This post not sponsored by KB homes

Home. 

Imagine yourself home.

What does that look like? Does it look like where you are? Does it look like your house?

We're coming up on two years in this house and I've realized that when I picture, "home" in my head it looks nothing like where I actually live. Apparently, I'm not the only person who has this problem. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday and she also felt a disconnect between "house" and "home."

So that begs the question...what am I imaging and how can I make my house more like it? When I picture a "home" I imagine a 2000 sq ft cookie cutter suburban house with builder beige walls that is totally clean and sparsely decorated. Something like this:

This is a "Before" photo from 

Honey We're Home.

If you tell me you're watching a football game or a movie or something this is where I'll picture you.

Same thing for kitchens, I don't imagine my kitchen, I imagine this kitchen:

Cedar Bay Mattamy Homes Model Kitchen Northside Jacksonville FL

None of the rooms in my house even remotely resemble these rooms. I've never lived in a house that's been decorated like this. If you gave me a million dollar budget and an entire Pottery Barn catalog to choose from I would never, ever come out of the other side with rooms decorated like this. You can check out my Pinterest boards for the evidence. This is great but it isn't what I'd pick.

Julie do you want beige? 

No.

Dark cabinets?

No.

A tan sectional?

Maybe...er...no.

One of those tall kitchen tables and bar stools for the island?

Not really. No.

So why is this somehow the gold standard for me? How in the world does this read as "home" when I've never had a home that looks anything like it? My friends and family don't have homes like this either. They have eclectic and funky houses, classic style, beach themes, cottage chic or just a mish mash of joyful mess that somehow works perfectly.  I've been to houses like this but I've never had any lasting impression of them. What's the deal, brain?

Regardless, whatever we have going on isn't working for me. Too much clutter, too many tools, too many holes in the floor....besides the obvious approach of "patience" I don't know how to make myself more comfortable. 

I'm a little concerned that my nomadic lifestyle may have made feeling settled in one place an impossibility. 

SO, in the mean time, I find home not in the space but in the details.