What Makes a Home?

Wondering if my house is a home....

We have lived here for a year and half now, and I wonder, do we, as a family, feel at home?

Does a house feel like a home when things come together and the house is clean and the windows sparkle? Or is it when I bake something that smells really good?
Some days I feel like my house smells like my boys' dirty feet and the the only thing wafting through the air is the stink of muddy dog paws.
What makes a house a Home?
Is it in the moment you realize you are ready for guests? Or is it that moment when you realize your heart brightens when you see the front door after a long day?




Is it when the plants say hello? When they say, "I am cared for, I have not been left to drought and famine of water, and you will be taken care of too." At my house, my plants are often forgotten.
I do so try not to let any of them wilt away.

There are things that I think, that make my house a home. There are pictures on the wall that are hung. However, they are often crooked and not dusted properly.  Occasionally I find a piece of food flung by the boys smeared across a frame and I wonder...how did that get there?

What makes a house a home? Is it treasured things that you are willing to share with the people who come over? Things that are important and significant to you?What makes a house a home? 

I have baskets on the bookshelf I recently repainted.  I have beloved books there too.  I so mean to re-read many of them...but there is so little time these days.  And the baskets! they are beloved as well. They are fair trade and a gift to me from me.  I got them with the intention that I would use them for the farmer's markets on Saturday. But between all the busy things going on during our precious moments on the weekends as a family, it is rare that I gather the bunch and peruse the bounty there.

In attempt to make our house a home, I painted the walls of my living room and dining room and kitchen. The dining room opens into the kitchen and they are both painted Benjamin Moore's Midnight Desert. The living is two-toned. I adore it. The top color is BM's Revere Pewter, below is BM's Cinnamon Raison (a name that doesn't do this dusty red color justice -truly). The color is as close as match as I could find to Farrow&Ball's 'Rectory Red.' I divided the two colors with a clean black line.  It is nice to have color to help claim this shabby (yet expensive!) rental as our own.

I have an old wooden cabinet/hutch that I paid 50 dollars for several years ago. It is not flashy, yet at the same time, it seems almost tooooo fancy for our usual taste; but I adore it.  It was $50. I rarely have the entrepenuership to find such a thrifty gem. In this hutch, on our "fancy" display shelves, I have dishes and platters from our wedding registry.
I have added saucers and sugar bowls from a big box store.
I have pinecones I have found. I have rocks the boys have claimed as their own. There is the occasional seashell.  Ceramic treasures are there too, made by the boys at school. And there is most definitely plates to eat on & glasses to drink from.

I have flour that is ready to be made into some sort of something yummy.  However it is waiting. The sugar does not wait as it often gets sprinkled in tea and the like. I have bowls of fruit that ask to be eaten. More often than not, they are. Apples and bananas and pears don't last long in our house.  But does any of this make it a home?

What makes a home?

 Truly, I should just delete this all because really for me...
It is when I tuck my boys in at night, brush their hair from their foreheads and know that the love I have in my heart for them is the most fundamental foundation in my life; and that they are, those unruly, smelly, loud stinkers who seem so very impossible, they are actually the greatest chef d'oeuvre, the greatest masterpiece I could ever actually add to my house Home. 

I think you know that you are Home when you understand in your heart that the love you hold for your family, (whether it is just you+books, or cat, or partner, or you actually have minions running around) is absolutely unconditional and very intangible.  That this love will never be available to purchase online or to shop for in stores.

And for that knowledge, for a simple understanding of that love, I have no way to bottle it.
                                                                              I have no picture at all.

XXOO