By all accounts, 2021 seems to be a year for change and rejuvenation. In a survey of 1300 professionals, over 29 percent are going to move house this year, City Monitor finds. But as anyone who has ever moved before will know, settling into a new living space can be quite the challenge. There’s a million new kinks and small inconveniences to get accustomed to, layouts and environments to familiarize yourself with, and a good chunk of your life to rebuild. Finding a new place is difficult enough. Settling into a new space once you find it should be as simple as possible.
Put everything in its proper place
No matter how organized or cluttered your previous home may have been, you probably had a certain structure or framework to your things. Everything belonged somewhere. Reestablishing this structure in your new house is the first step in turning it into a home. To start, arrange everything as it would have been in your previous home. Position your wardrobe where you would expect it to be. Follow a similar philosophy with all of your other items and fixtures.
Next, arrange your clothes according to priority with your daily wear in front and your special ones way in back. Put the coat rack up and get the shoe cabinet in order, then move on to the cupboards, pantry, and cabinets, in order of necessity. Setting up the essentials where your subconscious tells you they belong lets you remake that time-tested efficiency that you came to expect in your old home. This will minimize the frustration and alienation you might feel in this new one.
Build a comfy atmosphere
It’s one thing to make your new house function like a home, but another to make it feel like one. The best way to do this is to make it as comfortable as possible. This involves filling your living space with sensations that put you at ease, mixed with a dash of familiarity from your old home. Familiarity is a huge factor in making a person feel comfortable in a space. Doing things like making your new bed in the style of the old is a surefire way to strike up that comforting familiarity that your old bed gave you. Tie it all together with appealing sights, sounds, and smells to add a novel, lived-in feeling to your new home.
Smell is also a huge factor in creating an inviting, homely feeling. Lighting scented woodwick candles and using other clean aromatics are brilliant for this purpose. These candles impart their cosy scent without emitting smoke or particulate matter. This vastly improves the air in your living space, without the mess.
Create some new history
A new home is your golden opportunity to start fresh. It will be from this pristine living space that you’ll forge another path, create new stories, and collect mementos from this new chapter in your life. Once you move in, take some time to appreciate and breathe in the new space, and then decorate as you see fit. You will inevitably be dropping old mementos and decorations in favor of new ones.
A home is a reflection of the experiences of its occupants. The walls become something of a timeline, harkening back to a fond, or otherwise memorable, event. The same thing applies to your routines. You will find yourself modifying your usual patterns to the circumstances in this new area. Embrace this. Discover new recipes and hone your home cooking craft instead of ordering pizza. Figure out all-new housework hacks that play around the space’s layout. Exploring ways to optimize and spice up your home experience works wonders in getting yourself settled into the place.
Making a new living space into a home is a matter of marrying the new with the old. More than simply transforming the new house into a replica of your old one, building a home is also the exploration of new potential.
