Rearranging the Little Things to Make a Home

It's funny, one of the things I realize now that I did when we first moved to this lovely home of ours is to decorate it in a way I can only describe as "grown up". Sounds a little silly when I put it that way, but after years of either cramming everything into a little townhouse or not having enough money to decorate properly (or both), I was determined to make this house look good. And it did look good - I've got a decent sense of colour and style, and I tried really hard. But after months of never really feeling at home here, it finally dawned on me that in my efforts to make the place look classy and well-decorated, I had left out the things that made me feel at home. It felt more like a showhome to me.

So my last few weeks have been spent pondering, whenever I have a free moment, how to get rid of the impersonal feeling and make this house feel like a home. I've made a few changes that felt like really big steps to me, and it's only after I compared before and after pictures that I realized that they're all little things. Other people might not even notice them. But they make the whole place feel different to me. Our family photos are now the biggest focal point in the living room; this was always the case in every other home we've had, and I really missed it. I also added some touches of soft green in the living room and adjoining dining room (a few ceramic pots, a soft throw over one of the chairs, a new tablecloth) that didn't cost much (maybe $40 total?) but lend a softer, lighter air to the rooms. The playroom, the kitchen and the kids' room are all fine, they already look 'friendly' for lack of a better word. The two rooms left to really chip away at are the master bedroom and the rec room downstairs. I'll have to set my mental backburner to devising ways to improve those rooms.