Moving into a new build can definitely be exciting, but it can also feel a bit strange at first – everything’s clean, untouched, and unfamiliar, and although there’s nothing wrong with the house itself, it might not feel quite like home right away. That’s completely normal, and the good news is that there are some simple ways to make a new place feel lived-in and personal from the very beginning. Read on to find out more. 

Photo by Andrew Mead on Unsplash

Bring Familiar Things In First 

One of the easiest ways to settle into a new build is to surround yourself with things you already love, like furniture, artwork, photos, cushions, even your usual mugs. These familiar things can help make you feel calmer, especially when the walls and floors still feel a bit blank. 

It’s always going to be tempting to wait until everything’s perfect before unpacking properly, but using your everyday things right away makes your new home feel warmer and more comfortable, so it’s an important thing to do. 

Focus On How You Live Not Just How It Looks

New builds are often designed to appeal to everyone, so they’ll often feel a bit neutral, so instead of worrying about style right away, think about how you actually use each room – where do you want to sit? Where are you going to work? What routes are you going to take? Where’s clutter going to end up? 

Once you know the answers, you can make sure you arrange furniture and other things in the right places to make it all happen a lot more easily with no frustration. 

Add Warmth With Simple Changes 

Soft furnishings make a really big difference, and so do rugs, curtains, throws, lamps, and so on – they’ll instantly take something that feels brand new and make it feel a lot more lived in and comfortable. And if you’re not in the position to add all these things at once, just doing it a bit at a time is still going to help massively. 

And lighting is especially important. If you can swap harsh bulbs for warmer ones (and make them LED while you’re at it for energy saving), you can turn a space into something you’re comfortable in without much effort at all. 

Give Yourself Time 

A new build isn’t going to become your home overnight – it’s going to take actually living there with your routines and everyday moments, and making memories, of course. You can’t rush any of that, but one day you’ll look back and realise it’s happened. 

In fact, if you’ve bought your home through shared ownership, you’ll already know it’s a gradual process and that patience is going to come into it, so just think of settling in as an extension of that, and by the time the place is one hundred percent yours, you’ll be completely at home there. 

Final Thoughts 

A new build might start off as a blank canvas, but that’s part of the appeal because you can make it uniquely yours – true, it might take time, but it’ll be worth every second.