We bought our house almost three years ago now. It remains undecorated, with our photos on the walls as our only decoration.

It got me thinking. This doesn’t feel like my home, it’s just the place that houses all my possessions. Maybe coming from being a long-term renter; and technically we do still also rent our house with it being shared ownership. We were never allowed to decorate, apart from repainting when we moved out.

We never got to choose carpets. They’ve always been there. We couldn’t do any decorating as we had to wait a year for the house to settle. It still creaks and moves, by the way.

I’m in no hurry to decorate it. Heck, I’ve almost grown to love the plain white walls and the sense of ‘clean’ it has. But then I see other people decorating and I feel like maybe these four walls might start to feel like a home if we make a start.

The only time we painted a room a colour that wasn’t “landlord magnolia” was the time we painted H’s room yellow. Which of course was repainted when we moved out, back to the neutral shade.

It’s a very strange feeling. We’ll have been here three years in a few months. Maybe I should just paint the walls white and be done with it!

This conversation came about while chatting with my mum. I pointed out how the home I grew up in doesn’t feel like “my home” any more like it used to. But actually, “my home” doesn’t feel like anywhere. That actually, what is a home anyway? Is it just the four walls and what’s inside makes your home?

I understand how people have attachments to places, in my days as a renter, I remember being heartbroken several times when the landlords decided they were selling up so we had to move out, when I had felt settled.

So in the end I learned not to be settled, that nothing lasts forever. That someone will come along and change things. That the only way you’ll never be moved on is owning somewhere, but knowing that owning somewhere was a distant dream, that stop passed several years beforehand.

I look at properties online and see homes and houses. I wonder, when anyone visits here (back when you could), do they see this as our home?