It's taken longer than we'd planned to start turning our first house into a place that feels like home – this is how I'm going to do it

Content creator Lucy Kalice is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on cleaning, home decor and making the most of small spaces. See the rest of her articles here.

My fiancé and I moved into our first home, the house we currently live in, in February 2022 and not long after discovered it had subsidence. If you don’t know, subsidence is where the house moves and the movement causes damage to the property aka your worst nightmare. As you can imagine this was not what we wanted to hear as 25-year-old first time home owners. We knew the house would need a lot of reconstruction work to fix the issue, so we didn’t do any decorating or any home improvements for years. Our thought process was time spent doing this would be wasted as when the reconstruction works began, it would only have to be redecorated again.

Fast forward to July 2025, all the reconstruction works and decorating has been completed. The house is officially subsidence free (hooray!) and now it’s time to make it a home. A proper home, with finishing touches complete, little sentimental decorations around the house and personality. Buckets of personality. There’s nothing more I love than a house which oozes character. So I’m going to fill you in on how I’m going to bring the cosy homely vibes to my home, and maybe you can take some inspiration for yours.

The first one might be a bit niche, but I’m going to add radiator covers to all my radiators. A bare radiator is so cold and drab and quite frankly, a sight for sore eyes. Unless of course it’s an art deco radiator – they are the exception to the rule. Radiator covers can be fairly inexpensive, although I appreciate the more radiators you have in your house the more they can add up. But the simple addition of a radiator cover makes a world of difference in making a room feel complete. And when it feels complete it feels homely.

Next, I’m going to hang artwork and photos around the house. I think this is what brings a house to life and adds the personality. You can tell a lot about the people that live in a home from the artwork that’s hung so I think it’s important to curate it carefully – even if that does take a bit more time.

I have 3 pieces of artwork hung up in the entire house and no photos, shocking I know. I am quite particular though and I want to really like the artwork, not just buy it for the sake of it. And as for photos, I will definitely be having some wedding photos on the wall after I get married in May!

And the last way I’m going to make my house a home is by adding more textures to each room. This can be in different ways but I’m going to focus on rugs, cushions and curtains. The main aim here is to add warmth and depth. It adds to the cosy and homely feel to a room and at the moment I am lacking of all three of the above.

In the kitchen I have bi-fold doors and I hate that I feel so exposed in the evening time – I can’t see out but someone could easily see in. So the top of my list is to get some curtains for the kitchen for some privacy. I also have wood flooring all downstairs so I’m going to add some rugs to the lounge and the kitchen snug area. The contrast of the hard floor with a plush rug makes the room feel more inviting. So simple, yet so effective.

So to summarise:

• Add radiator covers to radiators to make a room feel complete
• Hang artwork and photos around the house to add character
• Add rugs, cushions and curtains to rooms to make them more inviting

Here’s to making our houses homes in 2026!