When I was looking into the purchase of my first home, I paid attention to every detail about the home buying process. I learned more than I really needed to know about real estate and the process of a home purchase. I made sure that I understood home inspections and neighborhood ratings and mortgage rates. I looked at every single house carefully to see if it met a long list of criteria that I had set forth as requirements for the home. But in the end, I tossed most of that knowledge out the window and made a decision about a home based on gut instinct and an emotional response to a place that I really liked.

You see, most of the homes that I’d looked at were empty but this place was still furnished when I went to check it out. The family that lived there loved animals, a fact which was revealed in part by the animal bedding that was on each bed. There was animal print bedding in the master bedroom that struck me as a little gaudy. But then I saw the children’s room and there was horse bedding on the bed, bedding that reminded me of my childhood home. At that moment, I could actually picture myself living in the house. It didn’t matter that there were a few things on my list that this house didn’t quite have; what mattered was that I felt at home in this place. A house should always aim to be a home.

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