Are You Embarrassed About Your House, Too?
In fact, I’m quite embarrassed about it. Which is why you never see me doing a “Home Tour.”
Unless, of course, you want to see crayon and hand-print smears on scruffy walls, totally uninspired design, and small piles of rejected DIY projects that never made the cut. LOL
Last year I wrote a post called Stop Thinking You Have an Ugly House. And while I am careful about not calling my home ugly, the truth remains:
I’ve never loved my home.
I brought this subject up to readers on my Thrift Diving Facebook page and found that many of you feel the same embarrassment about your home. So it’s good to know I’m not alone!
But let’s explore this a little more…
Are We Just Ungrateful?
Only spoiled brats could say they don’t love their house, right? After all, we should be thankful that we even have a home when so many people are homeless!
Or maybe we’re not keeping in perspective that we’ve got a great family, with spouses that love us, kids and grandkids that adore us and laugh with us in this space.
Home is where the heart is, they say.
So we should just be loving our home no matter what, right?
WRONG.
While I am grateful to have a home (as I’m sure you are), and I’m sooo thankful for the family that lives here with me, all of those wonderful things don’t negate the fact that my house doesn’t look like a happy place.
It’s not about wanting a magazine-worthy home.
It’s not about wanting expensive furnishings.
It’s not even about worrying whether someone will like my style.
It’s really about that fact that I haven’t fully created the environment that makes me smile when I walk in the door.
(FYI…This is one of the few rooms that I adore in my house, my master bedroom, where I taught myself to install the crown molding!).
Why We Don’t Love Our Homes
It’s really about the little piles of clutter (and they are little, but still….) that beg to be cleaned up, put away, gotten rid of, because they don’t belong here anymore.
It’s really about the dark cave that my family has lived in for over 4 years, surrounded by large maples that suck the light from the rooms, making me envious of others’ sun-filled homes.
It’s really about the lack of vision that I have had for some of the spaces in my home. Instead of making my home a priority, I have let my lack of vision paralyze me from moving as quickly as I would like.
No matter how loveable your family, your visitors, your location–if the inside of your home is not a reflection of “YOU” and what makes you happy, then it won’t be a home you love–period.
(NOTE: I wrote a post called 10 Questions You MUST Ask Before Buying a Home. Helpful tips so you don’t end up buying a home you don’t love!)
We Are Our Home!
It’s why we’re embarrassed to bring people over when it’s messy or undecorated. Because how people perceive our home is how they’re going to perceive us. If our home is classy, then people think we’re classy. But try having a messy house. The first thing people are going to think is, “Man….she’s messy!”
It reflects on us.
If we’re not happy with our home, we’re embarrassed to show others. And nobody likes to be embarrassed, no matter how tough-as-nails they claim to be.
We Deserve Better
Our home shelters us and brings our family together. It should be a warm, safe, cozy place to unwind. We should look forward to coming home, not just because of the people inside but because of the way our home wraps us up. It should be our oasis.
When we ignore our home, leave it cluttered, dirty, disorganized, uninspiring, we’re disrespecting our home. We’re disrespecting ourselves.
To love our home means to nurture it, repair it, make it pretty, and make it a natural reflection of who we are.
And when we walk inside of it, we should bring a smile–not a frustrated sigh.
So How Do We Start to Love Our Home?
If I knew all the answers, I would already love my home, wouldn’t I? 😉 But the first part is figuring out what the problems are. What’s stopping us from loving our house? Is it too dark? Too cluttered? Not enough this? Not enough that? Let’s reflect on these questions:
1. Figure Out the Problem
- What is the biggest thing stopping me from loving my home?
- How do I want to feel when I walk into my house? Relaxed? Inspired?
- Is my biggest problem going to cost me an arm and a leg?
- What’s one thing I can do today to move me closer to loving my home?
2. What Are You Willing to Sacrifice?
3. Draft a Plan of Action
4. Join a Room Challenge Makeover Challenge
My Laundry Room – BEFORE
My Laundry Room – AFTER
My $1,250 Tree Problem
Dark Cave!!! – BEFORE
AFTER!! – No more sunlight suck!
In order to fall in love our home, we have to do the tough things.
Today, I didn’t buy tree removal; I bought sunshine and happiness….
And although there is a ton more to do in this house, inside and outside…today was a big victory in moving towards loving my home.
BEFORE
AFTER!
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Oh, Serena, you will enjoy so much having more light in your home and it will lift your spirits so much! Some of the best results for the money that you will ever get!
I’ve sold my manufactured home in a 55+ park and will be moving this coming Saturday. At 68 and retired for 3+ years I decided that I no longer want to spend the time or money on maintenance. I want to have FUN, lol. I’m moving to a 2 bedroom flat on the second level in a large complex (maybe 150-200 units). Been about 13 years since I rented, but I’m looking forward to the change. The apt. is a creamy off white everywhere, with a white kitchen. It will be fun to see how I can use color and accessories to make the place attractive. I have a small deck (with a great view) and enough space in my kitchen to do some smaller DIY projects and already have several in mind, e.g., refinishing a small side table that I got from mother-in-law years ago, sewing cushions, putting up shelves (yes, I have permission to do that). All the windows have mini blinds, but I am allowed to hang curtains as long as the side that faces out is white/light neutral. Inside, well I will please myself if I put curtains up! I will still be knitting, crocheting, sewing, quilting, x-stitching, etc. I think a lot of our satisfaction comes from our perspective and in just doing the things that we can do. Each accomplishment just adds to our enjoyment and satisfaction! Thanks, Serena, for leading the way!
Woo hoo! How did moving go? I think about that day when we will give up this house and move to something more manageable (when we’re older). It will be a happy day! LOL. But we can look back on our larger, fixed up homes and take pride in all the projects we had done! Anyhow, I know you must be totally excited about this new place! I love the idea of cream walls and colorful furnishings! Send me pics when you get it all set up!
For me…when I downsized from a 4 bed 3 bath house to an 860 sq. ft. condo it was both freeing and terrifying. I read your post with such interest. I’ve never quite been able put a word to how I feel sometimes when I walk in the door. “Embarrassed” doesn’t quite do it for me but boy do I understand being so unsure of making choices that I become “paralyzed”. I do feel blessed to have my home but I don’t believe its ungrateful to want it to be your sanctuary. I tell my loved ones that “someday I WILL learn to live in my space”. While I knew immediately that this home was where I was supposed to be, I know that truly living in my space is what loving my home is all about.
Lyn, I couldn’t have said it better! 🙂 Let’s learn to love our homes!
I am thankful that I have a roof over my head. The reason why I don’t love my house is that it has no storage space. I have boxes stacked up and no room for any space. We even have a storage unit. We inherited my husband’s aunt’s furniture and things. I have particle board for my flooring. Hopefully in the next year we will be building our dream home.
I loved your bedroom. It was so peaceful and serene.
Love your blog. Keep up the good work and being honest about your life.
That will be really exciting to build your dream home! Then you can add in all that storage. Can you get rid of some of the aunt’s belongings? Or did she leave you really awesome stuff?
I love my house, don’t like the clutter that seems to accumulate in mere seconds especially the kitchen table which seems to be a drop spot for anyone walking in the door, family or friends. My house is my nest, it’s where I feel safe and loved, it may not be picture or blog perfect but it’s mine, every dust bunnie and cobweb included. I think that we are never satisfied with the way our homes look because we always see something that we want to do or improve upon…wouldn’t it be boring to never change a thing?!! I look at some of these blogs where the most beautiful furnishings and best decorating are and then I think, where’s the kids? where’s the messy fridge with all the fingerprints? where’s the kitchen table with crap piled up on? Then I think about the pressure I would be under to make sure my home was picture or blog perfect all the time…I wouldn’t trade all my piles of mail for all that stuff, I like dropping my purse and keys on the table when I walk in and play with my kids so much more! I think you love your house more than you think that you do because of all the beautiful things that you do in it! Enjoy your sunshine!!
Kelly, you know what’s funny? Some of these blogs (me included!) will push the junk aside to take a blog-worthy picture! I remember when I was selling my condo, I took really nice pictures of it, and no one even knew that all the kids stuff was off to the right. HA! Blogs do this, too. And I’m sure their homes don’t look so perfect in real life, or all the time. I know mine doesn’t! LOL
I’m so glad to hear that you love your house! 🙂 YAY!
I ve lived here 41 yrs. and there’s things I love– country, view, trees, old rock house on 5 acres with old red barn– or else I wouldn’t be here, right. What gets to me is that it is Old. People have been buying land. Splitting it up and building huge new houses, beautiful places! I feel like poor trash now & when we bought it I thought it was huge 1700 ft. I’ve never been able to buy nice things like they have & would be embarrassed if anyone actually came here anymore. I’m old too of course and feeling down because I can’t do anything about it anymore . My first house I painted, made a chair, turned an old buffet into a changing table, things like you do now. But I can’t do anything anymore. So alls I can say is go for it. Do it while you can & enjoy !
Awww….Penny, I love this comment! You touched upon some important things: first, the fact that you’re not physically able to do the things you use to in order to do improvements and fun decorating things in your house. And second, the fact that newer, bigger homes are popping up near you. It just made me think of how awesome it would be to donate my services to disabled or seniors that want to improve their house but can’t really do much themselves (or don’t have the money to do it). That would be awesome! I wish I could help you! Where do you live?
I love the way you use your no-nonsense approach to getting problems taken care of.
I do too! I ought to read Serena’s posts more often. It always turns my frown upside down and I see possibilities that I didn’t before.
Donna, LOL! Does that mean you’re not following along??! –GASP!– Just kidding. But yes, would love for you to read more! 🙂 My goal is to inspire you to create something or think differently about something, so it’s great to see that feedback! Thanks for that!
LOL, thanks! It gets to a point when you just say, “Enough is enough!” and you take the bull by the horns. I love getting to that point. That’s when things get DONE! 🙂
Thank you so much for this post. I don’t hate my home, but there are certain things I wish on a daily basis that I had or that I compare my house and rooms inside with other bloggers with and I shouldn’t do that. I daydream about living on a ranch style wrap around porch covered styled home with really unique styled rooms and bathrooms and yada yada yada. My house is small but adorable and it’s a blessing for my family!. It’s just the same as everyone else on our block. But that’s ok. I think for me with these homes that are built in a cookie cutter fashion is that they are not functional – very small closets, very small laundry rooms (I love the size of yours!!) very small pantry…you get me??
That’s what i dislike very much about my home and need to work on so that it becomes more functional. Love this post! Thank you for your honesty!!!
Jaana 🙂
Thanks, Jaana! I’m glad you like it! How old is your home?
There are a couple homes near me that have that wrap-around porch and–OMG…..LOVE LOVE LOVE these two homes! They’re like my dream home! We can dream, can’t we? LOL
Serena! Yes, please let’s dream together…wrap around porch, ranch style home, not too big but big enough! My home is 12 years old. We live in a growing part of Fort Worth, Texas. There are beautiful homes here but you and I seem to have the same dream! I don’t understand why builders don’t believe in porches. lol! I love how your home has those beautiful tall trees surrounding your property. I would have cut that one down too. Hate the dark. But where we live we don’t have that…:(
I guess different areas have different styles of homes. I don’t see those wrap around porches much here, either. I’m from a small town in Western Maryland (live closer to Washington DC now) and there are more of those older homes there, which I love. But I would never want to live there again. We’ll just have to dream for now :).
We recently trimmed up all the trees on our property and it made a huge difference with the amount of light that comes into our home. We also took out a wall between our living room and kitchen which not only helps bring more light into the rooms but helps with air circulation and flow. LOVE your bedroom – I am currently looking at painting our kitchen Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams – I just love that color!!
Cheryl, ooohhh….I love the idea of removing walls! Was that very expensive to do? Did you do it yourself? I’d love to do that. We have some areas that I think would look nice opened up. But I have no idea how to figure out whether it’s a load-bearing or no load-bearing. Confusing!
You’ll LOVE Sea Salt! That’s in my bathroom and foyer!! 🙂 FYI, I’ve heard it looks amazing with GREY!
We did remove the wall ourselves…actually the hubby did most of the work – it was a load bearing wall, so we installed headers and posts to help carry the load. It wasn’t too expensive, just the cost of the wood – the cost was under $500 to do that..My hubby’s cousin works in construction so we had him come over and go into the attic to see if the wall was load bearing before we started. .
Oh, wow, I have no idea how to figure out load bearing or non-load bearing. I love to hear about when people have relatives that know how to build, renovate, etc.! If I had someone with so much knowledge, I would have to stalk them. 🙂
first, it isn’t my home really, I rent. The landlord is prettygood about doing things I ask. My main ‘want’ right now is a flag pole near ann outdoor light pole, it has a mercury vapor on it’s top.
The inside is in construction right now and difficult to get around in. They will be putting in a ramp soon and make it easier to get in and out.
I know what you mean about trees sucking the light out of a home, this place is completely surrounded by trees.
I see homes like that all the time (i.e. surrounded by trees) and I always wonder how cave-like it is inside. I always joke that my next house will be totally bare, in the middle of a field with NO trees. LOL
Hopefully your ramp will be done soon and you can get the inside back to “normal”!
I love trees; however, we had so many messy pines we had them all cut last year. My husband really hated because of all the raking. Tons of pine cones and needles. It made us very happy and it was not cheap but had to be done.
Your bedroom is beautiful. I love the soft blue on the walls. Do you know the name or is it one you mixed yourself? It’s lovely regardless, so light and peaceful.
Hey there, Debbie! Oh man, I can just imagine how expensive that was! Were they huge ones? We have lots of pines that died because that big tree choked them out of sunlight. We may do those ourselves, though.
Thanks for the compliments on my bedroom! It’s the best room in the house! You should see the BEFORE! EEK! If you check out this link, it gives more info about the paint, along with BEFORE pics of my bedroom: https://thriftdiving.com/sherwin-williams-sea-salt-and-rainwashed/