What completes a room/home?

The Gunport

Putting up photos of happy times with family and friends.

A 100-foot climbing wall. I won’t settle for less.

More realistically, a family to be with, and room in which you can take a break from being with them.

Everytime I finish a project, it feels a little more like home… first it was cleaning all the nastiness that the previous owners left, but then it was finishing the brick floors, furnishing the whole house, planting flowers in the front yard, etc. I think every improvement makes a difference.

Structurally my house may never be complete. This place is a fucking money pit. It was built in the late 1940’s by people with no sense of carpentry, and also with no money. Everything they used to build it seems to be ‘found’ material. My front room is an add-on made up of at least four kinds of blocks, including some that are the size of concrete blocks, but made of solid sandstone. There is also a stone in the front wall that is the base of an obelisk tombstone. Since the shyster developer that created this neighborhood from a former cemetery simply moved most of the bodies and all of the tombstones before selling lots, there is no telling what you will find when you dig in your yard. Fortunately I have never found a casket or a body, but then, I try not to dig down that far.

The yard is a beautiful mix of flowers and hostas, shaded by tall trees. I have very little in the way of lawn, and the best part is, I have many native plant species in my yard, and there are flowers blooming from late March until late October. You want flowers, I got flowers.

The only thing that completes my home is sharing it with my beautiful wife. She would make living in a Bedouin tent seem like the Taj Mahal.

@BBSDTfamily and @evelyns_pet_zebra: I look forward to learning how to and being able to garden. That will be a whole new kind of “complete” feeling! At this point, I’m just happy to get the lawn mowed before the neighbors complain. Work/school/parenting/minor back issues have not been too supportive of outdoor beautification, plus as with everything I believe on starting from within and then working on letting the natural beauty shine outward. So I’m hoping next year will be a good year for me and gardening!

video games. I don’t care where the heck I am. I need them.

I think what makes a home a home, besides love and family and children, is caring to make it better – to go through the process you describe, to build more, to renovate, to paint the kids’ rooms, to move things around, to grow gardens, etc.

@Cupcake….Greetings! Congratulations to you and @fireside.
Love turns a house into a home, and I suspect you have the grandest of homes.
Best wishes to both of you and your son. Sending lurve…Gary aka wtf
PS: Welcome to fluther. You know, I’ve always wanted to know if @fireside really…........

A cat. Really. All rooms look better with a cat in them.

Art

@tinyfaery would a stuffed cat from the taxidermist count? Because my wife is severely allergic to cats,and my dog HATES cats.

ArtCat

@Jayne….You nailed it (again)...it is very therapeutic to have a room one can escape to for contemplation or activity without distraction. I have personalized a “play room” where I spend about 90% of my time (when awake): good computer, outstanding audio, magnificent massage and ergo office chairs, lots of art, collection displays, and creature comforts, like a mini-refrigerator, microwave and toaster ovens, K-cup coffee maker, etc. There is so much stuff in here, return visitors often “discover” art that was always here. At times I feel guilty having such a haven, while @sccrowell does not….that is, until I rationalize that in fact she has the whole house minus this one room (which I gladly share with her, but, it is mine)! See ya…..Gary aka wtf

We redid almost all of our previous house including virtually complete kitchen and bathroom remodels. We painted the living room and hall a sage green and I hated it. Replaced the sofa and loveseat b/c I wasn’t sure what the problem was.

I finally decided we needed to repaint again (husband was not happy) with a soft yellow (apple muffin) and the instant we finished it felt like our home. Even before we put the furniture back. It reflected my style and the happiness that I felt in our family. The only downside was I wished I had my old sofa and love seat back.

I am not sure our current house will ever feel like our home. We have been here almost a year and I have been ready to move for about 11 months. The love travels with our family, but the vibe of this house is just wrong for us. I don’t know how else to explain it.

A bowling alley and an indoor heated pool.

Seriously, I think a great bedroom (for sleeping peacefully) and an organized kitchen (for eating healthy). I guess a home theater in the living room is also great for when you have guests over.

Laughter.

That rug. It really tied the room together.

can’t believe no one said that yet

The Bob Marley poster.

The little things. The trinkets on the shelves and the personal touches on the small scale. For me it’s the bad taste bears around my room.

A cocker spaniel curled up at your feet. (I miss my Prince!)

One big thing is to know that the home your in is going to be your permanent home. Right now, my husband and I know that we don’t want to stay in our current house. It just doesn’t feel like we belong there. Also we keep finding reminders of how poorly the house was kept up by the previous owners. We’re never sure what weird, gross, disturbing nastiness we’re going to find with each home improvement project.

To more specifically answer your question, I like to look around a room and see books that I’ve read, family pictures, decor that means something (ex: I have a giraffe sculpture thing that for some reason my mother thought I’d like to have for my baby shower… not something I’d have picked out, but now it’s a part of our home). I would always like to have a piano in my living room, plants in every room, mirrors, meaningful art, nice candles, earthy elements (stones, seashells, wood carvings, etc), and stuff in general that lets visitors know about our family.

@whatthefluther: Thanks for the welcome! Love definately makes a house a home.

@ubersiren: Books! Great answer! I long to have a house someday that is big enough to have a library. I think I would just sit in there and look around at all of the books that I love.

Another thing that did it for me was getting all new windows. I had saved up for a long time and last November bought all new windows. I didn’t even put up curtains for over a week. I would come home and stare at my windows and smile. My hundred year-old house had awful windows that either wouldn’t open or wouldn’t stay open, and every screen was broken or ripped. New windows made a huge difference!

@Cupcake By the way, Welcome to Fluther and congrats on being engaged to Fireside!

@janbb: Thanks and thanks!! :)

Sorry @Evelyn. Your rooms will just never be as good as if there were a cat in them.

= ^ . . ^ =

MIlo here; Me. (See my agent.)

For me it is the family photos in frames on the tables and walls and fresh flowers from my garden to put in vases and sit around the room.

the landscaping has really made a huge impact, the place was buried in tall trees and underbrush before,

You’re supposed to have sex in every room in order to mark it with your scent unconsciously. Then it always feels like home. hahahaha