You know that moment when you finally sort one thing out in the home – a wonky shelf, missing lightbulb, or a corner you’ve been meaning to clean – and it feels great for about five minutes?
Then, out of nowhere, something else crops up. A leak. A drawer that won’t open (and you don’t want to force it for fear of it getting worse). Mysterious smears that you’re almost certain appeared on the wall the moment you turned your back? It’s as though the house heard you put the kettle on and took it as an invitation to annoy you.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It turns out that the idea of a home being “finished” is something of a myth – especially if you have children, pets, or are simply a human being.
The truth is, homes are lived-in spaces. That means they are constantly shifting and being reshaped by their inhabitants; two-legged, four-legged and more. One minute you’re happily nesting. The next, you’re navigating a plastic fort, a laundry avalanche, and a cat who has decided that the bathroom sink is their favourite bed (and somehow looks like they’ve been in there for hours).
We tend to think there is a finished version of the home waiting just around the corner: when that last coat of paint dries, when the shelves are finally put up, when we get around to updating the kitchen. But if you’ve been doing this long enough, you’ll be familiar with how, once one thing is ticked off, the to-do list simply seems to update as though you swiped down.
That’s OK.
Sometimes, the best you can do is pick a single, small job, and give yourself credit for doing it. Maybe you tighten the handle on a door. Or you measure up for new blinds, or maybe just order the timber supplies for a shelf you might put up next weekend (and then again, maybe not, you’ll see what the cat has planned…).
But what about the mess? Well, a little mess may not be something you’ll want to post on Instagram, but it tells the story of a home: breakfasts made, dens built, crafts attempted and quiet corners claimed for a quick break with a biscuit and cup of something warm. These things, far more than a perfectly painted wall or a matching towel bale, are the things that make a house a home (and you will tidy them up, it just doesn’t have to be now…).
It’s easy to feel like you’re falling short, especially if your feed is constantly filled with pictures of minimalist living rooms that appear never to have been occupied by a human or animal. But the truth is that real homes aren’t show homes. They’re working, breathing spaces that hold the brilliant, chaotic energy of those that occupy them.
If you see a house as a project that demands to be shared on the socials, you’re likely to wonder if it will ever be right. But the truth is that it’s already doing exactly what a house was always meant to do: holding you, your family, and all the love and mess that that entails.
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