Making A Rented House, a Home

They say 'home is where the heart is' but for expats, our deepest sense of home and heart is often many thousands of miles away, back where we came from and for this reason, even without realising, it can take months ...years even, to feel settled and content in a new place.

I know this feeling more than most, since I am currently living in my 27th house! As the daughter of an army officer, we moved frequently throughout my childhood but somehow, wherever we were and for no matter how long, it always felt like home. We lived in identical houses, with identical post-war G plan furniture which we rented from the army, including scratchy old sofas, baby cots and even card tables (how essential!?) From garrison to garrison, military housing often had the same floor plan, the same green carpets, the same lino floors ...and most characteristic of all, the dreaded magnolia-coloured walls....a whole house of BEIGE. Each new house always smelt the same too ...a musty mix of bleach and damp and many layers of paint.

And yet it wasn't this familiarity or sameness of house that brought contentment, it was my mother's touch that made the difference and whether subconsciously or not, truly created home.

The army wives of the 1980s were experts at creating a sense of belonging. Wives' clubs in military camps often offered classes in re-upholstery, flower arranging and picture framing. Some wives sold Tupperware to help us organise our kitchens. My mother repotted plants and moved them from garden to garden and could knock up a new pair of curtains in her sleep! She started a soft furnishings business, selling handmade cushions, quilts, beanbags, Christmas wreaths and children's clothing! She even teamed up with my father to make chintzy TV tables so you could disguise your telly under a glass topped corner cabinet with a removable Velcro fabric panel!

Together with the tiniest touches - photographs, songs on the radio, the smell of Sunday lunch cooking, this all helped create the feeling of home wherever we were, and when I also married an army officer, two decades later, I instinctively used my mother's little touches to help us settle in....and I still use them now, in house number 27!

So whilst our dream homes may feel very far away when we live in rented properties, we should still strive for happy homes from home and that homely feeling each time we walk through the door. A spring clean, a lick of paint, or changing up some soft furnishings can inject a little bit of love back into a rented home to help you feel that overall sense of happiness again. After all, home is a feeling, and not just a place.