The way that you can transform your house into a real home is by making it more livable. Making a home livable really means that you transform an impersonal, sterile, and manufactured space into an area that is full of your personality. A livable home is a refuge from the world, a place where you feel comfortable, a haven from difficulties. Here are a few tips to help you transform your house into a truly livable home.

Top 5 tips to make your home more livable.

Find something that you really love. Too often, when people are decorating their home or redecorating their home, they traipse off to a furniture store right away. They then purchase beautiful pieces of furniture and knick knacks that are pleasing to look at, but that have no personal meaning for anyone in the house. To start making your home more livable, find something that you really love. This can be anything that means a lot to you, whether it's a large dresser from your great grandmother or from the local thrift store, or a pile of interesting and colored rocks that you picked up from a camping trip or an extended hike. When you find something that you really love, you can start arranging your décor around this item. Including objects that mean something to you personally will help you immediately identify with your home.

Think about high-low combinations.

Your entire house does not have to be high end. Likewise, you don't have to make your entire décor consist of hand me downs and left overs from your college days. Instead, combine high quality showpiece and centerpiece items with used furniture, inherited knick knacks, and antique photographs.

Be careful, however, that you still work to make sure that all of the different pieces fit together. There is no point in combining objects that simply don't match. That's not really an eclectic style; it's simply poor style. Choose an overall theme and appearance that you are aiming for, and then pick your pieces-both the high end pieces and the low end pieces-so that they match your overarching style.

Instead of being run-of-the-mill, be interesting.

Go through all of your boxes. What did you pick up on various trips that you thought were beautiful? Even if these objects are not particularly note-worth in themselves, display them in interesting ways. Buy a beautiful frame for a picture that you bought from a street vendor somewhere.

Include the family in your décor.

Now, this tip does not mean that you need to bring your 7 year old in to help you with design decisions. It means that you should collect family pictures and include them in your decorating. This will instantly bring a personal touch into your home and will help your other family members feel comfortable. You can scatter pictures throughout the rooms. Or you can dedicate an entire wall to an interesting arrangement of family pictures.

Think cozy and comfortable.

You don't have to decorate your entire house in cottage-chic to make it livable. Instead, create a few corners and areas that are appealing and act as havens. Choose low lighting, such as small lamps, that make these areas self-contained. Ensure that a number of pillows and blankets are always available for use.

Tie all of the rooms together.

All of the rooms in your house should fit together in some sort of way. This doesn't mean that each one has to be decorated in the exact same way. Instead, choose just one aspect that can tie the rooms together, such as a shape, a pattern that appears in several pillows in each room, or a color that appears in each room, albeit in different incarnations.

Information for this article was taken from http://www.homebuildingremodeling.com.

Always look at the Texas Residential Commission Construction site for registered builders (http://www.trcc.state.tx.us or call 877-651-TRCC). For all your real estate and building needs or questions, call Debbie at (830) 833-4249 or dhomeier@moment.net .