Finding Contentment in Your House that’s Not Your Dream Home
Finding Contentment, is something that has been on my mind for sometime now, and something I felt so strong to write about. Those of you that have been around here for sometime, know about our process of selling our home back in the beginning of this year…and how we didn’t make it too far when we pulled out of our contract (due to some personal reasons). Well, that has left us in our 1600 sq ft home for longer then we had expected.It’s just not our dream home no matter what we have done with it, so now it is just a matter of finding contentment in our house. We just feel how crowded our home has become and our projects don’t seem as exciting any longer either. This is mainly because no matter how much we do in our house it just doesn’t seem to make us happy. Well, that being so…I’ve been trying to find contentment in my house again. Mainly thinking back on a time when I was a kid and my home that I grew up in…never felt too small and never felt like something I was comparing to the Jonses’ either. As a young child you just don’t see things like that and I am trying to bring that child like behavior back to my mind as I try to find contentment in our current not so Dream Home. Knowing this is the house my kids call home and where we are making new memories every day.
HOW TO FIND CONTENTMENT IN YOUR HOME
- I think most importantly to find contentment in your home is to make it the best you can. This can mean many upgrades, or just necessary upgrades. That’s based on your finances and what makes you happy. Of course for me being a decorator that may be more then the norm. Changing paint colors to update rooms every year or so…switching up furniture, seasonally decorating, and accessorizing with accessories that make me happy.
2. This brings me to my second bit of advice. Surround yourself with what makes you happy. Of course in your home it’s always those that you love. So, adding your favorite photos in a gallery wall of your children or grandchildren, selecting paint colors that make you happy, and finding comfortable and stylish furniture that feel like you. We can’t always change the walls in our house, but we most definitely can style the ones we have.
3. Maybe your home being small is not what makes you unhappy, maybe it’s outdated, or just needs a lot of love and you just don’t have the funds or the time. Focus on those important rooms at first and make them what you want. I would say kitchens and where you spend the most time should be a good starting point.
4. Lastly, do what you love in your home. Okay, so a swimming pool is on your dream list but swimming in your backyard doesn’t seem any where in your near future….add a beautiful fire pit and enjoy your backyard roasting marshmallows instead. Set a beautiful table for dinner, open the windows and let the sunshine in, and maybe dance in the kitchen every second you get (we love doing this as a family).
You will most definitely still have your moments of that comparison game, or dreaming of that dream home and more space…but why think about tomorrow let’s live in the moment and enjoy where we live. I think after seeing all of the natural disasters in our country it makes me grateful to have a home to come to everyday and though pretty homes are enticing, having a place to live with heat, water, and shelter is the over all blessing.
I hope this was a helpful post for you today to finding contentment in your house. It was so good to write this down and get this off my mind as it’s been something I have been truly thinking about a lot lately.
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26 Responses
I am in the same place you are with your home. Our “starter” home that we bought pre-kids has lost it’s luster. We are getting out of debt and trying to decide if we pay this home off and then build or try to sell again next year and go ahead and build. It’s hard to make a decision sometimes on what to do. This is the only home my kids have known and it’s all we NEED but it is older and needs many updates. Ugh! We tried selling it a year ago and didn’t get any bites. We live in a rural area (not very many jobs around) and we only have 1 full bath with no easy way to add a second one.
Hi April,
Thank you so much for sharing! I know, it’s so tough..one full bath is definitely hard with a family. I pray you find the answer you are looking for with your home or future home : )
What a wonderful and timely post for me. I’m constantly looking at houses and dreaming about moving to our dream house (something bigger and nicer) but the reality is that it’s not going to happen anytime soon. So I’m learning to be content with where we are at and will be looking for ways to update our current space on a budget. By the way, your house is gorgeous! But I get it, even with updates you can’t always change the footprint of the house. Alas the only way I will ever get my office is if one of the kids moves out (which doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon, which is fine by me!). Great post Deb, thanks for sharing!
Thank you Kimi for posting that! I am so glad this post can bring us together on this same feeling of not living in our dream home. I think with pinterest today and the way homes have just changed so much…it can be quite the tease. I think it’s about making the most of where we are at. I too will never have an office thanks to our 3 bedroom issue…the dining room has become my office and I think I’ve finally accepted that.
Deb,
I want to share something with you today. I am 62 and for the first time in my entire life, I finally have a home of my own. I have never been able to afford to buy a house, then I retired from teaching and had to find a place to live near my mother so as she aged I would be nearby to help her. There was nothing affordable (for me) in the area she lives, so the only thing I could do was buy a very small mobile home which looked like all other small, generic mobile homes. I was raised in a very nice house and always hoped I would be able to have a home of my own. The mobile is not at all what I wanted, but I put my mind to turning it into the “cottage” of my dreams. I married recently and we don’t have much but we have transformed this little mobile home into a lovely small cottage on the inside. Each month we do something new to make it our “forever home.” Now we look around our little home and are content, truly content, because we know this is the best we can do and our little home looks the best it can look! We don’t compare our home with that of others. Our home is where we go for comfort, safety, and love. We have each other, we are the happiest we have ever been, and life is good! You are very young and if I were you I would be extremely pleased, happy, and proud of the space you have to live in. You have done very well! Time can bring you what you want, but just remember many of us have never had a nice home like you have and we certainly didn’t have a home of our own when we were your age, but that doesn’t mean we are discontent or unhappy now! Quite the contrary! Although I don’t know you I am very happy for you. Your blog is fun and reader-friendly. I love your ideas and have used many of them in our home. More than anything “Home” resides inside us, and we learn to be truly happy only when we are able to count our blessings and make a sweet place in our hearts for the homes we live in right now! Love your home, be proud of what you have accomplished so far, and know that often what we think we want when we are very young turns out to be not at all as important as we thought it would be. Contentment in wherever we are in life is the true key to lasting happiness! I am so proud of you for trying to find contentment in the home you have right now! You are a lovely young woman, talented and intelligent, sweet and loving, and full of the potential to be extremely happy your entire life! Best wishes and may you be blessed with many, many years of contentment!
Debbie,
Thank you so much for writing this and sharing your story with me. This just made me cry and so grateful that my little blog can bring people like you and I together. You are absolutely right about being happy where we are at especially at our age. I should have mentioned somewhere in the post that a lot of what we have is thanks to my husbands years in the military that allowed this to be possible. Also, all thanks to God because he orchestrated all that perfectly. I am just so happy for you and your new home, with your hubby. I wish you the happiest years in that home and with lots of love an contentment. We are handed different things in life, I think what is most important is what we do with it. Sitting around complaining life’s not good enough is definitely the attitude that will never give us that ture contentment.
You inspire me SO much! I am a young new mom, and we are renting a home. I get a lot of great ideas from you but some are dreams bc there is limits when you’re renting. I try my best but a lot of times find myself overwhelmed bc I want that beautiful kitchen and dining space etc. maybe you could do a post to help those who are renting and give us some decor ideas/tips? I know you’re a home owner, but I’d love to hear your input. God bless you and your family!
Hi Chelsey, Thank you so much for sharing that! You seriously made my day!!! I would love to give some tips. I’ll add that to my list of potential posts. If it helps our first place was an apartment that we rented and was very outdated. Fortunately, our landlord allowed us to make certain changes and they gave us the money to do the updates. We basically painted and personalized as much as we could. We were there for three years and I really loved that little apartment. It was 800 sq feet two bedrooms one bath and we lived there until my daughter was a year and my son was almost 4. Def get creative and I know paint can make the biggest difference for such little money. Oh and they now sell removable wallpaper too so that’s always a good option when renting. I hope this helps! Have fun with it!
WoW! Debbie’s letter to you and your response is absolutely wonderful. I so appreciate you and Debbie’s capacity to be truly candid and forthcoming with each other. These are the comments of two fine ladies. One doesn’t often have cause to call women, ladies, these days. Thank you both for the grace you shared with each other. I’m impressed.
Awww thank you Cynthia that was so wonderful of you to say : )
Hi Deb,
I just had to comment today. Your home is lovely and you seem like a wonderful person.
I am 56, so I see things differently. First, I know it is harder than ever with all the blogs out there and the beautiful big homes some bloggers have inside and out. You compare what you have and they seem to have bigger and better stuff etc.
I have observed this in all my years… A majority of these younger folks who seem to have it better than you, are up past their eyeballs in debt. All it would take is for one of the bread winners getting I’ll or losing their jobs to put them in complete ruin. They have maxed out credit cards, and even though it appears they have it made, they do not have piece of mind owing so much money.
For our first home and only one so far, we bought the land on contract, paid it off in three years and used that land as collateral to build our dream home. In 1993, we built our home, a farmhouse with blue prints from Country Living magazine. It is 1600 square feet, not counting the two car garage and a nice big screened porch we added a few years ago. While we never had children, this size house seems perfect for us. I would love a bigger home and always wanted to build one bigger and better, we never did, even though we could have afforded to. Now , our pretty farmhouse is almost paid off, unlike many of our friends who are still paying high mortgages and getting tired of working. All this to say, think about the debt you are avoiding, the piece of mind you have with having a house within your means.
We got a home loan based on one of our incomes, that way if one of us fell ill, we would be fine paying our bills and not go bankrupt.
Sorry this is so lengthy, but I am so glad we did not go for the bigger house. Enjoy the closeness of your home, not like some homes where you can not hear or see your family. Spend your money on memories and experiences, those will always be with you.
Blessings
Thank you so much Shelly! I so appreciate your wisdom and understanding. You are so true about having the closeness in the home. I think what it is with our home personally may not even be the size I think maybe it’s the layout. If it was just a little more flow it would be less frustrating. Once again still working on that contentment but grateful to have our home and it really does bring a lot of happiness when I’m not complaining lol.
Hi Deb,
I saw the title of your post on Instagram and wanted to pop over. When in a smaller home, the need to want something bigger and more functional seems legit. We had a small home we sold last year. It was not a terrible house overall but i t seemed like it had some underlying problems when we bought it and no matter what we did to it, it just kept on having another problem. Not to mention, it seemed pretty un-functional. We decided to sell it and try to find something a bit newer and slightly larger. Since the market was great, we went ahead and sold and decided to rent a bit until we figured things out. We were not expecting to be in a rental as big as we have now. All we knew is that we wanted a home that was slightly bigger for the kids to play and something more functional for our needs. Can I tell you, adjusting to renting where you can’t customize the home really takes some getting used to. Not to mention, keeping up with more chores and all that come with the beauty of a big house is not always fun. Just this morning, I had a few tears because I couldn’t figure out how to do something. Every now and again I think about my smaller home – the freedom to customize and the less ‘chores’, etc. A big home is great if you are able to customize it, make it functional to suit your needs, and keep up with all that comes with it. My point is, contentment in our own homes is the key to being happy in it. I did not realize you had a small home until recently because you seem to do such a good job with it. I know it’s hard to do if you are in a space and you feel it’s not working out too well. Plus the world and social media throws plenty at us these days and it’s definitely hard not to want more. But I am glad you are learning to find contentment in your own little home until you and your hubby find the right place for your family.
Thank you so much Zan for sharing that with me and being so encouraging. I so appreciate it!
I don’t own a home, yet, but I do think it is really important to find contentment in my apartment! I once wrote a post about inviting people over to your small apartment anyway. Sometimes, you just need to not care what anybody else is going to think about your home, and just deal.
Hi Kim, I love that mind set. Thank you so much for sharing : )
yes, amen to all your advice. I think it’s harder nowadays to be content with our spaces…it is easy to see pretty spaces at any time with the computer. Not like when we had to go buy a magazine with limited images. Now they are pretty much limitless and we can find hundreds of images to inspire or cause discontent. There’s always something we wish we had – a bigger house, a certain style house, certain decor, etc. I think we all struggle with discontent and comparisons. Thank you for sharing your heart and the steps you’re taking to love where you’re at. It’s a beautiful and cozy feeling home.
Thank you so much Cecilia! It’s def tough for us with many things today to find contentment. We are inspired more then ever but we are also frustrated and comparing more then ever. Thank you so much for stopping by and reading : )
Loved reading all the your post and the comments! Like several of the others I’m a bit older…59…and have learned to love my smaller home. We never planned to stay here forever but life just marched on. The neighborhood was great, my son had great schools and friends, the house had a nice flow, and it has a lovely yard so I can garden. It truly became home. We have always done projects to make it ours and there always seems to be something we would love to add so I always was able to create. Some people feel the need for a huge home…some a cozy cottage…some choose a tiny house. It’s all OK!
Thank you so much Rachel! This is so true…it is definitely what you make it and we all have different preferences and wants!
Wonderful and wise. So many blogs seem to be all about styling the home to post lots of pretty pictures but there is nobody in the pictures. It seems to be all about the stuff now and not making it a home.
That’s true Janis, I do love the occasional dog or children in the background in blog photos. It makes you see the people who live in these spaces. I’ll keep that one noted as I take some photos this year for the Holidays.
You really went out on a limb expressing your feelings-the frustration and feeing lost in decorating in a small home. Actually, I think 1600 square feet is pretty nice, but I am a new follower and don’t know how many kids you have, that’s a game changer, for sure!
We have a small house, too, and we had four children here. It was super hard to have them share rooms and be crowded at the dining table. But we survived. Even our family parties were and are, still pretty nice, everyone is close and standing room really makes for good conversation!
I try to keep my clutter corralled in baskets, pretty objects on trays, and I always made sure our furniture purchases were on a smaller scale. I also think keeping your window dressings simple opens up a room and lets the sun shine in.
My son has a 5000 square foot home. I really love it, and sometimes envy it. I mean, 5 bathrooms! I wouldn’t like to clean it though! They have areas that are pulled together with furniture, and an area rug to ground everything, otherwise it could be less than cozy. Just saying.
I hope you find that happy medium. You have such a pretty home and cool decor-I think you will do it.
Jane x
Hi jane, thank you so much for sharing your input. I so appreciate it! WOW 5,000 sq feet…I wasn’t thinking that big but I could see how hard that would be to keep up with too.
Enjoyed the post. We are semi retired and working on making this bigger house what we want. We spent 23 years in a 1000 square foot house and raised three boys. For me that was my dream home. I wouldn’t trade those years for the biggest grandest house ever.
Hi Debra, that is so wonderful to hear! I am so glad that I can get all this wisdom and input on other families and women raising children in a smaller house : )