Making Your New Home Your Own

This week, we're all about helping you to make your new house all your own - to reflect your own tastes and interests. Of course, styling a new home is a highly personalized and subjective process, and what may work great for other families may seem utterly pointless to you and yours.

A lot has to do with demographics, of course. Younger couples have different needs than middle-aged families do, and aging, empty-nesters have other priorities altogether.

So let's take a look at what some of those needs are, through the years.

A recently-married couple with no children, who have just sunk their entire piggy-bank into buying a new home. You know that they're not going to have a lot left, initially, to make improvements. Fortunately, these homeowners have the gift of youth and energy. They may not have much stuff, but they can scrape up some money for paint and wallpaper, and suit their new home to match their tastes.

I'm sure you've heard the phrase 'sweat equity' and that's what these younger couples are all about.

This young couple is going to be "house poor" for a while, so entertaining at home, will be a priority. This couple may invest in a new gas grill for the deck, and perhaps some patio furniture for those weekend pot-luck parties with friends and neighbors who are in a similar place in life.

Skip forward 10 years or so, and that young couple is now a family, with 2 or 3 kids. In fact, the tight space of that starter home is what prompted this family to graduate to a larger home. It's amazing how much stuff our couple has managed to acquire over the past decade or so, and most of that stuff is moving with them, making it that much easier to claim this new house as their own home.

But priorities have changed, as well. Mom and Dad are no longer thinking as a couple, but as a family. The nifty basement cocktail bar that was fine when the kids were little, has now morphed into a family room, with plenty of space for a wide screen TV that the kids will be using for their video games.

Even in a new home, expanding space is a valuable commodity as families grow and couples age. Basements get finished, decks become year-round sunrooms, and spare bedrooms become offices or home gymnasiums. All of these improvements are the small touches that really do help to make a new home your own.

Of course, as we move forward another decade or so, the kids are now out of the house, and our once-young couple is ready to move on to a home that won't cost so much to heat or require so much time and effort to take care of.
After spending the first two-thirds of their lives acquiring stuff, our empty-nesters are now eager to divest themselves of material goods, and downsize to a more comfortable home.

There are practical concerns, of course. Staircases that were an after-thought earlier in life are a much more significant factor in home planning now. Some older couples prefer a one-level home just in case stairs get harder to climb. But older couples also have the luxury of time, and that plays a big role in making your home your own.

Back when you were running the kids to soccer games and meeting deadlines at the office, you didn't have the time to enjoy your hobbies, and you didn't have the space to spread out, not with a whole family around. Now, you have your freedom back, and the opportunity to create that craft room you've always wanted just for yourself. Of course, you'll want to save space for a bed in that extra room, because you'll soon have grandchildren who will want to come spend the night as well.

In the end, no matter how old you are, you're going to find that the place where you lay your head at night does very quickly become a reflection of who you are.

What's really most important is who you're sharing your space with.

If you're fortunate enough to have a spouse and children, you'll find that they, more than any piece of furniture or any bit of home improvement, are really what turns a house into a home.

Written for Real Estate Today Copyright © 2010 Presented by the National Association of Realtors ® All Rights Reserved.