What Makes a House a Home

An alternative to the modern, frictionless living space.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦ Exciting Note: I am hosting my first in-person event in New York! I am co-hosting a block-printing party in the West Village with Joyn, where you will leave with handmade greeting cards and new friends. I would love to see you there, and I am excited to meet the Feeling! Magazine community in real life. ˖⁺‧₊˚✦
We have very limited spaces available, and you can grab a ticket here!

What Makes a House a Home

Sleek, frictionless, devoid of chaos and clutter. You can speak a word, and the home will do it. A robot hums as it sweeps the dust of breakfast silently at your feet as though it were never there. Mess never happened. The cabinets close silently, and the door locks behind you.

For generations, the “ideal” home has merged with technological innovation. The marriage of home and technology promised us bliss. Silver, beige, and grey bliss. What we gained in convenience, we traded in some soul. In an effort to be frictionless, we lost a lot of human-ness.

In the summer of 2021, I worked on restoring a Florida trailer park with a small team of people. I was teaching middle school, and was looking to keep working over the summer. The trailer park housed residents who could not, often due to a mental or physical disability, provide housing for themselves. They often had no family or support and had spent years prior living on the streets, in temporary housing lotteries, or in jail. The idea was that true restoration from trauma could best happen if they were part of a neighborhood — a neighborhood with large family-style dinners, gardens with fresh produce, and a vibrant community. The home was their forever home, and they could stay as long as they liked.

The Florida heat was suffocating that summer. An afternoon thunderstorm came daily throughout July, which was expected, but seemed magnified that summer. Grey clouds always loomed at lunch, prompting a daily painting break.

I worked alongside Robyn, who was in charge of beautifying the landscape and making the community garden, and we both wore overalls. I was on the design side — working on mural projects (sweaty) and interior trailer designs (sweaty, also). We would sweat, side by side, as I painted an exterior wall and she harvested fresh okra from the garden.

My role was to meet with new residents and learn what they loved and what made them feel good, and interpret their personality into the interior design of their new home. I’d work alongside the construction team to decorate and customize the space for the resident. Trailers were gutted to their bones and re-constructed into tiny homes with new appliances and air conditioning. We fundraised a modest budget that would be used for decor, and I scoured thrift shops and flea markets to find pieces. That summer, I designed a community sewing space, an art room, corporate offices, and three very different trailers.

The first was Tupac-themed. Yes, Tupac Shakur. We had a local street artist make a spectacular piece to hang above her bed. I lit up her small sneaker collection with LED’s. And in a last-minute plan, I giddily located a Bluetooth speaker on site, so when she opened the door for the first time, Tupac would be blasting. Each time a resident moved in, the entire team had a key ceremony. We’d gather outside the home and pray a blessing over it and the new resident. Team members would recount the resident’s journey to their permanent home, giving them a chance to share more if they wanted. Other residents would often share what they enjoyed about getting to know this new neighbor. Then they’d be given the key and get to see inside for the first time. On cue, Tupac’s “California Love,” was pumping. And I watched the resident hang her head and wipe tears away when she saw her prized possession, her mother’s Bible, lying open on the nightstand. Turns out Tupac was her mom’s favorite, and her mom had passed recently.

The second request I had was a trailer themed as seventies afrodisco. I glued pink fur to a wall and made a vanity space with lights because she loved to do her nails as a hobby. I found red zebra wallpaper and a shag rug to complement. Oh, and a disco ball, of course.

The last was specifically Chip & Joanna Gaines themed. Magnolia all the way. Crisp white curtains, planters, and would have ship-lapped the walls if I could’ve.

It was a summer I wished lasted longer. It fundamentally changed the concept of “home” inside my heart. I used to think home was something to aesthetically aim for, as many twenty-somethings, I imagined my big grown-up life with a home far too big and exactly like my Pinterest boards. But that summer changed me. The modern and the flashy lost their flavor.

Summer scrapbook

I wanted a home that reverberated with feeling. I wanted a home that anyone could step inside and feel reprieve. I wanted a home with a rotating door of inspiring guests to eat my food, drink my tea, and accidentally fall asleep on my couch if they needed to.

The up close reckoning that a safe home was a gift too good to imagine for many changed my perspective to one of gratitude.

Among many lessons, I also realized taste could be made regardless of where I was shopping; if a piece is well designed, it is well designed. Sometimes a luxury design brand makes something truly jaw-dropping, sometimes my jaw drops as some piece tucked back in a corner at Goodwill.

Home is really all about intention. It is the unseen emotion that truly makes it look like a home. Have you ever been somewhere grand, but it felt empty? I remember one time in elementary school, I got invited to a sleepover at a classmate’s house that was basically a mansion. I was so excited to see a home with a giant pool and game room, and then I remembered seeing her room. As a 10-year-old, I was perturbed. Where the heck was the Joe Jonas poster? (I think she was a Nick girl, actually.) The Limited Too lamps? Or something that looked like it belonged to a kid? It was straight out of Pottery Barn, but we were in 5th grade. She was in a sterile hotel, I thought to myself. I remember getting in my mom’s car and thanking her for letting me hang posters and drawings all over my walls.

I’ve thought about many homes in my life that were not my home, but felt like one. I also thought through what specifically mattered most in designing homes for residents. I have collected some of my thoughts about what truly makes a space feel like home, and how to engrain and facilitate that through design.

The good news is, after looking over my list again, these are all ideas anyone can implement, without a large budget or a lot of fuss — whether you are trying to make a dorm room feel like home, or trying to make your home the one your kids’ friends always want to hang out in. Many of the items on the list have little to do with decor and a lot to do with intention.

Here they are: