Our homes have been so much more than homes in 2020. We’ve worked from them, exercised in them and stood outside them and clapped the NHS. We’ve put our children’s drawings of rainbows in our windows and shared doorstep drinks with our neighbours. We’ve cleared out cupboards, painted walls and grown our own vegetables. In this series of blogs, we celebrate some of the ways our homes have helped us through the year – even if it wasn’t quite the year we were planning.

Lockdown showed me my home's potential

‘You’re slowly turning into your father,’ I was recently informed. Not just by my mother but my wife. It was a somewhat damaging blow to say the least, especially on a family Zoom call but, after the year that we have all had to endure, it wasn’t all that significant.  

Maybe they’re right, I later thought to myself. A favourite proverb of my father’s is ‘there are none so blind as those who will not see’ which until recently I had paid little attention to. So often is my working week spent rushing in and out of the house that I had become guilty of not fully appreciating it.

As lockdown loomed and it became clear that time spent in the house would increase, I bought myself a pressure washer. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be so satisfying. Seeing the garden pathway and steps to the house glisten in the spring sunshine took me back to when my wife and I fell in love with the house at the first viewing, a few years ago.

Since we became homeowners, I have always considered myself to be house-proud. But the sight of the restored stonework from such an effortless clean on my part made me realise I’d perhaps taken my home for granted.

What began as a bit of a spring clean evolved into a deep clean and me truly seeing the potential my home has to offer. Before I knew it I’d purchased a fancy new vacuum cleaner which – and it brings me no shame in conceding this – has changed my life. It has certainly changed the carpet’s.

Through the fulfilment of giving the house a bit of a spruce up, we have begun to reimagine the space we are living in and planning little projects for each room. This includes the space that has assumed the role of my office and, rather bizarrely in retrospect, was where I joined my new employer and left my previous one during lockdown.

There has been undoubted upheaval in our lives this year but it has afforded me the time to open my eyes and truly appreciate the space that I call home…and to come to terms with turning into my father. AE, Staffordshire

Further information

This series of blogs is inspired by Savills new advertising campaign, To Every Home That's Been So Much More Than A Home – Thank You and Merry Christmas. Over the next few weeks a selection of guest bloggers will reveal just how much their homes have meant to them this year.