What Makes A Place Home For You?

[lisab]

What Makes A Place "Home" For You?

I just got back from a very short road trip - two days in San Francisco, two days in Mendocino County. Very nice visit, for sure! San Francisco is an intense city, and Mendocino County is a place where most roads are not much more than donkey trails.

But now I'm home, and it's so nice to be home. I've lived here about 1-1/2 years and it definitely feels like home now, but it took a while. I've never felt immediately at home in a new place, ever. Some places I've lived have never felt like home even after many years, and I'm not sure why.

I know most PFers are young, and when you're young you think of "home" as where your parents live. But you will soon have to create your *own* home.

Does it just take time for a place to become home? Is there something about the environment? Certainly people are an important element.

What makes a place a home for you?

 

[Pythagorean]

close family (wife and kids).

 

[turbo]

I need my wife and my two dogs. It's nice that I can call my elderly father and possibly get up there to see him, if needed. Nothing else really matters.

 

[dlgoff]

Is there something about the environment?

Yes. e.g.

http://imageshack.us/a/img205/8115/img7218co.jpg

 

[zoobyshoe]

I just got back from a very short road trip - two days in San Francisco, two days in Mendocino County. Very nice visit, for sure! San Francisco is an intense city, and Mendocino County is a place where most roads are not much more than donkey trails.

But now I'm home, and it's so nice to be home. I've lived here about 1-1/2 years and it definitely feels like home now, but it took a while. I've never felt immediately at home in a new place, ever. Some places I've lived have never felt like home even after many years, and I'm not sure why.

I know most PFers are young, and when you're young you think of "home" as where your parents live. But you will soon have to create your *own* home.

Does it just take time for a place to become home? Is there something about the environment? Certainly people are an important element.

What makes a place a home for you?

I realized a while back that it seems to kick in in the situation you just described. A new place starts to feel like "home" when you leave it for a while and come back. It's not "home" until it becomes the place you return to.

 

[adjacent]

I've been living away from my home for more than 2 years now.but I don't feel like I've been living at a home.To me,there are no 'many' homes.Just one home.Now I am here,at home.It truly is a home where I have lived at my infancy,childhood, etc.It is the place where my friends live.
Home remains home.For me,home is for eternity.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Home is where I can walk around in my boxers without being judged.

 

[phion]

Where ever the rent is paid!

 

[jedishrfu]

Home is where I can walk around in my boxers without being judged.

A Tom Cruise moment.

 

[Student100]

Anywhere with grass and lots of trees, both are difficult to find in cities.

When I lived in Japan I missed grass a lot. :(

 

[jedishrfu]

Home is where I'm happy to be.

I live in Texas but still visit my hometown in New York but it doesn't feel the same so much has changed.

 

[member 392791]

Where I can lay on my bed without having a roommate come in at any given moment

 

[Student100]

Yes. e.g.

http://imageshack.us/a/img205/8115/img7218co.jpg

The image is kind of grainy, for a second I thought those were pot plants.

http://www.marijuana.com/news/2012/12/one-mans-christmas-tree-is-another-mans-pot-plant/

We know what this guy considers home! Merry Christmas all.

 

[Borek]

In my experience it takes years.

Somehow the question reminded me of what have happened on one of the very first nights after we moved where we live now. Our bed was in the corner of the room in both paces, but in the previous place door to the rest of the house was to the left of our legs, while in the new place door was to the right of our heads. One day, around dawn, I was woken up by our cat, meowing, hissing and crying as if preparing to fight. My first thought was that some other cat got into the house, so I jumped out of the bed and... hit the wall, as I ran in the wrong direction.

(I wonder if my tenses are not behaving the same way).

 

[Evo]

Funny, whenever I dream about being "home", it's always my parents house where I grew up.

I do have a favorite house, it was an incredible custom built home back in Texas, the builder was an incredible man, even though it was 30 years ago, I still miss that house.

Right now I'm in an apartment, so I don't think of it as "home", I haven't even bothered hanging pictures and a lot of my stuff I never unpacked after my last move, people are a bit startled when they come over for the first time because it looks like I'm in the process of moving. I don't have room for any of my furniture from my house here, so I had to give up all of my beautiful furniture when I moved here, and got some small pieces, but it just doesn't feel right. When Evo Child moved in with me a few years ago and we took the large 2 bedroom next door, she decorated the place and it was beautiful and functional, but it was almost all her stuff because she didn't want her stuff placed into storage, so mine went into storage instead. Le sigh.

 

[lisab]

When I lived in an apartment after my divorce, it never felt like home. It was a nice, old, huge place with an incredible view and I always felt comfortable there, but it always felt transitory.

Time is a big factor, but I think I have to be surrounded by unfinished projects to really feel at home!

 

[HayleySarg]

It's a few different things for me.

-Ambience which comes from certain possessions and lighting that I generally have. I guess my home has a "tone" or a "theme" if you will

-Smell. As weird as this one comes off, I'm someone who often studies by candle light or my Christmas lights (I've strung them all along the top of the walls in each room, LED, fire safety! I digress) and I know that smell. Everyone's house has their own smell to it. We also have a lot of natural incense, and of course essential oils. So it's very distinct.

-The people. It's going to be very hard to adjust to moving to university without my boyfriend of 4 years now. We've made the choice that he'll stay in his job, 3 hours away, and I'll move down to college. It's just nice having another human. We're both introverts who pretend to be extroverts so to speak, so we both need a lot of "alone" time. Thankfully he leaves me be, and I leave him be, and we get together to do stuff when we're both feeling up to it. Without this sort of dynamic, it's going to be very different.

-Kitty! She greets me when I get home.

 

[nitsuj]

What makes a place a home for you?

it's where ever my dog is, currently she's my #1 daily companion.

1. companionship
2. comfortable furniture (bed/chair/dog bed ect)
3. smell/ambiance (probably just a time thing)

 

[Maui]

I travel frequently to other countries/continents - I feel at home all the time.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Home is where I can walk around in my boxers without being judged.

For me, home is where wearing boxers is dressing up.

 

[lisab]

It's a few different things for me.

-Ambience which comes from certain possessions and lighting that I generally have. I guess my home has a "tone" or a "theme" if you will

-Smell. As weird as this one comes off, I'm someone who often studies by candle light or my Christmas lights (I've strung them all along the top of the walls in each room, LED, fire safety! I digress) and I know that smell. Everyone's house has their own smell to it. We also have a lot of natural incense, and of course essential oils. So it's very distinct.

-The people. It's going to be very hard to adjust to moving to university without my boyfriend of 4 years now. We've made the choice that he'll stay in his job, 3 hours away, and I'll move down to college. It's just nice having another human. We're both introverts who pretend to be extroverts so to speak, so we both need a lot of "alone" time. Thankfully he leaves me be, and I leave him be, and we get together to do stuff when we're both feeling up to it. Without this sort of dynamic, it's going to be very different.

-Kitty! She greets me when I get home.

I hadn't thought about smell. It's definitely important! That, and a certain je ne sais quoi about the air-feel. Humidity, maybe?

 

[edward]

Yes. e.g.

http://imageshack.us/a/img205/8115/img7218co.jpg

Don, you not only have a place that feels like home, I think you also have a sense of place and that is getting to be rare.

 

[dlgoff]

Don, you not only have a place that feels like home, I think you also have a sense of place and that is getting to be rare.

Thank you Edward.

 

[turbo]

I hadn't thought about smell. It's definitely important! That, and a certain je ne sais quoi about the air-feel. Humidity, maybe?

Smell is a big one. My wife loves to bake, we like to make stir-fries, pan-fried bacon and potatoes, etc. This house always smells like cooking.

One of my strongest memories of my grandmother's house is the smell of the kitchen. She made her own butter, and used that butter in everything. We were fortunate to have a dairy farm nearby with Guernseys and Jerseys (lots of milk-fat), so butter-making was very frequent. She spent many years as the cook for the Kennebec log drive and she cooked a LOT, even in her later years.

 

[Gregsman]

The "Home" must be located in warm place coz I am afraid of cold.
The "Home" must be in the country as I am more fit in quite.
The "Home" must be affordable as the price in my country is so high!

 

[Monique]

Does it just take time for a place to become home? Is there something about the environment? Certainly people are an important element.

What makes a place a home for you?

A place becomes a home to me when I've scrubbed all the cupboards, walls and floors clean and unpacked my belongings. The cleaning is important, without it I feel like I'm still living in someone else's place. It doesn't take much else, although plants have taken up an important place in my home, it would be empty without them.

The smell is important as well, but strangely my current house doesn't smell like "home". Every time when I come home after a trip I come to the same conclusion. Not sure why that is, but on a daily basis I don't notice it.

 

[cobalt124]

I've effectively lived all my life in the home I grew up in, with my own family now. We made a lot of changes though to make it our family home and not "my childhood home". So home is with your family and is where you feel safe and secure. Living on the north east coast of England home also seems to need hills and the sea, on the occasions I have been away, being inland and being in "flat land" have always made me feel slightly uneasy and think about home.

 

[lisab]

I've effectively lived all my life in the home I grew up in, with my own family now. We made a lot of changes though to make it our family home and not "my childhood home". So home is with your family and is where you feel safe and secure. Living on the north east coast of England home also seems to need hills and the sea, on the occasions I have been away, being inland and being in "flat land" have always made me feel slightly uneasy and think about home.

I hadn't considered this. I could never feel at home on a flat landscape, either.

 

[Dale]

What makes a place a home for you?

My wife lives there.