Your relationship with your home isn’t always going to remain the same, and sometimes those changes aren’t always going to be for the better. You can, indeed, fall out of love with a home you once loved. When that happens, many people choose to move. But beyond being expensive, that might prove to be unnecessary. Here, we’re going to look at some of the most common reasons that people fall out of love with their home and what you might be able to do about it.
Neglecting your personality
Let’s start with the décor, first of all. We all have tastes and styles that we like our home to accommodate. But some people play it a little too close to the style guide. By focusing too much on the aesthetic of the home, and not how it applies to you, you can end up feeling like you’re living in a showroom. When that happens, think of ways you can inject a little of your own personality into the home. Incorporate your hobby into your décor, like adding a bookshelf or putting up your favorite movie posts. Add more personal effects like quotes that have a lot of impact on you or your favorite photos. Don’t just make it a great looking home, make it your home.
Keeping absolutely everything
When you live in a home for a long time, it’s all easy to find yourself picking up a new ornament here, a new photo frame there, a new rug here, and so on and so forth. But if you’re constantly adding new touches and never getting rid of any of the old ones, your home can soon feel so busy and mismatched that even you consider it an eyesore. It’s time to clear out the unnecessary and take a cutthroat approach to décor. You don’t have to go fully minimalist but critique every extra in the home and ask yourself why you love it. If you can’t find an answer, it’s time to find a new home for it. You might even be able to sell it.
Clutter, clutter, everywhere
Unnecessary décor pieces might only be one source of clutter. We don’t always have the time or space to fully tidy away everything. We’re not talking about trash, but things like kitchen utensils, notebooks, all the little odds and ends of everyday life. Clothes, especially, can get in the way. If you’re running out of space and you can’t get rid of anything, think about incorporating some storage hacks, instead. By using more vertical space like wall baskets or hooks, you don’t need to take up a lot of physical room to get more storage potential, too.
Letting your DIY list grow and grow
Even the handiest of individuals will admit that they don’t always tackle DIY issues in the home as quickly as they should. Sometimes they simply don’t have the free time or the energy. Sometimes, they need new tools, materials, or to do a little research. If you’re having trouble keeping up with your own DIY to-do list, it might be time to bite the bullet and get some handyman services instead. Even if you like being mostly self-sufficient, it can help you catch back up and get into the old routine of dealing with problems as they arise.
Avoiding the garden
Don’t forget that the garden needs a little love, too. Even if you’re not a gardener, having overgrown bushes, an unruly lawn, and weed-riddled flowerbeds is an eyesore. What’s more, it’s a haven for pests, gutter mess, and other nasty surprises. When you’ve let your garden get out of shape, landscaping services can help not only tidy it up but reorganize it so that it’s much easier to stay on top of in the future. If you can see it becoming a problem again, is it time to consider that an artificial lawn might be a much more practical solution? If you have too much garden to cope with, sometimes the answer isn’t to garden more but to have less garden.
Not knowing the area
Especially in a new home, the house itself might not be the issue. You simply don’t feel at home because you don’t know any of the people around you. You don’t have to individually know all your neighbors (though you can introduce yourself any time), but simply by getting more involved in the community, you can start feeling like it and start making friends in it. Join in clean-up operations, local charity drives, attend homeowner association events, and so on. It might be a little nerve-wracking at first, putting yourself out there in front of a host of strangers. But a sense of community and familiarity is crucial to truly loving your home so until you learn to find it, you might never truly love where you live, no matter where it is.
Fixating on the bad
Sometimes, the issue doesn’t have a solution available. A little DIY won’t fix it, nor will a new rug, or even a whole extension. Where you can’t take action, you might instead be able to change your attitude. Instead of just having a list of fixes you want to make, start going through the home and listing what you actually like about it. It might not necessarily fix what you don’t like about the home. However, it can help you avoid the problem of not seeing the forest for the trees, or rather not seeing the home you could love for the elements that you don’t like.
If you consider all of the above, make some changes, and still feel like you need to move, then maybe you should do it. There’s no point staying in a home that makes you feel miserable. Nor is there are a point to staying in one if your needs have changed and it no longer meets them. Just don’t give up on it immediately before thinking about why, exactly, you’ve fallen out of love with it.
