How To Create a Welcoming Home
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Can I let you in on a secret?
I used to be terrified of hosting people in my home. And by “people” I mean my friends and family. Even hosting people that I knew and loved made me nervous.
There were a few reasons why I was resistant to opening up my home. I wasn’t a good cook (still true), I don’t always have a spotless home (still true) and I was worried that I didn’t have a good dining table and our couch was too small (and lumpy).
The reasons for my insecurities may have been shallow but that didn’t make them any less real.
But my husband and I pushed ahead and we invited people over for dinner and they kept saying yes. We opened our living room for high school students involved in our local YoungLife group.
Our first house wasn’t big. It didn’t have an open floor plan. But we still made it a space to gather with others.
The first dining table we had was a second hand conference table that came from my mother’s workplace. Our couches were from a shady furniture store and they only cost us $250 for the set. My mom warned me that she had seen a story on the news where couches like the one we purchased were filled with dirt and bugs instead of actual stuffing. Yikes.
But when you are faithful with little, you can be faithful with much.
Since our family believes that it is a calling to bring people together and foster good relationships, we continue to be faithful in making our home a welcoming space.
I wanted to share a few tips with you on how we have made investments in our home with the thought of hosting others in mind.
This post is created in collaboration with Exclusive Furniture. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
How to Make Your Home a Welcoming Space
- Invest in living room seating. You can get a nice comfy couch, or opt for a smaller couch with a few accent chairs. If you don’t have the budget for a new couch, focus on getting several comfy accent pillows to brighten up your current set up.
- A Big Dining Table. Obviously, the size of your table shouldn’t keep you from inviting people over, but I recommend getting the biggest table your space can hold. Look for a dining table that comes with a leaf insert so you can expand the table when you have more people coming for dinner. This will help if you have limited space in your dining room.
- Keep your home (moderately) organized. My home is not perfectly organized but I don’t love toys all over the floor. We have several baskets, media centers, and storage ottomans that we can use to quickly hide away clutter before company comes. This takes away a lot of the stress of preparing our home for guests!
- Have enough dishes. When we got married, we registered for 12 settings of fine china and 12 of everyday china because we had no idea what we were doing. I thought it was over the top at first, but I love that I don’t ever have to worry about pulling out another place setting if someone extra comes over. We don’t have a ton of cabinet space though so we did have to get a china cabinet to store all that dishware in!
- Make Your Home Smell Nice. You can have a diffuser running with your favorite essential oils or have cookies baking in the oven. However, you choose. to add a little fragrance to your home, it is sure to make your space a little cozier.
- Have Good Lighting. Natural light is great, but the sun is usually setting when we have guests over. Get some good lamps to make sure you have great lighting in your living room to make sure all your guests can see each other as yall chat and have intentional conversations.
- Don’t Stress about Food. This was one of my biggest hangups about hosting. I was so stressed about making a great dinner (and it did not turn out well 7/10 times I cooked. I have learned that people are generally just as excited about pizza or burgers as they are about some fancy Pinterest recipe. So go with whatever food works for you. Your guests don’t care about the food as much as you might worry that they do.
Ultimately, your guests are going to feel welcomed to your house because of the love and care you put into their visit. Making your home a comfortable space is the icing on the cake, but the relationships you are building is the good stuff.
If you are looking to upgrade some of your home settings in order to make your home more inviting for guests – Exclusive Furniture is the way to go.
They are a family owned business based in Houston (and I love supporting my local economy) and they do a great job at serving their customers and the community.
Exclusive Furniture has store locations all around the city of Houston, and I really enjoy stopping in and browsing all of their current deals. Plus they frequently have family friendly events and serve snacks, coffee and wine (YES!) in store.
