🌿 17 Small Ways To Find Home When Home Isn't There Anymore
Building home out of scraps, memories and frayed threads of hope.
🌿 Hello, lovely! I’m Nospheratt and this is Joy Every Week - a weekly quest to find joy in everyday things. You’re receiving this either because you subscribed or someone forwarded it to you. Enjoy! :) 🌿
Home.
Home is a place that belongs to you. A place you belong to. Safety, sanctuary.
A place you know well; every little detail, the tiniest imperfections. Every small noise, the cracks and the sighs. The complaint the faucet makes when you turn it, and which are the hours with the best water pressure.
How quiet it is at night, how it changes with the seasons. How it smells — that unique smell that can't be explained or replicated and it's unique to each house, each building.
Your body knows where the light switches are, which windows get the best morning light.
I’ve been thinking about this because I’m leaving the place I’ve called home for three years, and going to a temporary arrangement that’s… That I don’t know for sure how long it will last.
I’m feeling adrift, unmoored.
I have been through bad housing situations in the past, so I have all these scars and old pains and alarm sirens blaring through my skull, even tho what’s happening now is not the same as before.
But the wounds are still here.
There’s a part of me that is terrified.
So I’m thinking about home, and how to find it in a temporary, uncertain place.
That liminal space between “I live here now, this is mine” and “I don’t belong here.”
The place where I don’t have my usual anchors. All the little things that tell me this place is my home.
If you’ve ever moved, specially to… uncertain places, you know how everything feels weird, unfamiliar, vaguely threatening. Maybe you're sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Maybe the echo of the room still feels too loud.
So you build home out of scraps, memories and frayed threads of hope.
🌿 17 Ways to Make a New Place Feel Like Home
(Even if it's temporary. Even if it’s not yours. Yet.)
Bring your scent with you
Candles, essential oils, your favorite laundry soap — whatever smell makes your nervous system exhale. That’s your portable atmosphere.
Claim a corner
Just one spot that is yours. Throw a blanket over a chair, put your book there, sit with your coffee. Start small.
Put something soft under your steps
A rug, a towel, even a sweater or scarf. A little bit of sweetness for your tired feet.
Get a lamp, not just overhead lighting
It can be small, it can be cheap; it doesn’t matter. Ambient light = instant coziness.
Set up one “ritual station”
A tea corner, a journal nook, a skincare basket. Something that says: this is what I do when I’m safe.
Tack something to the wall
Posters. Postcards. Polaroids. Quotes. Even painter’s tape and a sticky note. Decorating, even minimally or temporarily, is a way of claiming the space, making it yours.
Bring one ridiculous comfort object
A plushie, a rock from your garden, a weird trinket. The sillier, more joyful and personal, the better.
Arrange snacks like you’re nesting
A bowl of fruit. A shelf of instant soup. A box of cookies and a bar of chocolate. Anything that feels comforting and familiar.
Listen to your music
The playlist that keeps you company while you unpack, cry, or exist in socks and disorientation. It can be sorrowful or energizing; whatever helps you to keep going.
Make your bed as intentionally as you can
Even if it’s a mattress on the floor. Layers, softness, your scent. A cocoon makes a home, and it gives you a place to return to at the end of a hard day.
Hang up your bag or coat
That small gesture of “I’m staying” rewires your brain toward rootedness.
Open the windows. Let the space breathe.
Or close it and light incense. Either way, make the air yours.
Set up a charging station
Practical magic. Charging your devices is basically 2025s altar work. 😂
Give yourself a soundtrack for “arrival”
A specific song you press play on when you come back in the door. Your cue that you’re back in your realm.
Talk to the space
In your journal, out loud or in your head: “Hello! I’m here now, at least for a while. Let’s try to like each other, and be friends. Let’s take care of each other.” (It works. I don’t know why, but it really helps.)
Use a familiar cup or utensil
Something from “before.” Drinking tea out of that mug makes the tea taste like home. (For me, it’s the mate — no matter where I am or what is happening, my mate and my thermos are always there with me.)
Unpack one thing that isn’t essential but is you
A beloved photograph. A book. A scarf. A framed print. Anything that reflects your identity, expresses who you are, what matters to you.
Anything that is you — that’s how you make home anywhere.
That’s It For Today!
I wrote this for myself, but as always, I hope it’s useful for you; be it as a guide, inspiration or reminder, even if you’re not in between right now.
Do you know someone who’d enjoy this? Please share! 😊
And if you enjoyed it, would you click on that little heart at the bottom? It really helps me! 💚
Until next time. —Nospheratt 💚🌿
Blanket, books, bear & comforting mugs were my staples when I moved & started my new life last year. I hope you've made pockets of home where you are
"Charging your devices is basically 2025s altar work." Lol, right?