Making any Place "Home Sweet Home"

Dan and I have moved 10 times in 4 years. We've lived in Washington State, several cities in California, Minnesota, and Utah, from luxery apartments to basement apartments to apartments whereupon our first day of moving in we found an official letter on our door that read, "The serial rapist terrorizing our apartment complex has not yet been caught..." and then detailing his description, the latest person he assaulted (an elderly woman), and warning us of ways to stay catious (which I translated into "stay indoors all day with the blinds drawn and the doors locked. If you must buy food, starve. If your dog has to urinate, TOO BAD. If you open your door you WILL be raped.") That's how I felt living there, at least.

Moving so much has been both an adventure and a pain in my hASSle! (That's not technically swearing, right? Points for me.) We've experienced the feel of different cities like the lush greenery of Washington, the pristine buzz of Minneapolis, the dry desert beauty of Murrieta, CA, and so on.

We own a home in Lehi, but as it is quite large for the 2 of us (do the math. 1 large house + 1 husband who works + 1 wife who takes care of the home = too much house for Stephanie to clean without plotting ways to hire young children for cheap labor) we are fortunate to rent it out. It's an investment property, not the home we want to have a family and a life in. Currently we are tackling the idea of either buying a condo, or finishing our basement in our Lehi home and turning it into a separate entrance apartment and living there rent free for a few years while we save up to build our custom dream home.

So. In the meantime we have gotten very good at figuring out CHEAP ways to make rental spaces our own. In many rentals you can't paint the walls, so I realized that if I wanted a warm, inviting, colorful space without painting, and even without putting holes in the walls, I could buy lightweight Styrofoam insulating sheets from Home Depot, buy several yards of fabric to wrap around and glue to the sheets, and then get that thick double-sided tape to tape it up on the walls. The result has been turning these ugly-ducklings of rental rooms into..., well, maybe not swans. But definitely geese. Geese are a worthy comparison. Here's the result:




We used to move so much because of Dan's work. However, as Dan has been promoted and chosen a better company to work for, we now have the option of staying in one place for good! No more moving!