If You’ve Been Putting Off Making Your House Feel More Like a Home, Here Are 29 Items to Motivate You

The winter after our youngest left for college, I noticed something odd about the house. It was clean. It was quiet. It did not feel like anybody lived there. Tom and I walked through the rooms like two people at an open house. We touched the counters. We looked at the empty hooks by the back door. Then we sat down and watched the news.

One night in January I said it out loud. I told Tom the house felt like a waiting room. He did not argue. He said he had been thinking the same thing but did not want to say it first. So we made a deal. One small thing a week. Nothing expensive. Nothing that needed a contractor. Just small things that would make the place feel like ours again.

That deal turned into a long list. We worked through it from January to the first warm day in spring. Some of it was buying. Most of it was just paying attention. Here are the twenty nine things that got us there, in the order they happened.

A lamp on the end table

The first week I bought a lamp. We had lived under the overhead light in the living room for years. It was bright and flat and it made the room look like a dentist office. I put a lamp with a cloth shade on the end table by Tom’s chair. That night he turned off the big light and sat under the lamp with his book. He looked up and said the room felt smaller. I asked if that was bad. He said no, it felt like a den.

A lamp changes a room more than paint does.

A rug under the coffee table

The second week I pulled an old rug out of the basement. It was rolled up behind the furnace. I had put it away when the kids were small because of spilled juice. We unrolled it in the living room and it still fit. Tom said he had forgotten we owned it. The room stopped echoing. I had not even noticed the echo until it was gone.

A bare floor makes a room feel like nobody plans to stay.

A blanket on the back of the couch

I washed a blanket my mother had crocheted and laid it over the back of the couch. It is orange and brown and not pretty. Tom used it that same evening. He pulled it over his knees during the weather report and did not say a word about it. A week later I found it on the other end of the couch, which meant he had used it again and moved it.

A blanket out in the open gets used. A blanket in the closet does not.

Photos back on the wall

When the kids moved out I had taken most of the photos down. I told myself it was to dust. Really I did not want to walk past them every day. In February I put them back. I hung them in the hall in a crooked line because I could not find the level. Tom found the level and fixed them. Then he stood there for a while looking at the one of all three kids on the porch.

The people who are not home should still be on the wall.

A real doormat

Our doormat was a thin rubber thing that had been there since before the youngest was born. I bought a thick one with bristles. That is the whole scene. But the first time Tom wiped his feet on it, he said it felt like walking into somebody’s house. I said it was his house. He said he knew that, and he still liked the feeling.

The front door is the first thing a house says to you.

A bowl for keys

Tom lost his keys three times in one week. I found an old wooden bowl in the cupboard and set it on the table by the door. I put my keys in it. I did not say anything. Two days later his keys were in it too. He has not lost them since. The bowl now also holds a tape measure, two pens, and a golf tee, and I have stopped asking why.

A home has a place for the small things people reach for.

A plant that is hard to kill

I am not good with plants. My sister gave me a pothos in a plastic pot and told me it could survive me. I put it on the kitchen windowsill. It is still alive. Some mornings I talk to it while the coffee brews. Tom caught me doing this once and now he says good morning to it too, mostly to make fun of me.

Something alive on the windowsill makes a kitchen feel awake.

A chair just for reading

We had a chair in the corner of the bedroom that held laundry. Clean laundry, dirty laundry, it did not matter. The chair was a shelf. I cleared it off and put a small lamp beside it and a basket for a book. The first night I sat in it, I read for an hour. I had not read in a chair since the kids were in grade school.

A chair that is only for sitting will get sat in.

Curtains that actually close

Our living room blinds were bent in three places. At night the streetlight came through the gaps. I bought plain curtains on sale and Tom put up the rod. The first evening we closed them, the room went soft and dim and warm. Tom said it felt like being inside a tent as a kid. I said that was a strange thing to say. He said he knew, but it was true.

A room needs to be able to shut the world out at night.

Something that smells like cooking

I had stopped baking. There was no one to eat it. One Saturday I made a loaf of bread anyway. The house smelled like bread for the whole afternoon. Tom came in from raking the leaves that had blown over from the fall and stood in the kitchen with his coat still on. He said the house smelled like his mother’s. Then he ate half the loaf before supper.

The smell of something baking says someone is home.

A radio in the kitchen

My mother always had a radio going in the kitchen. I bought a cheap one and set it on the counter by the stove. Now there is noise in the house even when Tom is out. It is mostly weather and old songs. Sometimes I turn it up and Tom comes in to see what is playing. Sometimes he does not. Either way the kitchen is not silent anymore.

Silence is fine for a library. A home needs a little noise.

A calendar on the fridge

For years the fridge was covered in school schedules and sports pictures. After the youngest left it went bare. I put up a paper calendar. I wrote in the weekends the grandkids were coming. Tom added a dentist appointment and a reminder to change the furnace filter. It is not much. But now when I open the fridge I see a month that has things in it.

A fridge with nothing on it looks like nobody is expecting anything.

A guest room that is ready

The spare room had become storage. There were boxes on the bed. I cleared it, made the bed with clean sheets, and put a water glass and a small lamp on the nightstand. When our oldest came to visit, the room was ready before they called. Tom said it felt good not to scramble. I said it felt good to have a room that was waiting for somebody.

A ready bed tells people they are welcome before they ask.

A basket of toys by the window

The grandkids used to bring their own toys and take them home again. I bought a basket and filled it with blocks and a few puzzles from the thrift store. It sits by the living room window. The next weekend the grandkids found it in about four seconds. Tom sat on the floor with them. I had not seen him sit on the floor in years.

Children feel at home where their things already are.

A bench by the back door

Tom built a bench out of leftover boards from the shed. It is not fancy. It sits by the back door so you can pull off boots. The grandkids line their shoes under it. Tom sits on it to tie his laces. I use it to set down groceries. It took him one Saturday and cost nothing.

A place to sit by the door says this is where you come in.

Hooks at the right height

The coat hooks were too high for the grandkids. I had Tom add a row lower down. The first time the little ones hung up their own coats, they were very proud. One of them hung up a coat that was not even theirs. Tom said we had started something. I said it was a good thing to start.

A home fits the people who live in it and the ones who visit.

A glass of water by the bed

This one is small. I put a tray on each of our nightstands with a glass for water. Tom said it was fussy. Then he started filling his glass every night. Now if I forget, he asks where the water went. It is the kind of thing a hotel does. It turns out it is nice at home too.

The small comforts are the ones you feel every night.

Fresh towels in the bathroom

Our towels were thin and gray from washing. I replaced them with thick ones in a color I liked. I folded them and put them on the shelf where you could see them. Tom came out of the shower and said he felt like he was at a nice place. I said he was at home. He said that was what he meant.

Worn out things make a house feel worn out too.

A tablecloth on the kitchen table

For years we ate on a bare table because of spills. One Sunday I put a cloth on it. It was a plain blue one from my mother. Tom sat down and looked at it and said we must be having company. I said no, just us. He straightened his fork anyway. We ate slower that night.

A table that looks set makes a meal feel like a meal.

A place to eat that is not the couch

We had slipped into eating in front of the news. I started setting the kitchen table again, even for leftovers. The first few nights it felt like a lot of trouble. By the second week Tom was setting it before I got to it. We talk more at the table. There is nothing else to look at.

Where you eat is where you talk.

A coffee corner

I moved the coffee maker to its own spot on the counter. I put the mugs on a hook rack above it and the sugar in a jar beside it. Now in the morning Tom does not open four cabinets looking for a cup. He walks to the corner and it is all there. He said it was like a little diner. I took that as a compliment.

A home makes the first thing you do each day easy.

The cookbooks back on the shelf

I had packed the cookbooks away when this blog stopped being about cooking. It felt like a chapter that was over. In March I put them back on the shelf by the stove. My mother’s handwriting is in half of them. Tom pulled one down and found a stain from a Thanksgiving twenty years ago. He said we should make that again. We did.

Keep the old chapters on the shelf. They are part of the house.

A chair on the porch

We had one plastic chair on the front porch and it was cracked. Tom brought up two wooden ones from the shed and we set them side by side. The first warm evening in March we sat out there with our coats on. A neighbor walked by and waved. We waved back. It was the first time in a long time anyone had seen us out front.

A porch with chairs tells the street someone lives here.

A bird feeder outside the kitchen window

I hung a feeder on the hook outside the window over the sink. Within a week there were cardinals and a very rude blue jay. Now I do the dishes slower. Tom bought a book to figure out the small brown ones. We have not figured them out. But we argue about it, and that is something.

Something to watch out the window makes the inside feel settled.

A quilt on the bed

We had a plain white comforter that came from a big box store. I pulled out a quilt my mother’s sister made and put it on the bed. It is heavy and it smells faintly like a cedar chest. Tom said it was like sleeping under a hug. I have been married to him for more than thirty years and he had never said anything like that before.

The bed should look like it belongs to somebody.

A night light in the hall

The hall was black at night and Tom kept bumping the door frame. I plugged in a small night light near the bathroom. The grandkids love it. Tom pretends he does not need it and uses it every night. It is the kind of thing you put in for children and keep for yourself.

A home is kind to you in the dark.

A mirror by the front door

I hung a mirror on the wall by the front door. Now I can check my hair before I go out, which I did not used to do. Tom straightens his collar in it. The grandkids make faces in it. It also bounces light into the dark entryway, which I did not plan but am glad about.

The entry should feel like a place and not a hallway.

A drawing from one of the kids

In the bottom of a box I found a drawing our youngest made in second grade. It is a house with a very large sun and four windows. I put it in a frame and hung it in the kitchen. Tom looked at it a long time. He said the house in the picture had more windows than ours. I said that was fine, the kid was seven.

The things your children made belong on the walls, not in boxes.

A bowl of fruit on the counter

The last thing was the simplest. I put apples and oranges in a bowl on the counter. Before that, fruit lived in the fridge drawer where it went soft and got thrown out. Now Tom grabs an apple on his way out the door. The grandkids ask for an orange before they ask for cookies. Sometimes. The bowl is always a little bit empty, which means it is working.

A house looks lived in when there is something to reach for.

That was the end of the list. The first warm day in April, Tom and I sat on the porch in the two wooden chairs and looked back through the door. The lamp was on. The quilt was on the bed. The bread was cooling on the counter. The house looked like somebody lived there, and that somebody was us.

None of this was big. The most expensive thing was the curtains. The rest was mostly dragging things up from the basement and deciding to use them. I think the house had been waiting for us to stop treating it like a place the kids had left. It was always ours. We just had to act like it.

What is one small thing you could do this week to make your house feel more like yours?