[00:00:00] Christine: You’re tired of moving. Of getting the crappy rental house, because that was the only thing available, or getting the dated house on base because you couldn’t afford anything off base. You’re seeing all of your friends who are not military with their beautiful kitchens, their organized pantries, a home that they absolutely love and that they’ve made their own.

[00:00:25] And when you look at your own home, your own house, where you currently live. You just feel discouraged and defeated. So what do you do you head over to Pinterest to get some ideas? In fact, you even joined the white walls community and what you see is people who have made it, their passion, their.

[00:00:46] Challenge to turn an ugly house into the most beautiful home. And you think to yourself, but that could never be me because you don’t have the hours to spend transforming your home. In fact, you’re not even sure that you want to hang the pictures on the wall, because what if you’re only here for couple of years, should you just give up decorating your house?

[00:01:11] Nope. I’ve got you girl. Today. We are going to talk. Simple things you can do to make your rental house feel more like home without spending a ton of time and energy and money to make a place your own ready, then let’s dive into the show.

[00:02:18] Okay. Friends, last year I did a two part series on turning your rental house into a home? Yes, even 1950s base housing and honestly friends. That was one of our top downloaded episodes because I don’t know about you, but there’s just not enough inspiration out there about making military housing fill like home.

[00:02:46] And when we do see inspiration, it feels unachievable, unattainable. and we are just more likely to give up. And the whole reason I did those two episodes, which I will link below in the show notes, that was episode 28 and 29. You can find them in the show notes and I highly recommend you go back and listen to those.

[00:03:06] But the whole reason I did those two episodes. In the first place was because I feel like home is such a huge part of who we are and how we really love our lives and craft a life with purpose. If you go to my website and you download the growth wheel mill spouse, mastermind.com/growth wheel. This divides our life up into 10 areas.

[00:03:32] And if we are not focused on any one of these areas, life is going to feel off. And home is part of what makes us who we are that gives us this place for us to feel refreshed and renewed. And so there’s so. Goodness and benefits that can come from having a place that feels like home. That is this place of rest and renewal for us that allows us to operate and to function as a family unit.

[00:04:05] And for those of us that work from home, having a space that feels good is even more important. But I know that what usually happens is the, the longer that we are part of military life, the more that we move, the more we get frustrated with the house that we got, we don’t know what to do with it. And so we stop.

[00:04:27] Decorating it, we stop hanging the pictures on the wall. We just, start biding our time waiting for that future season when we can have our quote unquote, forever home to do the things that we want to do. And we really don’t enjoy where we live. And that’s really what I want for all of us is to find simple things that we can do that really.

[00:04:50] Make the space that you’re living in right now feel like home, even if it’s not the house of your dreams, even if it’s not the house you would’ve chosen, even if it has some really ugly aspects to it that you don’t love, there is a way to make your home. Your or your rental house feel more like home. And so that’s really what I want to talk to us about today because we just moved again.

[00:05:19] This is, uh, my daughter is seven living in her sixth house, so we have. Done many different houses. We have tried to make each one feel a little more like home and we’ve done it over and over and over again. And I, so I totally get this idea of like, okay, we’re only going to be in this house for 10 months. Do I really put the thing on the wall?

[00:05:39] But trust me on this. If you will take the time to put something on the wall, if you will take the time to do these simple things, it can make a huge difference in the way that you feel about where you live and your ability. To embrace where you are currently at, and then to find that peace and that contentment with where you are today, instead of just being focused on where you wanna be in the future.

[00:06:08] So much of our ability to thrive is really learning to embrace what we have in the present and make the most of that today. And home is a huge piece of that. I just wanna quickly walk you through 15 things you can do to make your rental house feel more like home. number one. I want you to use inspiration to help you get a sense of what’s possible about your style.

[00:06:37] You can do that by going to Pinterest looking well, Instagram’s a little weird right now because you used to be able to go look at everybody’s pictures on Instagram, and now we’re all into reals and that’s a little bit harder to do. the white walls community has lots of inspiration. Uh, you can find that on Facebook.

[00:06:57] Do a search for white walls and you’ll see, the big white walls group, as well as a lot of the places we’ve been stationed now have local groups, which is way more helpful, especially when you don’t live in a place where there’s as many options as there are everywhere else. helps you think a little more creativity creatively.

[00:07:20] here’s the thing about using these sources of inspiration. They’re a guide, but you don’t want to get sucked into the comparison trap. So if this is trigger triggering for you, don’t do it. Don’t get sucked into something that makes you start comparing yourself to start thinking about why does my space, why can’t, where I live.

[00:07:45] Look like this. If this is something that is triggering for you, stay away. Okay. I just want you to be able to look at ideas for inspiration without feeling like you’re missing out. If your space doesn’t look that way, because what. You really want is to create the right space for you in this season, same way that you are pursuing your dreams.

[00:08:08] Not somebody else’s dreams, the same way that we are working on not comparing ourself to someone else’s, uh, business or their progress or whatever they are doing in the world. The same thing goes for where we live. Go back, listen to I’ll link it below in the show notes, where I talked about the two dream killers, that we face comparison and self doubt and, and learn a strategy for what to do when you feel those feelings of comparison, coming up in you.

[00:08:39] But. What I, the whole point of point number one is to get some ideas, look for inspiration, but don’t become triggered. And in stuck in that comparison trap, I like to go on and look at inspiration ideas because although we’ve lived in many different homes over the last 10, 15, Every single layout has been completely different.

[00:09:05] And so it’s, it’s really like, okay, what do I do with this space? And what do I do with this space? It’s given me a really broad perspective on like all the different things and all the different layouts and all the different ways that people make their space feel like home, but you’ve gotten some inspiration, but I want to go back to this because I think the second thing.

[00:09:30] The first place that some people get stuck and that’s with unpacking. If you think you’re not going to be somewhere for a long time, you just get overwhelmed with where everything is going to go. You don’t even take the time to unpack all the boxes. Now, if you know that there is a reason. Something is not going to fit you, you know, what’s inside of it.

[00:09:51] I totally understand that we were in a house for less than a year and we didn’t have place to put all of our books. And so for that season, all of our books stayed in boxes, uh, in one of the closets. And that’s just what we did for that season, but it wasn’t like I had no idea what was in those boxes.

[00:10:09] I didn’t bother to unpack. I knew exactly what was in them. And I knew there was nowhere for them to go. And so that was the reason they stayed. But don’t just look at all the boxes and say, I’m not even going to bother to unpack because when you are living in this constant state of, I didn’t unpack, it makes you feel inside.

[00:10:28] Like this is not my home. Like this is just a temporary holding pattern. You are forcing your body into this state of survival because you are not choosing to make this place, your home. And so. The second thing I would say is make sure that unless there is a specific reason, unpack the boxes. The third thing that will make your space feel like home is everything having a place.

[00:10:59] I will say number three and number four, they pretty much go together. You want to make sure that everything has a place when things don’t have a place that’s when you really start to struggle with disorganization, with clutter, with everything just feeling overwhelming and it not feeling.

[00:11:20] A peaceful sense of home. I know this is harder or more difficult in some seasons than others. When we downsized our house by half that was a definite challenge point. I work in progress to say, okay, I had all this space. I had everything that everything had at place. I felt like we were in a good system.

[00:11:43] And now I have half the size of the house that I did. And so now everything feels cluttered again. and, and it was a process of learning. Okay. What do I actually need? What is this just a nice to have? I don’t need, this is making this space feel more cluttered and I actually don’t need to hold onto this.

[00:12:02] So make sure that everything has a place. If everything has a place, you’re going to feel a lot less cluttered. You’re. Feel more relaxed when you are at home. So how do you do that? Well, the next thing you gotta do is declutter. You gotta figure out is this something I am currently using? Have I used it?

[00:12:21] Do I think there’s a high likelihood that I’m going to use this in the next home? Or is this something that I’m just holding onto, but I haven’t really used and sometimes that’s easier said than done. I think, uh, the hardest part for me is knowing. Hey, I didn’t use this in the last house, but I used it in the house before that, or I used it three houses ago and, and trying to come up with that balance between what I hold onto, because I think we’re going to use it again.

[00:12:48], and what am I just holding onto for the sake of holding onto it. But, , one of the best things you can do is just take time to declutter. And in this house, I was able to declutter as I unpacked because I had limited storage and I, it kind of forced me to say, okay, there’s nowhere to. Like, do I really need this item versus in homes where there was lots of storage, just kind of like, oh, just stuff it in the back and I’ll get to that later.

[00:13:14] But it really does help us when we can actually take the time to declutter and it doesn’t have to be something you do all at once. You can just take it piece by piece, in certain season. especially as if I have time and I know we’re preparing to move and I’ve had a little more time in my schedule.

[00:13:34] I’ve been able to divide the house into sections and be like, okay, it’s going to take me this long to go through the entire house today or this week, I’m just going to focus on this closet or this drawer. And so you can kind of break it up that way, but take the time to actually spend some time decluttering and that will make your space feel more like.

[00:13:55] and then, uh, the fifth thing is to purpose each space. Now this can be challenging. If could, if you don’t want to spend a whole lot, you have, you know, we went from a smaller house into a larger house. Then you have this empty space and you’re like, okay, what do I do with this? And the desire is to go out and.

[00:14:11] Buy all the stuff to fill it up and, and really just say, okay, do I need that stuff? Am I going to use that in a future space? Or is there something else I can do with this space? In the meantime, that’s not going to cost me a lot of money. I spend a lot of time scouring, Facebook marketplace, or the buy sell trade pages just to.

[00:14:33] Hey, is somebody getting rid of something that I could use for this season or, depending on where you live, if you have like a neighborhood curb alert, as people move, they get rid of stuff. And so we’ve been able to find a lot of good deals, that way of people that are just giving us stuff away or selling things really cheaply because they don’t wanna take it with.

[00:14:54] When they move. So it takes time to purpose each space, but when a space feels like it has a purpose, it feels so much more like home than if it’s a room. You just crammed a bunch of stuff in, or it’s an empty room without any real purpose. The next thing is curtains. I will harp on this all day long because I just see what a difference it makes.

[00:15:21] Uh, this has been true in this house that we are currently living in. We went from our last house, which was basically a bunker with only a couple windows in the entire house to a house. Full of windows in every room. I’m like, oh my goodness, to be able to put curtains on every single window would cost me a fortune.

[00:15:42] What can I use? What do I already have in which rooms really benefit the most from having curtains? And that’s why I was super thankful that I still have my curtain box. And I had a lot of curtains from past homes that we’ve held onto that have come in really handy in a house. Lots of windows. If you go back to my episode from last year, I’ll talk more about the curtain box and you can listen to that, but having curtains really does make a difference in the space.

[00:16:13] I will put a couple of pictures on the blog post when I  have this episode in case you didn’t know every single episode of the milspouse mastermind show is also on our blog of  milspouse mastermind.com. You can click on each episode, it will have the link. So you can listen to the audio file as well as a transcript of each episode.

[00:16:36] I try to put some photos that go along with the episode as. So I just wanted to let you know, I will try to put some pictures of rooms with our curtains. So you can see just the difference that that makes number seven is wall art. Now I know because I’ve had so many friends that I’ve talked to, they’re like, oh, I I’m not even going to put the pictures on the wall.

[00:17:01] It’s just, I’m so tired of moving. I don’t want to mess with it guys. Guys. Oh my goodness. Just put something on the wall. It doesn’t have to be amazing. It doesn’t have to be spectacular. There are so many ways that you can put things on the wall that, are cost effective. That are not heavy that you can do simply.

[00:17:24] But really help make that space feel more like a place where you live. It makes it feel more like home, just some general guidelines, because I think this is where people struggle the most. If you are stateside and you have access to, resources and by resources, I mean stores, because the last couple of places we’ve lived, there’s been no Ikea or home goods or hobby lobby or any of that stuff.

[00:17:55] We’ve been very blessed that we have had access to Ross, which I know not everybody has access to. So some places you live, it’s going to be easier to find Walmart than others. It also depends on what will ship to you. I know what it’s like to live somewhere where you can’t get anything shipped.

[00:18:18] you have family photos, check out smallwoods home. That’s a great way to get affordable wall done. That is also lightweight and easy to hang on the wall. You can look for local art. I’ve gotten several pieces from Etsy. You can find all sorts of staff on Etsy now.

[00:18:41] Here’s what I want you to do. Two things. Number one, it’s great. Anything that you can find that you can hang with command strips. That is awesome because it’s the easiest thing to hang up. You can even reposition it a little bit. And it’s so easy when it’s time to leave.

[00:19:02] Just take it down, take the command strips off and you’re good to go. So I absolutely love command strips. I have command hooks. I have all the command, everything. Those are amazing. The second thing that I would say to remember with that is, larger, not smaller. I see a lot of times people will try, try to hang up a lot of little stuff, but then it honestly sometimes makes the space feel a little more crowded.

[00:19:30] So if you can find like a big piece that kind of fills the space, that frames out the room a little bit more, just something to think. Okay. Number eight is paint on the wall. You can listen to last year’s episode for more on my thoughts on paint. We actually did not paint in our current house, which is the first time in a while that we knew we were going to be somewhere for a while and didn’t paint, but actually the first time where we had like a neutral wall color.

[00:20:03] Didn’t annoy me. So we’re, we’re going without the paint this time, even though, I would love to have my bedroom painted. We decided it just wasn’t worth it for this season. But paint can make such a huge difference.

Number nine is having plants. Now, if you’re like me, you have a black thumb, you don’t have to have live plants.

[00:20:26] You can get fake plants. That sense of greenery really does make the space feel a little more alive and homey

Number 10, Okay. Hear me out for a minute. Your bed can make a huge difference because where are you spending every night? Well, I would say hopefully eight hours a night, but I’m not in bed for eight hours. Every single night you are sleeping in your bed.

[00:20:52] And if you have a space that feels warm and inviting, you are excited to get in your bed, that just makes you your whole house, your whole space feel much more like home. So get the bedding that really makes you happy.

Rugs can make a huge difference. Just putting the rugs down. It, it really makes a difference in the way that the floor looks and feels.

[00:21:21] It really purposes a space. if you can find rugs, if you can find a way to get them shipped to you, just consider putting a few rugs down and see the difference that it makes inside your home.

Number 12, blankets and throws. just having a couple of nice throws around, really adds like that texture and that character to your space.

[00:21:48] Pillows can do that too. It’s just really about having these nice things that make it feel a little more warm, a little more inviting a little more like the space that you are excited to be. The next couple of things are really more about the way that your space feels. And it’s interesting because it’s really all about our five senses, right?

[00:22:18] So we’ve talked about a lot about the visual aspect of what we’re seeing, but then we need to talk about some of the other aspects. So number 13 is candles and diffusers. What is the scent in your home? Now? You wanna be careful with this because there’s lots of different smells that have additives to it.

[00:22:39] And some of them can give me a. but whatever, if you can find some like natural soy candles, get some diffusers, like really just make your space feel that have that welcoming scent to it. And that can make a huge difference in your space. Number 14 is the sounds. My husband is really good with this, but he loves to have music playing if he’s cooking breakfast in the morning, or if we’re having dinner, together as a family, like just to have that background music in the, in that sound makes a difference in the way that your house feels to make it.

[00:23:22] More like home. So of all of the 14 things we’ve talked about so far, like none of them are involved in like trading out, like fixtures. You don’t have to put, you know, the wallpaper on the wall. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to cover you’re linoleum floors. You don’t have to go like all out to make this special feature wall to make that space.

[00:23:45] Feel more like home, there’s just little accents and things you can do to really make the space, a space that you love for this season. Even if you don’t love the layout of your home, you don’t love the carpet in your home. You don’t love the wall colored or whatever it is. That’s like really bothering you.

[00:24:04] There are simple things that you can do that aren’t gonna take a ton of time and effort and energy that can really make the space feel like home. And like I said, the more that you choose to make this, not just a house where you are abiding your time, but really embrace where you are living in the season that you, you are in and learn to love and appreciate what you can about the home.

[00:24:31] The more. It’s going to make, it’s gonna bring you joy and make you feel settled in that season. In our last house, you know, we had the house with the popcorn ceilings, the 1950s house, there was a lot that I did not like about that space, but I really liked how we made it. Our own, how we made it, this cozy space, where we could feel at home, it’s absolutely possible without going all out and doing some of these things that you see when you look at Pinterest or white walls or whatever.

[00:25:03] But the last thing. that I would say to really make your space feel like home is invite people in. I, I know sometimes it’s like weird. It’s like, oh, it’s my space. But if you will open up your space, if you will invite people in that is where you start to make those connections where you start to build those relationships that are really what you’re going to remember about a place it’s really going to be the connections.

[00:25:31] The people. What you did with that space, that truly matters more than how the space actually looked and whether it ha you know, the nice kitchen countertops and, and all of the open floor plans and everything that we see that we think that we want. It’s really about what you did with the space that you have.

[00:25:53] And I totally get wanting that forever home, that beautiful home noticing like all your friends that have that. And it feels like we are continually we’ve gone from 1950s housing to 1940s housing, which I will say this house has been remodeled. It’s actually really nice because you got some of the more modern feature with some of like the character of the older homes.

[00:26:16] Uh, and I’m really embracing that in this season. But yeah, I don’t love my kitchen and that’s just what it is right now. But these 15 things are little things that you can do, but they can really transform the way that you look up the way that you think about where you. Now if you are the DIY type or that is something that you are super passionate about, you have the time you have the energy, I will say by all means, put the peel and stick tiles over your linoleum floor and wallpaper the wall and build your own picture lead ledges, build your board and Batten, create your own feature wall.

[00:26:57] Those are absolutely awesome. And I’ve seen some amazing things that people have done with rental homes. If that’s not you, you can still have an amazing place that you call home for this season. Even if it’s not the house of your dreams. Even if you hate the kitchen, you hate the popcorn ceiling, the ugly carpet, whatever.

[00:27:19] It’s about finding a way to make the best of the space. You have to accentuate the good and to let the other stuff go. Yes, you can go out, you can transform the rental, but that maybe not your thing. And you don’t have to do all of that. To have a space that really feels like home. Think about the elements that make you feel at home that bring that sense of contentment and peace and belonging.

[00:27:51] Think about your senses. What do you love to see, to smell, to hear. What is it that you want to do with your space? How do you want to feel inside of it? What will function best for the life that you are living? Not what someone else tells you to do, but what you want. And that. What you can do to stop dreaming about some future season and really embrace the life you have today and the space that you have today and view it, not as just a house that you are existing in, but a place that you.

[00:28:30] Can be proud to call home. All right, friends. That is all that I have for you today. Hop over inside of our Facebook community. Let me know what you thought. Let me know what you have done to transform your rental house into a home. I would love to see you pop some pictures in there so we can share ideas with each other.

[00:28:50] I hope that this blessed you don’t forget. If you want a tool to help you figure out how to create a life. You love go to our website, download the growth wheel, milspouse mastermind.com/growth wheel. That will help you start to look at 10 areas of your life and how you want your life to look and feel in each of those 10 areas.

[00:29:14] I hope you have an amazing week friends. Until next time may you live filled, fueled, and full of joy.