Making a house a home

I've always moved around... a lot. I averaged one move per year since I was 18 until a few years ago. I've lived at my current house for almost 3 years - quite a record for me. I do have flights of fancy, and if the market were different, I probably would have sold the 2 housed and moved into one really nice house (that was still cheaper than the 2 separate houses), but I'm stuck.

When I moved into the house in Lynn, we worked really hard to upgrade the place, and we spent time giving thought to decorating. People would tell us it was a cozy place, and I liked that. When we moved into the house in NH, it was already furnished, so we moved in with our suitcases and that was that.

It was a weekend/summer home, so we put up with the inconveniences that came along with moving into, basically, someone else's home. The owner before had used the home for a tryst of his, and while I gain amusement from that scenario, I gain no functionality in the house at all. When we moved in, the only full bath was off the master bedroom upstairs - completely insane.

There is absolutely *no* storage, and it's not practical as a full time home, which it has turned into for us. Despite how much I love living on the water, and I love the proximity to the big city (LOL), I have never thought of this place as a long term home for me. It's filled with furniture that someone else bought, and it's just not designed to be a full time home.

I often have the desire to move. I feel like this housing crisis is holding me back, but really, what else would I be doing? Yes, I'd love to have a home in Florida or somewhere warm, but that can wait until I'm more financially stable. I think I need to embrace the fact that I'm going to be "stuck" here for a while, and I need to make my house a home.

I've started making it more functional, by adding the shower and a full size washer and dryer in the downstairs bathroom, and next weekend, we're starting work on the 3rd bedroom that will also be my (much larger) office, that I so desperately need.

Over the weekend, I ordered a couple new TVs for the place, and a stereo system for downstairs. Next, I'm going to see if my dear friend Karen wants a job painting. We need to make it ours, both in functionality and style. Perhaps if I feel like the house is a candidate for long term living, I won't be so tempted to want to move.

It really is a beautiful house, and I'm blessed to have it. Now, I just need to make it a home.