Home is one of those words that brings us instant comfort when we think of it. We learn the value of home in different ways starting from our earliest memories ... when we had a bad day at school but had a safe place to come back to... when we became insufferable door-slamming teens... and then a little further along the road when we bring our babies home for the first time from the hospital.
It's incredible how concrete, water and wood can become a place that gives us a sense of who we are and where we belong. I still remember the home I grew up in. It holds the same value for me as has every place I've lived in—no matter the distance, the country or the size of the roof.
As minimalists, our spaces teach us valuable truths: A few square meters are enough space for us and our dreams. Living with less is the best way to live freely and clutter-free. Comfort is not found in a cluster of cushions, comforters and scented candles—but rather in making that home truly ours. There's no price to the peace found in one's home but instead we learn that no material things can match the almost spiritual feeling of being at home and the sacredness of a home well loved. A home might be ever changing, it might not be bricks and stones. It might be found in a group of friends, in hugging our little ones tight, in the memories we keep that warm our hearts.
To me, my minimalist home is made of the stories my little E and I have built in it. It's made of our daily battles, of the lessons we've learned in it. In the chattering of friends who visit and the afternoons lying in my balcony hammock thinking of life, feeling grateful or sometimes even defeated, yet at home.
The sense of a home grows fonder as we become less attached to the material. It pulls us closer to feelings, it warms our houses and turns them into homes.
Home can be wherever you want it to be. It's about presence and not property. A home can be full while having only what you truly need in it.
