“Eventually you’re going to have to remember where we live,” I told my wife as she clicked the garage door opener. As we settle into our first home, it’s become clear she can’t quite pick out which house is ours until she sees the garage door rising. I’m hoping this is a temporary problem because the only solution that comes to mind is placing a large neon Knutson sign in the front yard. I don’t think our new neighbors will appreciate it.

Lately I’ve been dwelling on what makes a house a home. This is the third structure my wife and I have lived in together, and each move has felt more like home than the previous. The day after we married, my wife moved from the basement apartment in our duplex to my main floor place, and we were thrilled to finally be living together. Our move to the townhouse in Rochester meant living in the first residence that would be new to both of us. It was a different kind of moving in because we both decided what went in which drawers, how we’d arrange the furniture, and where to hang the photos. When we moved this weekend, I had a feeling we would be feeling even more at home.

There is something that comes with moving into your own house that empowers you to take charge and truly make it your own. Sera and I had spent months looking for the perfect home (in our price range), and upon moving in realized the many changes we’d like to make to what we had pre-determined to be a perfect fit. I’m still fascinated by how many changes we have planned to make to our home despite how much more we liked it than many other places. Perhaps a house becomes a home because of its potential one sees in it.

Our little upgrades to make this house our own were mainly focused around things we weren’t able to do in our previous dwellings because we were renting. Sera made it very clear she wanted to paint the bedroom, and that it should be done before we were actually living in the new place. She had a point; it is certainly easier to paint a space before you’re living in it. When we found ourselves at the store on Friday, I knew we wouldn’t be leaving without a few cans of paint in the car despite not knowing the day prior what colors we intended on painting the bedroom. Weeks of discussion led to uncertainty as we stood in front of hundreds of color samples and confidently chose two different grays that we had previously not considered. Was it the right choice? Only time will tell.

Does a house become a home when you’ve changed out the locks? It certainly felt like we finally had our own place when the locksmith came and gave us all new keys. The only hiccup was the previous owners broke a key in the back door to the garage, meaning the locksmith couldn’t re-key it. After another trip to the store and some one-on-one time with a new door handle and screwdriver, I was certainly feeling more like our house was our home.

Maybe a house feels like a home when you’re adding something to it. Just yesterday Sera and I installed vertical blinds for our sliding glass door that leads to the deck. I’m not sure why the previous owners felt comfortable inviting everyone to look into the house for so many years, but this minor upgrade definitely made Sera feel more at home.

Perhaps a house feels like a home when you’re used to waking up there. Our first night meant staying in a room smelling slightly of fresh paint accompanied by Sera and I switching our traditional sides of the bed (correction: we don’t have sides, but rather, I am always to sleep on the side closest to the door to thwart potential home invaders). The night was also filled with my wife awaking sporadically with a burst of panic as she fearfully asked where in the world we were. My repeated reassurances of, “We are in our new bedroom, in the new home we purchased, and you can go back to sleep,” were effective until the next wave of terror struck.

More than anything, it seems like the thing that most makes a house feel like a home is time. As we approach the conclusion of our first week as homeowners, we’ve already made a number of changes and improvements to the house. Sera is remembering where we are in the morning, and we’re arriving at the right house when the garage door opens. It might be another week until Sera’s finding it without the garage door opener, but until then, we’re well on our way to transitioning house to home.

 

Rochester resident Matt Knutson is the communications and events director for United Way of Olmsted County.