Happy Valentine’s Day! I am interrupting my scheduled “Selling Your Home Series” to bring you this article about loving your home.

If you’ve been feeling dissatisfied or frustrated with your home, I hope these tips help to reframe your perspective. Home should be a place of refuge and haven from the outside world. You can learn to love your home even with its annoyances and quirks.

What home is

What does the word ‘home’ mean to you? It’s easy to get caught up in the structure, square footage, amenities, and appearance when that isn’t the whole picture of what home is. 

“A house is made of brick and mortar, but home is made by the people who live there.” -M.K. Soni 

As you think about how to love your home even if it isn’t your dream keep in mind that your house is a structure, but home is the life that happens inside it.

It’s easy to get caught up with appearance and convenience and what you may imagine that you want or need. I’ve been guilty of thinking that a different house could improve my life, but really the house is just a shell and the moments and relationships that happen within it are what matters most.

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming about your ideal home unless it keeps you from being happy where you are now. Keep in mind the true purpose of a home. All the bells and whistles that can come in a home won’t create peace within you and the relationships that exist there.

“In life we may live in many different homes, but where we are loved and feel safe that is the place where we are at home with family or friends.” -Catherine Pulsifer

Focus on what’s good

As you are figuring out how to love your home, focus first on the characteristics that you like about your home. What does work well in your home? What would you miss if your next home didn’t have that? It helps refresh your perspective when you focus on the parts you love and appreciate about where you live now.

Work with what you’ve got

Look at your home as a challenge to solve rather than a problem. Whether you own or rent, think of creative solutions to the things that bother you. You can love your home even with its quirks.

Focus on what you can control

A big part of how people feel in their homes relates to the state of their stuff. When you’re overwhelmed with the things you own, it’s hard to feel like you love your home.

The good news is, you can take back control over your stuff and decide to work through decluttering it.

Don’t fill your home with things that feel like burdens or remind you of past mistakes or sadness or regret. Can you imagine how much more you could love your home if it only contained items you used and loved?

The excess is often what brings us down. It feels defeating and home is a constant reminder of chores that need to be done, projects that are unfinished and messes that are waiting to be picked up.

Owning fewer things lessens the ability for your home to get out of control with stuff. If you aren’t sure where to start, you can begin with easy items to declutter or quick areas to declutter that have a big impact on your home.

Perhaps you’ve tried decluttering before but are still feeling unsettled in your space. Check out this list of reasons why your house still feels cluttered to see if they apply to you. 

“I realized the clutter of my home was becoming more than just a personal annoyance and was actually affecting the quality of my life.” -C. E. Mroz 

Highlight the things that make you happy

One great thing that comes from decluttering is clarity. The process helps provide a clearer picture of what you really like and what you don’t.

As you declutter the various areas in your home, you may discover things you loved that you’d even forgotten you had. A beautiful part of decluttering is that in getting rid of the excess those favorite treasured items get to shine as they are no longer being overwhelmed by other things.

Find those things that bring you the most joy and put them front and center in your home. Don’t save your favorites and best for special occasions. 

Every day is a special occasion so choose to use your things and enjoy them now. It will help you to love your home more.

Choose gratitude 

You’ll come to a point where you need to choose gratitude in order to love your home. It’s so easy to get a skewed perception of what we have to be grateful for when we see beautiful and expensive homes featured on shows on HGTV.

If you find that watching those shows makes you feel worse about the home you live in, stop watching them. It’s not helping you love your home more. Instead, it can breed envy and discontent.

Choose to be grateful for the roof over your head and the protection from the outside world. Your home provides warmth and comfort and a variety of things that many people in the world do not have the privilege of.

Being grateful will help you to love your home more as you choose to focus on the gift that it is rather than everything it’s not.

“Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need.”-Sarah Ban Breathnach

Love your home

Through remembering the true meaning of home, focusing on what you love, working with what you’ve got, clearing the clutter, and highlighting the favorites you are choosing to love your home. I hope that you find your home to be a place of respite and love.

“Home sweet home. This is the place to find happiness. If one doesn’t find it here, one doesn’t find it anywhere.” -M. K. Soni