Turning a house into a HOME

When you are little, the words "house" and "home" seem to be interchangable. Then you grow up and realize that they are not one in the same. You can live in many houses before finding a home. In this day and age when the world is filled with cookie cutter houses, it become even more important to turn your house into a home. A home. A place you can come to each night and feel cozy and relaxed and it embodies you. It makes you smile. It makes you proud.

My house is no exception to the cookie cutter mold....the modular home mold. I am in desperate search of making ours stand out. In desperate search of making our home symbolize us. In desperate search of turning out house into a home. This time it's even more important to us because this will truly be our home....the place CJ remembers growing up in.

Our requirements for a home have changed dramatically with each one of our moves and the fear of the recent recession and fear of any future recessions as well. Everyone has learned to live wisely and on a budget....well, most people anyways. Home for me doesn't mean bigger, it doesn't mean all the luxury items (although I love having two bathrooms again). It means having what you need and making due with what you have. Our biggest concern has been finding a community. That must sound so strange when we live in a state filled with communities but ask many people and you will realize that the communities being created are not living up to their names. The first one we lived in was beautiful. We fell in love the moment we saw it. The house with the large southern porch. The manicured lawns. The perfect community in all its glory. But it never felt like a community. People didn't come together the way that we had hoped. The move after that proved to be slightly better with the community feel but the neighborhood proved to be something we didn't want the kids growing up in. It seems as though we have found where we belong. We have found the feeling of community that we had been searching for. Probably in the least expected place but it's a wonderful feeling. And I know that it's probably too early to know for sure if this community is all that we hold it to but it certainly has started off on the right foot and we are determined to keep it this way.

Boy do I manage to get off topic when I start talking...lol.

So anyways, I am feeling out our home. Moving furniture around. Putting up curtains. Making pillows. Doing what I feel is necessary to make our house a home. And I wanted to share one of the things that I recently added near our front door during my Simply Said party. It reminds me that is our HOME !