Getting a House Ready

My wife and I have owned our house for over five years and we have done a pathetically small amount of work to make it a home. We’ve only painted two rooms, we finally bought chairs for the kitchen this month, and we still don’t have a dining room table.

Since Amy’s summer clinical work came to an end earlier this month, she’s had a few more spare days in the week, and has used it to do a little cleaning and organizing. One day this week, I came home to a beaming wife, who proudly proclaimed that she had tidied up our basement. Our basement is unfinished and basically has dirt for a floor, but when I took a peek down there, I saw neatness: garden tools hanging orderly on the wall, the floor nicely swept, and all sorts of open space created.

It occurred to me in that moment that I had spent very little time making our house into a home. I’ve probably spent more time tidying up my office at work to make it a welcoming place for others when they meet with me than I have with my very own home. I guess I work and study so hard during the week that on the weekends, when many people are putting in considerable hours to make their house a home, I just want to watch a little sports on TV or do a few crossword puzzles. The fact that wallpaper is peeling away in the hallway or that my books are still stacked up in a corner of a closet hasn’t fazed me; somehow I’ve just tuned it out for 5+ years.

But with my wife’s successful basement cleaning and a baby on the way, I think I just might have the inspiration to make our house a little bit more like a home.