Handling the Decor Voids of a New Home

When you move into your first house, with next to nothing in the decor department, it can sometimes feel like your home is barren.  A furnished and well curated home brings warmth and comfort to its occupants.  Living with just the bare essentials those first few months (or years!) can make you feel like you just aren’t quite home.

How do you deal with this issue when you put all your money towards your new home and have none left to furnish it with?  I’ve been struggling with this problem myself as Jake and I have only been in our new place for four months.  I want to share a few ways I’ve been coping with new-and-empty-house syndrome and hopefully you will be able to start feeling more at-home at home.

Celebrate the Little Changes

Although many of rooms do not have furniture yet, and certainly none of them have any decorations up yet, we have been making updates and progress on the house.  We’ve painted several rooms, added light fixtures, floored a portion of the house, and removed a popcorn ceiling.  When I go into these rooms, I could choose to focus on the barren walls and the lack of furniture, or I can look in those rooms and see the fresh paint and new light fixtures.  I can focus on the color of the floor and how it complements our rug.  It’s hard not to focus on what’s lacking, but continually bringing your attention to the positives and little progresses will help you feel more at home and comfortable in the new place.

Live in the Imperfection

Sometimes I tell myself, once these rooms are decorated, then we’ll have a party and invite people over.  When I do that, I’m not living in the imperfections. That’s essentially telling myself, this house isn’t decent enough for anyone to view and it’s certainly not ‘home’ material.  In order to feel the comfort of home even in our house’s imperfect state, I need to be free to invite anyone over now.  When we welcome others into our house despite it’s imperfections we are living in it here and now and can find more comfort and peace with its current state.

Decorate Seasonally

This year as Christmas approaches I find myself wondering if we should even bother decorating for it.  We have a million and one other projects to work on in the house, why waste our time on Christmas decorations?  But, by refusing to decorate seasonally, I’m telling myself the current state of my home isn’t good enough.  Certainly there is improvement to be done, but to find contentment with my current situation I need to allow myself the time to put up those Christmas pieces.  You need to allow yourself this too!

Living in this starting phase can be tough, you long for the days when your rooms will be furnished and ‘picture worthy’.  But even though things are empty and unfinished, you can still find contentment and comfort in your new home by keeping things in perspective.  A beautiful home is curated over time, so relax and enjoy the process!