What Makes a House Just a House, and Not a Home

What makes a house just a house and not a “home”? I am finding that out as I purge my home of its contents, making it “sellable” and “open house worthy”.

Apparently potential buyers don’t want to see the pictures of my sons wedding or of my granddaughter, or of our trip to Key West. Nobody wants to see the fish my husband caught or the picture of me hugging my dad. Except me that is.

Getting my house ready for sale has been an adventure in excavating. We went through the garage sale experience. We donated bags and bags of stuff to the Goodwill. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. And we made it very low key on the décor. I had to store vases and books and pictures and clocks and signs and things that to me made our house a home.

“My house is not decorated – It is a showplace for my favorite things”. That is a sign that I had to hide in a cupboard, along with the one that says “Wine is liquid poetry”.

We are “right-sizing” our lives. We are (at least if we sell) moving to a smaller home with less space to clean, smaller heating bills and little or no grass to mow. I will only be able to display one of my three Christmas trees in a smaller home, and won’t even have stairs (hopefully) for the garland.

The dog bed for my 165 pound Newfoundland will have to be stored or sold, since it takes up the same amount of space as a twin bed. I am going to have to find some storage room for all the pictures, letters and cards that I have yet had the heart to part with.

I know it’s all just “stuff”. I don’t need the stuff. I have wonderful memories of family, trips, animals, high school friends and other important (or not so much) events in my life.

I don’t need boxes and boxes of the same 3rd grade picture of my son. I don’t need the old collars of dogs gone by. I don’t need the broken ornaments, lovingly made in kindergarten. I don’t need them, but parting with them is kind of hard. I’m doing it though, box by box, teardrop by teardrop.

We are “rightsizing” our life. We are moving on to our next adventure, whatever that may be. So even though I feel like my home has less personality, the memories are still here. And I am the one that knows where I have hidden all the pictures.

So if and when we sell this home, I will eagerly await for another one. It will start out as a house – four walls and no personality. But I will dig out the family photos, hang up my signs and turn it into a home, one more time.