Making a house a good home for living alone requires some introspection. Here’s how to create a home you love while living solo and getting to know yourself at the same time.
Living alone is becoming increasingly common, with more people living in one-person households if they can afford to. While the reason behind living solo varies – freedom from the burdens and stress that flatmates bring, independence from family, or separation from a partner – every person goes through a journey of self-discovery during their solo living experience.
It’s an amazing feeling, finally having everything to yourself. You get to do what you want and when you want to. While we may get distracted by the notion of what living alone should look like – I, myself, went through a phase of living in a self-styled bachelorette pad, complete with a minibar and a rooftop jacuzzi and hated it – it’s essential to make a home that really appeals to yourself.
Often, what we want becomes clouded when we have to sacrifice to accommodate others’ needs. Making a house a good home for living alone is a time we can really dig deep and get to know our ‘home self’.
It’s not as simple as finally being able to leave a dish in the sink when we want or having a shoes-off rule. It’s about getting to know what makes you feel at home. How you peel back from compromise and sacrifice.
Create your ultimate routine
When we live with other people, we build a schedule to accommodate each other’s particular rhythms and necessities. You may grab a shower earlier so your partner can sleep in or eat dinner later so you can catch up with your flatmate and their day. We’ve all made adjustments in the name of peaceful coexistence.
Solo living gives you the opportunity to settle into a routine that is most comfortable and beneficial for you. Ask yourself, “What would really make my day?”. For some, it’s an early workout followed by a big breakfast. For others, like me, it’s a slow start, sipping coffee in silence, staring at the morning light glistening over the waves. Or maybe cooking with music while sipping a glass of wine helps you unwind at the end of the day. We all have morning-to-night rituals that help us feel like our best selves.
Not only will getting to know your routine help you know yourself better, but it will ultimately help you in your relationships. I always let people know my boundaries with my routines should I ever have to travel with them, or cohabit, to better-set expectations and ease the time spent together.
Define what makes or breaks a home
When people walk into my place, they are always surprised by the absence of a television. For many, having a TV is an integral part of home life: so much so that when I participated in the census in Spain, I was leaning towards being on the poverty line for not owning one.
I have never considered the big, black screen an essential part of my home life. I did realise, though, that certain things turn a space into a home for me – my dog, books, a sharp cooking knife, lots of pillows – and not just things but particular ambiences, such as silence and a view of nature.
Everyone has a unique definition of what home feels like, and it has much to do with their routine. Whether you love to entertain and feel more at home in a space that can be shared, or you enjoy spending time cooking alone where a great kitchen is non-negotiable – it is our unique individual requirements that turn a house into a good home. Creating a home designed according to our individual needs allows us to feel at ease and fulfilled by our immediate surroundings.
Don’t look to others to establish your specific requirements at home. Your friends can have the most desirable patio or the greenest balcony, but if you don’t like gardening, then somewhere like that may not be where you will feel most comfortable.
Be realistic. Be creative. And most of all, be true to yourself.
Find your cleanliness comfort zone
Each person has their version of what clean is, and it’s up to you to find your comfort zone with dirt, so to speak. I abhor shoes in the house, so I change into house slippers at the door, which affects how often I need to clean my floors. I will, however, leave dishes in the sink all day, but I live alone, and my rules go.
I wasn’t always this way, though. Living with roommates, you try to minimise arguments by being as clean as possible, and I’ve lived with some neat freaks. So much so that when I started living alone, I would get stressed knowing I still had dishes in the sink when I had to run out for something or go to bed.
So, I sat down and figured out my “have to be clean” priority, so I don’t get overwhelmed when I have too many work projects on the go at work and can’t do everything at once. I even had to employ positive thinking to reframe my inner thoughts on cleanliness to remind myself, “my kitchen is a mess because I love to cook and I feed myself very well”. Now I can invite people over unashamedly even if my windows have not been washed for ages or I have pots in the sink.
Get a taste for your own taste
Living with other people can put a damper on your cooking habits – if you have any cooking skills, to begin with. If you’re just moving out of your parent’s home, you may not have any experience being in the kitchen by yourself. Or living with a flatmate or partner had you compromising on what foods should be prepared. I’m Asian, and there were many times that I couldn’t cook what I wanted because my flatmate wrinkled their nose and said it was just “too smelly”, or boyfriends couldn’t handle the spice.
Cooking for yourself is not just a basic necessity. It’s a way to show yourself love and self-care and find what you love to nourish yourself. Take the time to know what makes you feel satiated. Is it a glass of Chablis at the end of the day or avocado toast to start your day?
It’s time for you to truly get to know your palate without thinking of what judgement others might offer. I say this because I love a good, spicy stir fry in the morning, and no one thinks of it as breakfast food. Now that you’re on your own, cereal can be dinner, and a spicy peanut noodle stir fry can wake you up if you prefer.
Creating a space you feel at home in can be daunting for anyone. As much as it is tempting to follow fashionable trends abound in Pinterest or Apartment Therapy, ultimately, where we truly feel at home is up to us.
Whether it’s having half a dozen gaming consoles, a dedicated crafts closet, or just doing away with the things that do not work for us at home – living solo is the perfect time to spend more time and money on things we genuinely love, making us feel who we are in our homes exclusively designed by us for living alone well.
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