I Don’t Want a Perfect Home. I Want a Home That Feels Like Us.

For a long time, home decorating seemed to come with a set of rules. Everything had to coordinate. Rooms needed to look finished. Trends changed, and suddenly the things we loved a few years ago were supposedly things we should be getting rid of.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped caring quite so much about any of that.

I don’t want a perfect home. I want a home that feels like us.

I want rooms filled with things I’ve collected over time, pieces I found at thrift stores, furniture I’ve moved from one room to another more times than I can count, and seasonal decorations that I’m probably far too excited to pull out every year.

Because when I walk through the door, I don’t want to feel like I’ve walked into a showroom. I want to feel like I’m home.

A Home Doesn’t Have to Be Finished

I’m constantly changing things around here.

A table moves. A picture gets replaced. I find something while thrifting that I absolutely did not need, but somehow it ends up being exactly what a room was missing.

And then, of course, the seasons change and I start all over again.

I used to think there would eventually be a point when a room was done. Now I’m not sure I ever want it to be.

Our homes change because we change. We collect new things. We make new memories. We discover what we love and sometimes realize that something we once loved doesn’t feel like us anymore.

There’s something nice about allowing your home to grow right along with you.

I’d Rather Have a Story Than a Trend

Some of my favorite things in our home aren’t valuable or particularly impressive.

They’re the things I found unexpectedly.

An old piece tucked into the corner of a thrift store. A collection that started with one piece and somehow turned into twenty. Something I bought because it reminded me of another time.

Those are the things that give a home personality.

I love looking around a room and remembering where something came from or how excited I was when I found it. You can’t really recreate that by buying an entire room all at once.

And maybe that’s why I’ve always loved vintage pieces and collections so much. They make a home feel as though it has been put together slowly, because it has.

Cozy Matters More to Me Than Perfect

There are plenty of things about our home that I could change.

It’s a regular house. There are awkward spaces. There are projects I’d still like to tackle and plenty of things that probably wouldn’t make it into a perfectly styled magazine photo.

But none of those things stop me from loving it.

Give me lamps glowing in the evening, a fireplace on when the weather turns cool, too many pumpkins in September and a Christmas tree covered in ornaments in December.

Give me a house that feels warm when you walk through the door.

That matters so much more to me than perfection ever could.

Your Home Should Look Like You Live There

I think sometimes we see so many beautiful homes online that it becomes easy to forget this.

Your home doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.

You don’t have to replace something you love because it isn’t trending anymore. You don’t need the newest furniture or the perfect kitchen. And you certainly don’t have to decorate your house according to someone else’s rules.

Keep the old cabinet you love.

Display the collection that other people might think is a little excessive.

Put out the decorations that make you happy.

Move the furniture around just because you feel like it.

Your home is one of the few places in this world that gets to be completely yours.

The Kind of Home I Want

When I think about what I want our home to be, I don’t think about perfection.

I want it to feel welcoming.

I want people to walk in and immediately feel comfortable. I want there to be things to look at, stories tucked into the shelves and little details that make someone smile.

Most of all, I want to walk through the door at the end of an ordinary day and be happy to be here.

So no, I don’t think I’ll ever have a perfectly finished home.

There will probably always be something I’m moving, painting, collecting, decorating or dreaming up next.

And I think that’s exactly the way I like it.