If everything I owned went up in flames tomorrow, there's not much I'd mourn the loss of.

    Sentimental things like old family photos are scanned, copied, backed up on other hard drives and/or online, so easily recoverable. I have an oddly shaped piece of driftwood that looks like the Yellow Submarine. I'd miss that. But not a lot.

    Edit: Lounging around in my old fleece dressing gown makes me feel at home. But a new one would be just as good. Better, even.

  • SuperCazSuperCaz ✭✭✭
    Martenkay wrote (see)

    I suspect SuperCaz has deliberately excluded spouse, family and friends from her question to focus on what helps you to feel good about your private space.

    Photos of the excluded subjects if they make me feel happy and I remember good times. Good bed - i like to wake up fresh. Shower - I like to be fresh. Books. Those would be the minimum to help keep me mentally and physically comfortable. I could not have a radio or music constantly in the background.

    All the best SuperCaz.

    I've been spending a lot of time in hotel rooms, and have been trying to take things with me to make the room feel a bit more welcoming and less impersonal, while also packing as little as possible.  It has focused my mind on which of my posessions I need around me, which I miss but don't need, and all the junk that I could do without.

  • In that case, I think I'd take a scented tealight candle. Tiny but the smell would remind me of home straight away. Though I imagine most hotels wouldn't allow candles in the rooms...

  • SuperCazSuperCaz ✭✭✭

    My smelly teas tend to do a similar job image

  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • After my husband and dogs - my books and the photos on the wall - our  walls have studio portraits of all our former shepherd dogs, Sabre, Shawnee, Shani, Snowy and Oz.  Also have my parents wedding pic and some race photos, plus two pictures done by artist friends, an oil painting of Oz and Shani, and a crayon pic of Sabre.

  • Colin McLaughlin wrote (see)

    If you want an extra copy of Ulysses let me know and I'll fish it out of the dustbin.

    No thanks, but if you have a copy of Finnegans Wake I'll take that off your hands.

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