Don't Wait

That woman who says she's going to wait until she owns her own place before she does anything with it?

That woman is me.

And I'm here to tell you — don't wait.

I don't say that to be unkind. I say it as a realist. As much as you hate to think about it or admit it, you may never own your own home. And if you spend the years between now and then putting your life and your home on hold, you will have waited for something that may never come — and missed the life that was happening in the meantime.

Because here's what I know: just because you can't knock down a wall or retile a bathroom doesn't mean you can't make a house feel like home. A home is not a structural decision. A home is a house that's been given a feeling. A feeling that someone loves it, cares for it, and wants it to feel — as well as look — its best.

You might have a cookie cutter house in a new estate. I do. It drives me a little mad if I'm honest — the sameness of it, the newness of it, the way every house on the street looks like a slightly different version of the same idea. But you can't make structural changes and so you make decor changes. You give the house some character. You give it warmth. You give it you. And slowly, without quite knowing when it happened, the house becomes a home.

The house I'm always trying to find my way back to

Home for me has always been my grandmother's house.

Probably because it was the one constant. We moved a few times growing up — there were always changes, always adjustments — but my grandmother's house was always the same. And I loved the stability of that. I loved the way the warmth of it seemed to come from the walls themselves, like a great big hug the moment you walked through the door.

I have a dream to build my own house one day. Not from a modern floorplan. I want to rebuild my grandmother's house. That floorplan is etched into my brain and it will never leave me.

Old sash windows. Big heavy wooden doors. A clanging screen door to the backyard. The concrete trough that weighs 200 kilograms. Creaky floorboards. A deep bathtub. And everyone — always everyone — sitting around the kitchen table while the Metters stove roars in winter with a kettle sitting on top.

My husband would say I'm insane. The other part of the dream is to build it entirely from salvage yards — every window, every door, every beam chosen for its history and its patina and the life it's already lived. He's probably not wrong about the insane part. But I can't let it go.

Because that house wasn't just a house. It was the feeling of being completely at home. And I have spent every year since trying to recreate that feeling in whatever house I happen to be living in.

What home actually means

If I never get to build that house — and I hope I do, I truly do — I know this much:

I can make any house a home. By what I put in it. By the memories I make in it. By the garden where I can sit and simply be with family and friends. And maybe a few chickens down the back.

Home was never about the structure. It was always about the feeling.

So don't wait until you own. Don't wait until you can renovate. Don't wait for the perfect house that looks like the ones you see on Instagram.

Make it home now. With what you have. Where you are.

It's always been enough.