How to Create a Solo Dream Home - The American Spinster

Is your “Dream Home” Pinterest board languishing while you’re stuck in a studio apartment? Are you longing for the day when you’ll finally be able to create your ideal home in a spacious single-family home?

Spinsters, I have good news. There is only one step in between where you are now and living in your solo dream home. Are you ready for it?

Your one rule is:

Don’t wait.

You read that right. Quit waiting for a better home. The one you’re in is ready and waiting to be the bachelorette pad of your dreams.

Decorate. Show off your possessions. It doesn’t matter if you only have a six-month lease. This is your home we’re talking about. Live there. It may seem like really simple advice, but it makes all the difference, and so few people seem to do it. They move their furniture in, maybe hang up a single poster, but that’s it.

Single women waste years of their lives looking at blank walls because they feel like they need to wait for a ‘real’ house before they fall in love with their space. Don’t wish away the space you’re in – make it count. If you’ve got a one-room apartment, make it the most happening, chic loft in town.

But my landlord is really strict!

If you’re afraid of losing your security deposit or violating the terms of your lease, relax. There are plenty of ways for renters to safely add their own style to their home. For instance:

Buy wall stickers (they’re often available at the dollar store).
Frame and hang some pictures.
Go to Habitat for Humanity and find some cheap, good-looking furniture.
Put up curtains. Make them, or buy them from the thrift store. Nothing improves the look of a room faster.

Just. Don’t. Wait.

The important thing is that you don’t wait. Don’t wait for your next apartment, or your first house. You have your very own space, and that’s a true gift. Use it. Make your home somewhere you want to be. Go through your Pinterest “Dream House” board and put some of those ideas into action. Whatever you do, just don’t put it off. Six months turns into a year, and a year turns into five before you realize it. Don’t waste a single week living in what might as well be a hospital room.

Your home doesn’t need to look like a Pottery Barn catalog, it just needs to welcome you. You have permission to create your solo dream home now. You’re an adult, living in your own space. Make it your home.