Making a Home
/MAGGIE STRICKLAND
Before I got married, I never thought much about making my dwelling place feel like a home.
PHOTOGRAPHY: NICOLE CLAREY PHOTOGRAPHY, C/O ASHLEY EILEEN FLORAL DESIGN
Throughout college and graduate school and my first year of teaching, my dorm rooms and apartments were just places for me to put my stuff during the school year; there were several places that I never even hung pictures on the wall, since I spent most summers back at my parents’ home.
But when my fiance and I found the apartment that would be our first home together just months before our wedding, I started to think more about what I wanted our home to be like.
He moved in immediately and, in the weeks after our wedding as I unpacked my boxes in my new home, I realized that I didn’t want to just consolidate our possessions. I wanted our house to feel like a home, and with my husband furiously writing his dissertation before his funding ended, it was up to me to make it feel homey.
I had a vision: a home that was cozy and inviting, full of books, laughter, and love. I wanted to create a home that welcomed my husband back at the end of the day, a place where we could invite our friends and that, one day, our children would want to invite their friends to visit.
I wanted to create a home like the Marches’ in Little Women, where the lonely neighbor boy looks at the window for a glimpse of family life, or Bag-End from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, where there was always plenty of food and drink and coziness.
I also had no idea how to execute that vision.
After almost six years of marriage, I’m much closer to having the kind of home that I dreamed about as a new bride. I’m not completely there yet, but here are some of the resources I’ve found that have helped me make our various dwelling places home.
Creating your Vision
If you’re looking for inspiration for your vision of home, Haley Stewart’s The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture is an excellent read.
Stewart shares the story of her family’s year in a tiny house on a sustainable farm and how that helped them to live more simply and intentionally. The book includes discussion questions at the end to help you figure out how to apply the virtues discussed in the circumstances to which God has called you.
Housekeeping
My husband and I started our marriage with different ideas of what a clean house meant; he was much more laid-back than I was, and I couldn’t see how he could stand to live somewhere that wasn’t immaculate at all times. Eventually, I realized I was trying to create a house museum and not a home, and we’ve settled into a routine that gives us a reasonably clean home most of the time.
While there are lots of routines available on the internet, I like to have a good reference book handy, such as Cheryl Mendelson’s Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House.
Home Comforts is not a small book, but it is incredibly useful because, as the preface states, “This book contains practical how-to-do-it material on many of these subjects [meeting people’s needs], for both novices and those experienced in keeping house, and, because keeping house is a labor of love, it devotes space to its meanings as well as to its methods.”
Every couple will have their own preferences about the division of labor, but keeping love at the forefront is essential.
Decorating
Interior decorating has never been a great skill of mine. I always want to have a nicely decorated, cozy home, but whenever I get the decorating urge, I tend to get overwhelmed, either by Pinterest or the number of aisles at Home Goods.
Enter Myquillyn Smith, author of The Nesting Place, Cozy Minimalist Home, and Welcome Home. After we bought a house last year, I devoured her first two books and I’m slowly making my way through Welcome Home, her newest release from this past summer.
I have found these books especially useful because Smith teaches her readers how to embrace the imperfections of their spaces and budgets while still creating a home they love.
Our home isn’t anywhere close to being fully decorated, but I’m learning to take my time, use Pinterest wisely and in a way that doesn’t lead to envy or overwhelm, and be creative in my pursuit to have a home that works for life with a toddler and a puppy, but also allows us to entertain when we’re able.
About the Author: Maggie Strickland has loved reading and writing stories since her earliest memory. An English teacher by training and an avid reader by avocation, she now spends her days homemaking, chasing her toddler son, and reading during naptime. She and her husband are originally from the Carolinas, but now make their home in Birmingham, Alabama.