When you first move into a house, you may have that awkward feeling as if you don’t quite belong there yet. Everything may not seem real at first.
Moving into a new home is one of the most stressful things you can do. As adults, we tend to think about the practical things during a move, like crunching down the numbers, and 
planning ahead with the organizing so that everything that takes place during the move can go smoothly.
Moving house can be scary. In fact many studies show that moving house can be extremely stressful no matter who you are. People that move very seldom can fear losing everything they’ve ever known, and the disruption of our daily routines is hard to deal with. People that move frequently may have moved often as a child, and have a hard time finding that perfect place that they can truly call home.
There are ways to eliminate the stress of moving, which include planning at least 8 weeks ahead, hiring a realtor, asking help from family and friends, and seeking out moving services. Once you have actually made the move and are in your new house, these 20 tips can help you turn that house into a home – getting everything back to normal as quickly as possible.
1. Pick The Type of Floors You Want: This is one of the first things you may have to do when moving, and you will have to choose between carpet and hard wood floors. This is obviously a personal preference, and if you want to feel more at home then you should probably choose something that is familair. However keeping busy and working on something to improve your house the way you want it is ultimately what you want to try to do here.
2. Minor Kitchen Renovations: The typical kitchen remodeling job costs anywhere from $7,000 to $15,000. When you first move into a home, you may not have that type of money, and renovations on a limited budget may seem quite impossible at first. Two things you can do immediately involve purchasing items that go in your kitchen. If you want a more updated look, you can buy new appliances that fit in with your kitchen. To avoid buying them all at once, replace the ones that are either look the oldest are are the most out-of-date in terms of how they function. The other thing you can do is work on your storage and workspace - increasing your functionality. Kitchen islands are a staple of many home kitchens, but if you don’t have the budget to get an island right away, you can buy one on wheels for right around $300. Here are a few other minor renovations you can make to your kitchen that can help get you one step closer to personalizing your home the way you want it:
- Window Treatments
- New Lighting
- Stainless Steel Sinks
- Stenciling, Painting and Wallpapering
- Refacing/Refinishing Cabinets
- New Countertops
- Tile Backsplash
- Pullout Faucets
3. Choosing Paint Colors: The colors of your house can have an immediate effect on the overall theme and mood of your home. Choosing colors from your past can help put you at ease right away, and that feeling of “home” can come a lot faster when you do so. You may want to choose different colors for each room, as different colors can put you in different moods, or you may want go with an overall theme for your house. Another option you have is to go with wallpaper. Wallpaper, however more expensive up front, has a longer life-cycle then paint colors and you can also choose from many different patterns and designs that would be close to impossible to obtain through painting. If you are going to paint, one rule of thumb that you should remember is that darker colors can make a room look smaller while lighter colors can make a room look larger.
4. Purchase Blinds or Curtains: Nothing says you haven’t quite fully moved in yet like the sight of bare windows. Blinds and curtains can come in many different shapes and sizes and can be constructed out of a plethora of different materials. Blinds can help a home look more modern, while some people may feel that curtains can make your house feel more like a home. Wood blinds are an ever more popular trend these days, and they can come horizontally or vertically and you can choose from Roman shades, Bamboo shades, and slider panels. Blinds and curtains not only can turn your house into a home faster, but can help to insulate your home, as well as provide the privacy that every home needs.
5. Address Furniture Needs: When you first move, you will be using the furniture from your last place of residence. Although this will provide functionality for the moment, this quick fix may leave your home looking awkward as the furniture might not go along with the design of your house. The goal with furniture is to not only provide functionality, but look good as well.
6. Outdoor Renovations: Your home does not only consist of the rooms and designs inside of your house, but the immediate land that you own surrounding your home as well. Having a plan of action for a work-in-progress can definitely keep you busy during a move in, and spending time outside of your house will help make you feel more at home.
Renovation ideas include getting a wood deck (which is perfect for having family cookouts and spending time in the backyard), taking care of any concrete issues, and installing a new fence. Wooden fences can immediately make your house feel more like a home. They provide the privacy your family needs to bond, allow you to feel safe at home, and provide a great environment for any pets to roam around freely safely in the backyard.
7. Renovations for Children: Renovations in schoolyards have shown to make children more physically active, providing a healthier lifestyle for them. The same is true for home renovations for children. You can do this by installing an in-ground pool (fun for the whole family) or building a tree-house, or by simply buying swing-sets or having a sandbox installed in the backyard. Giving a place to your children to help let go of a lot of their daily energy is important for all homes. New homes are very deficient in this area, and as most parents know -this is not a good thing.
8. The Basement: In some homes the basement is completely left alone, and can be a scary dark place where the only reason for ever visiting it is to do your laundry. If your new home has the room for it, you should definitely think about giving your basement a homely and more inviting makeover. Drywalling your basement and creating rooms is a great start for providing functionality in your basement. You should use light colors to brighten it up a bit, and if there was ever a place for carpet, then the basement is definitely one of the best places to have it installed (as long as there isn’t a constant threat of flooding). If carpet isn’t an option, then you can think about buying rugs to help with the uninviting look of a bare basement floor. Spending time in the basement is all abut being comfortable and being able to relax, which is what you want to keep in mind when renovating it.
9. Landscaping: When you buy a home, the landscaping may have already been neglected for a while leaving your home look unoccupied and an overall unpleasant site to look at. Not only can good landscaping make your home look extremely better, but spending some time outdoors working on your home can help you get to know it better. Good landscape designs are anchored by focal points. One of the best ways to do this is to use water features as the focal points. This is one of the hottest trends out there because not only are water features really nice to look at, but they provide your home with sound as well, and the sound of water can be really soothing. Here are a few tips for do-it-yourself landscaping:
- Use drought tolerant plants
- Make life easier with a low-maintenance yard
- Incorporate hardscape into your landscape design
- Layer your flower beds when planting
- Provide your landscaping with year-round interest
10. Home Gardening: Like landscaping, gardening can provide you with a daily escape and can get your outdoors more often. Having a vegetable garden in your backyard can
save you money on food during the harvest season, and can give you something for the whole family to work on – making it a great way to work on something with your children or with anyone else in the family during the summer season. You can use your vegetables for many different cooking recipes and it is a great way to save money for the expensive, but extremely healthy, hobby of juicing.
11. The Garage: New American homes are getting bigger and bigger as time goes on. Along with that is the inclusion of attached garages. Driving through newer neighborhoods, you will find that more homes have attached garages then ever before. Garages can be your workshop, and act as shelter for your vehicles. Many homes have garages, but not all of them are accessible for spending a lot of time in. Consider insulating your garage, which will allow you to spend time in the comfort of warm temperatures during the winter months and cooler temperatures during the summer.
12.Porch Renovation: The porch is a huge part of the iconography of the American house. It is also a great way to take advantage of beautiful spring and summer weather. Unfortunately, however, the porch can sometimes be neglected when it comes to cleaning and keeping up to par as it is outside of the home. Since it is the first thing a person sees when they enter your home, it will give them the first impression of your home. You can improve the quality of your porch by making it more tolerant to outdoor weather. Framing your porch with pressure treated lumber, pitching the joists so that the porch floor can drain, and giving it a tight roof properly flashed to the side wall can protect your porch from the elements of the Earth.
13. Decorating the Living Room: The living room is the place in the house where the family spends most of their time together. For this reason you want to make sure your living room is designed in such a way that it is a multi-purpose room. The living room reflects your charisma and has to be beautified and styled according to your comfortableness and needs. It can be used for amusement as well as formal functions. If your living room has a fireplace, then placing cushions or small tables and chairs around it can serve as a place for conversation. Another good place for seating would be next to windows – as it is an place that makes reading very enjoyable.
14. Bathroom Remodeling: One simple and cost effective way to renovate your bathroom is to add a medicine cabinet to store medication and toiletries. These also provide a safe place to keep things away from young children, and medicine cabinets makes storing items in the bathroom much easier. Other bathroom renovations include using elegant fixtures, having a bathtub of your desired comfort, selecting durable flooring, and hanging a stylish mirror.
15. Make Your Bedroom Comfortable: Since this is the room where you will be spending most of your alone time, you want to make it as comfortable as possible. This can easily be done by buying things like “chubby pillows” which make your bed very inviting. Other things you can do to make your bedroom very inviting include adding a window 
seat, giving your closet a makeover, and adding some windows. If your attic is above your bedroom, you also have the option to expand your ceiling. If this is the case then installing a skylight or two as well can help flood the room with natural light.
16. Open Up Smaller Rooms: There is usually at least one room in every house that you may find yourself wanting to be bigger. This is especially true if you have a small kitchen with larger rooms around it. If your house was built in the last decade odds are it was designed with an open plan. Something to remember when knocking down walls is that you want to make sure the rooms still function like you’ll want them to function. Opening up an area allows you to monitor other parts of the house better (which is great if you have children) and allows for more natural light to pass through the house. Planning is very important when it comes to this type of renovation. Open rooms and a good flow will also increase the value of your house.
17. Construct an Office That Enhances Focus: When it comes to your home office, you want to make sure that everything is placed so that you will be as efficient as possible. Recycled furniture is a great thing to include in your personal home office as it is cheaper and only you will be spending the majority of the time in there. Painting your office green is a good idea as well as green is thought to help people focus. The office is also a great place for indoor plants and flowers.
18. Make Your Home Eco Friendly: “Going green” isn’t just a way of helping the environment every once in a while. These days, it’s become a way of life. Not only can going green help the environment, it can help you save money. In fact using energy-efficient lighting like CFL’s can save you $100 a year buy just replacing your 5 most used light bulbs in the household. If every family in the U.S.A. did this, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by one trillion pounds! There are an infinite amount of ways you can help save your planet in your home – here are a few of them:
- Plug Air Leaks
- Get a Programmable Thermostat
- Optimize Your Water Heater
- Request a Blower Door Test
- Use Low-VOC products
19. Get Involved in the Neighborhood: Part of moving into a new house is getting to know the people around you and finding your place within the community. You can do this simply by decorating your house according to the season whether it is Christmas or Easter, attending social events like block parties within the community, and going to local parks with family members and children. Getting to know the people around you is important, and you can do this by sitting on your porch, going for walks, working in the yard, and having a garage sale.
20. Turning a House Into a Home Starts With You: As you grow, your house grows with you. The best thing you can do to turn your house into a home with your family is try to provide a safe and familiar environment. Give each room it’s own function, keeping everyone that lives there in mind and do as many DIY projects as you can. You can also make your home your own by putting a piece of ”you” into. Whether its decorating the home with your children’s art, covering up the fridge with pictures of relatives and more magnets than you could ever imagine, spending time around the fireplace, having family cookouts, or simply marking your children’s growth with a pencil by the front door on the wall – turning a house into a home is as simple as showing it love just as you do with your family members.