Your home should change as your life changes

Why didn’t we do this years ago?

As life keeps updating, your home should too

“Why didn’t we do this years ago?” I’ve heard those words countless times over the last twenty years at the end of a project. Sometimes they’re said with a smile, sometimes through tears, but almost always while somebody is looking around their home with a mixture of pride, relief and disbelief. What strikes me every time is that they aren’t really talking about the decorating. They’re thinking about all the years they could have spent enjoying their home if only they’d made the changes sooner.

Our homes are the backdrop to almost everything that matters. They witness family meals, birthdays, Christmases, ordinary Tuesday evenings and quiet Sunday mornings. They’re where children grow up, lives change and memories are made, yet it’s surprisingly easy to stop noticing when a home no longer supports the way we’re living. We adapt instead, promising ourselves we’ll sort things out when work is quieter, when the children are older or when we finally have more time, until one day we look around and realise that the house that suited us perfectly ten years ago no longer quite fits the people we are today.

Has your home kept up with your life?

When people ask what I do, I usually say that I help people improve their homes and gardens. It’s true, but it isn’t the whole story. I work mainly remotely, using photographs, videos and conversations to help people see what is no longer working for them, understand what needs to change and make a practical plan before they start spending money on a project. Very few people contact me because they simply want help choosing a paint colour or finding a new sofa. That may be how the conversation starts, but quite often, once we’ve talked it through, we realise the paint isn’t really the problem at all.

Many of my clients have been coming back to me for years — some for more than two decades — so I’ve been able to see first-hand how their homes need to change as their lives change. I may first meet someone when they want help with their living room, then hear from them again as they tackle other decorating projects or the garden, move house, see their children leave home, retire or need to make room for a dependent relative. The circumstances change, but the principle remains the same: your home should change as your life changes – it should work for the life you’re living now, not the one you were living five years ago and not some imagined version of life in the future.

When is it worth updating your home?

We tend to think about home improvements in terms of what they might add to the value of the property, but there’s another kind of value we often overlook: what a change could add to the years we spend living there. Not everything has to be broken, worn out or absolutely necessary before we’re allowed to improve it.

Sometimes it’s about making the home you already have fit the life you’re living now. Perhaps you no longer need all the bedrooms and would get far more pleasure from turning one into a hobby room, home gym or cinema room. You might add a conservatory because you’d use it every day, or a jacuzzi because you know it would tempt you into the garden far more often. And sometimes it’s much simpler than that. The sofa, curtains and carpet may have years of life left in them, but if you’ve stopped enjoying the room you spend every evening in, there’s nothing wrong with deciding that now is the right time to update it.

Some of those changes may add monetary value to your property and others may not, which is why I think it helps to ask a different question: “Will this add enough value to my life for the time I expect to live here?” If you’re planning to move soon, it makes sense to think carefully before making expensive or very personal changes that could limit the appeal of the house. But if you expect to be there for years and a change would genuinely improve the way you live, waiting until something needs replacing can mean postponing years of enjoyment for no particularly good reason.

Perhaps that’s part of the answer to “Why didn’t we do this years ago?” The right time to improve something isn’t necessarily when the old version finally wears out. Sometimes it’s when you realise that a change would make life better now — because the sooner you make the right change, the longer you have to enjoy it.

What should I change in my home first?

The answer isn’t always obvious, especially when you’ve lived with a room for years and become used to the things that aren’t quite working. I help my clients work out what genuinely needs changing, but just as importantly, I help them understand why. I don’t simply hand over a list of instructions; I explain the thinking behind my suggestions, so they learn from each project and become more confident in the decisions they make next time.

Sometimes that’s all the help a client needs: a good plan to work through and the confidence to get on with it. More often than not, though, I become what I call their “project buddy” — someone they can come back to whenever they’re considering another change to the house or garden. That’s really why I describe myself as a Home Makeover Coach rather than simply an interior designer.

I’ve had clients who were completely overwhelmed at the beginning of a project send me photographs months later saying, “Look what I’ve done with this room too!” They haven’t suddenly become interior designers; they simply understand their own home better.

So why do we put these changes off?

There are all sorts of reasons, and some are more emotional than practical. Our surroundings become so familiar that we can stop noticing how much they affect the way we feel and live. There’s growing evidence to support that connection: UK Government guidance recognises the importance of natural light, views, adaptability and being able to personalise our homes, while research from the RHS shows that gardens can support wellbeing, social connection and a sense of belonging. Its Wellbeing Garden Blueprint even starts with how people want to feel in their garden, rather than simply what they want to plant there.

None of that surprises me. After more than twenty years working with people in their homes, I’ve seen how important it is for our homes and gardens to keep changing as our lives do.

One emotion I hadn’t expected to encounter quite so often in this work is guilt. People feel guilty because they spent a lot of money on something that turned out to be wrong, but still feel they ought to keep living with it. Even more often, they hold on to furniture or possessions because they were gifts or belonged to somebody they loved. Perhaps the dining table belonged to a parent, the cabinet was a wedding present or the expensive sofa seemed like such a good idea at the time. I understand that completely, but I’ve also learnt that keeping something out of obligation can quietly prevent a home from moving forward.

Letting go of a piece of furniture doesn’t mean letting go of the memories attached to it. Sometimes we can move a treasured piece somewhere it works beautifully; sometimes it’s enough to keep one meaningful object rather than everything associated with a particular time in our lives. I would never tell somebody what they should part with, but I can help them look at the decision differently. The people who cared about us would surely want our homes to support our lives today rather than become places where we feel guilty about changing anything.

Seeing where you’re going changes everything

Perhaps the most powerful part of a project comes when somebody can finally see what they’re working towards. People can find it very hard to know what they want until they can actually picture the finished result — and once they can see it, everything starts to fall into place. A conversation or written plan can explain an idea, but a clear visual brings all those separate decisions together.

That’s why an Inspiration Image is now part of every plan I create. Once I’ve received the room or garden photographs, understood what isn’t working and worked out what really needs to change, the Inspiration Image brings everything together and helps the client see the direction we’re heading before they begin. Having that overall vision doesn’t mean everything has to happen at once; it means you can work towards it gradually, perhaps one room at a time, knowing that each decision still belongs to the bigger picture.

The projects I remember most aren’t necessarily the most expensive or dramatic. They’re the ones where everyday life quietly becomes better: the client who suddenly enjoys having friends round, the family who starts using a room they previously avoided, or the person who rings me in tears at the beginning because they genuinely can’t see how they’ll ever get out of the mess and later tells me they can’t believe they live in the same house. Those reactions can be emotional — very emotional — because by then we’re no longer really talking about paint colours. We’re talking about relief, confidence and finally enjoying home again.

And that brings me back to the words I hear more than almost any others: “Why didn’t we do this years ago?” There’s usually a little regret in the question because people realise they could have been enjoying the result for all that time. I would never encourage anyone to spend money they don’t need to spend or to change an entire home at once, but I do believe there can be a cost to endlessly postponing the things that would make everyday life easier.

If your home no longer fits the way you live, you don’t need to know exactly how to put it right. You just need to recognise that it could work better — and perhaps give yourself permission to do something about it.

Because the best home improvements aren’t really measured in pounds, paint colours or beautiful photographs. They’re measured in all the ordinary moments you get to enjoy afterwards.