Make your new house feel more homey!

 

Despite all the excitement for shifting to a new place, getting to have new neighbors, building new bonds and connections, It is never easy to find your home in a new house after bidding farewell to the place we so dearly called our home once. The bittersweet feeling of leaving a place where we already have made so many precious memories persists for quite a while. The new house being a mess with all the packed and unpacked boxes spread around, dusty and loads of unfinished chores left to do in order to make it look and feel like a home can kill the new home vibe for some of us.

This sense of discomfort and the feeling of not belonging sometimes lingers on for weeks. Everyone wants to feel at comfort and settled in their new home rather than feeling underwhelmed. The feeling of being at home is all about security and the perspicacity associated with it. Wherever you’re living in your surroundings must cultivate, love, warmth and radiate positivity.

For all those who miss this feeling for the first few weeks or months as soon as they shift to a new place, this is how you can ensure that this time of yours is not wasted but spent in concocting new memories too.

1.    Family portraits on walls

It sounds pretty astonishing when you tell someone to hang family portraits or art as soon as they move in. Even seems like a waste of precious time when there are already so many other tasks at hand to do at that time. But researches have shown that hanging cheerful and soothing pictures of art around you can have the same peaceful and alluring affect on our minds. It radiates a sort of comfort that helps to ease our mind and feel more in amity. If along with art, we hang family portraits or pictures of friends on our walls, it creates a more accepting environment, helps us feel like we surrounded by our loved ones. We tend to accept the new place as home sooner.

                                                                            

2.    Fragrance and freshness

Entering your new house and having that some old refreshing fragrance can immediately untie many stressful knots in your mind. The effect of a calming fragrance is so instant and underrated. If you have been using some specific air freshening sprays in your previous homes, do use the exact same ones in order to create the similar environment that your mind tends to seek subconsciously in the start while trying to adjust in the new house. No matter how much loaded you are with chores in the initial days, as shifting a house is no piece of cake but a very strenuous task, do not forget to use air freshening sprays, scented candles, specific perfumes or whatever you used to use before to give your house that captivating scent. This method is not only going to create a sense of familiarity but also rid you of half your tiredness.

 

3.    Familiar aura

During the initial days of shifting when the house is in somewhat better position and the major tasks like setting the furniture or intensive cleaning has been taken care off, try to create the same routine as you had in your old house. Try to wake up on the same time, doing your everyday tasks in the same order as you did before. A part from similar scent and hanging family portraits as mentioned above to create a familiar aura, this apparently insignificant but adequate thing does the trick. If you are used to same particular sounds try to recreate them at your new home too. For instance if you are used to waking up to the sound of the birds chirping but your new place does not offer this to you, set your phone’s alarm to the sound of chirping birds. If you previously lived in an area where it rained a lot but here it doesn’t, install the sound of rain in your phone and place it in your reminder app with a timer, hearing the pitter patter of rain time to time would not only soothe your nerves but make you feel like you never left your home. If you had a ticking clock in your old house then display this ticking clock on your wall as soon as you enter. If you are a working person than following this method would be a lot easier for you.

 

4.    Cook everyday yourself

Immediately after shifting to your new place, cooking and cleaning seem to be the most difficult chores at that time. Most people prefer to order out as with the stressful and physically draining routine we have those days, cooking seems to be the last chore on our minds. Now during the first few days shirking cooking is fair but after that you have to buckle up and fix yourself a nice meal. Does not have to be something difficult, even if it is the most simple and easy dish that you can make it would work! Not only is cooking therapeutic but also the familiar smells of a home cooked meal adds to a homey environment which we all badly seek during that time.

 

5.    Display familiar decorations

Display the decoration pieces you have as soon as you enter your new home. Yes you heard it right, as soon you step into your new home. Display your favorite decoration pieces which you personally handpicked to remind. So that every time you chance a glance at them it reminds you of how this place is your new home and you are not at some new ‘place’ but you just moved into your home.

6.    Indoor plants

Whether you had indoor plants in your old home or not, this is something that is going to make the environment of your house so soothing and fresh. Tiny pots of plants placed at the window of the kitchen. Certain fragrant plants that freshen up the air. A small rose perched at the window of your room. A vase of flowers placed at the center table of your living room. Indoor plants just change the whole vibe of your house instantly. It seems cleaner, neater and fresh. Even psychology giving these small touches of nature to your home simply brighten up the place.

 

7.    Lighting

We often tend to forget this factor. Lightening happens to play a major role in our mood throughout the day. A dark room instantly creates a gloomy environment and dulls the whole mind. We begin to feel tired early as naturally our minds are programmed to associate ‘rest’ with the time period when the natural lighting is dull. We become inactive and feel lethargic while working. While trying to create a homey atmosphere in the house, keep your drapes open, let that lustrous gold rays illuminate your house. Keep the lights switched on too. Avoid using colored lights as they might not have the same effects on our minds.

Interact with neighbors

When we live in an area we tend to form a bond with little dog wagging its tail in the neighborhood, the little girl whom we see everyday riding her bicycle in the street with her ponytails swaying with the wind. The naughty children ringing the doorbell across the street and running away before getting caught. The gatherings at tea with the ladies and the gentlemen getting together for sessions of discussions. To find the similar aura and atmosphere in your current neighborhood as you did in your previous one you have to build connections and networks in your new neighborhood too once you settle there a bit. Invite the kind lady next to your house for tea once in a while. Bake a cake and send to the old lady few houses away. Offer to send dinner once in a while to the old man who reaches home tired from work and has to order a pizza for dinner mostly. These little gestures of kindness will help you build a bond with the people in your neighborhood. Furthermore, though this is a step that should be taken before purchasing the house but we would still like to share it with you. Before making an investment for the new house please research and find out if the neighborhood has kind and caring people living there or not and what is the crime rate of the area. If you bought the house through procedures like mortgage or lease, then try to find out what type of people have been investing in that project. For instance, projects like Lahore smart city , Capital smart city, Top city, Park view city make sure they look out for whom they are allowing to invest in the project so that these areas have a safe, crime free neighborhood along with the many other amenities and facilities they provide.