Make It Your Forever Home

Everyone wants their home to be their forever home, well, normally. Normally though, it’s currently not quite there. Too small, out dated, doesn’t match you, bad layout, doesn’t fit your lifestyle. Maybe you have a few ideas already, but let’s talk about 5 ways to make it your forever home.

Can I ask you a question - your home today will it fit your needs in five years from now? What about just three? But how do you even know how your life will be like in the future? What about in 7-8 years. Statistically according to 2018 1-year American Community Survey Americans stay an average of 13 years in their home.

Why do they move? Sometimes it’s because of a job, or family, or other life events. But often it’s just because they cannot figure out how to make their home their forever home. Sit down and start brainstorming, what will your life be like in say 5 years? Will your home as it is now match that life you dream of? What about in 10 years?

The truth is typically your home and needs will change and the first principle about making your home your forever home is it needs to be adaptable. So let me ask you - is your home adaptable?

What makes your home adaptable? It’s being able to change through the years obviously, but how do you make a home adaptable. The truth is it’s not always as easy as it seems. So what does it mean that a home is adaptable? 

Does it mean that you have furniture that can adapt to different situations? Think Murphy bed or that table that expands from seating two to twelve. Or maybe you have watched some of those youtube videos of even more adaptable furniture?

Or maybe it’s spaces that can serve one usage by day and another by night. The ultimate for that would be the studio apartment.

What I’m talking about is none of those. What makes a home adaptable is it’s ability to shift with you and continue to reflect who you are and your family and serve you well as your life and styles evolve. It’s making decisions that don’t box you in so that your home feels dated in twenty years, or even just five years. It’s making decisions so that at the heart, what truly makes you special they reflect. Celebrating the heart of who you are and your household. Because what makes a house a home? It’s not the amazing design, or all the latest gadgets in the home. It’s the heart of the home. You.

And so as you adapt and grow and change over the years, it’s a home that's able to adapt and change with you, where the usage of rooms can adapt, styles feel timeless, because at the core they reflect you not the latest fads.

The next thing I want to talk to you though about, is the lifespan of various rooms in your home. Go online and you’ll find all sorts of lists of how long a Kitchen, a Bathroom etc should last. Truth is they’re all right and they’re all wrong. Because how long the kitchen should last for one person is totally different for another. We all use our spaces differently.

But go in and take a look at the spaces.

Ask yourself these three questions.

One: What’s the shape of the room - oh I don’t mean square or oval, I mean the cabinets, the floor, the walls, the appliances, the fixtures. How worn out is it? To maintain the value of your home, you don't want the rooms to go into disrepair. Are the cabinets sagging? Is the tub or tile chipped.

Two: Can I really ask you - how does the existing layout work with the way you use the space? Are you constantly bumping into your spouse each time you cook? Is there no storage in the bathroom? Is there always a long line for the bathroom because your daughter is taking a long shower or fights over the sink? Is the island in the way of cooking, or does the layout just not work? And look at the layout in relation to the other rooms. Are backpacks and purses left constantly on the kitchen table because there’s no mud room?

Or are you never using the dining room because it’s just too far from the kitchen?

Three: Let’s look at the style. Does it truly reflect you or is it dated. Now I’m not saying you should go with the latest fads for your home. So I’m not telling you to do the white kitchen, or the modern kitchen, or the farm house, or boho… The truth is when it truly reflects you whether it’s the latest fad or not, it reflects what you love. It doesn’t matter if it’s the latest style, will go out of fashion, because when it reflects you it doesn’t matter if it’s in fashion or not. But does it reflect you? Does it reflect your style?

There’s two ways to approach building though. Rush it and make it sort of your forever home, a little better, maybe or take the time and effort to do it right. Rush it and maybe it’s a little closer to that forever home, but most of the time you’ll be skipping steps that will require you to remodel sooner. It’s like if you want to have your dream countertops - you dream of marble, can’t afford it so you spend a $100 dollars on countertop contact paper and lay it out. Sure it might look better for a little while, but look closely, and it’ll just look like digitally printed contact paper. Is that your forever home?

Or maybe you want more space, you could rush the design and construction to get the space as quickly as possible, but it doesn’t quite ever work, and becomes an odd addition that years later you or a future owner will have to tear out to make it really work. Or you can do it right in the first place. So instead of enclosing the patio to make a new family room, you tear it out and build it correctly to match your needs. The truth is you do it right, or its just a bandaid.

So can I ask, will you rush to put on a bandaid or do it right the first time to match your forever home needs?

So I have to ask you, is your home your forever home? What’s missing? it’s not the infinity pool or the ocean view. The truth is, making it your forever home, is achievable, sometimes you do it in one swoop and fix everything at once, other times it’s a long range game plan with a plan for each room adjusting room by room. If you want support, go here to ellenlind.com/call and book a call with me and my team to figure out the best game plan for you to make it your forever home.