Residents offer tips on making a house a home
Residents By Caitlyn Kelleher Journal Staff Reporter
Moving into a new home is one

of the biggest changes that a person can make, and with the moving comes the boxes, remembering a new phone number and, the hardest part, trying to make a house a home.

Stephanie Simons, a new resident to Westminster, is trying to do just that for her family as they settle into their house on Old Town Farm Road. The family moved from Elizabethtown, Ky., this August as Simons' husband prepares to retire from the Marine Corps.

"You never get used to moving and meeting new people," she said. "The main things are to get involved in the community and to personalize (the house)."

Every professional has tips of their own that they like to share. Real estate agents suggest banks, schools and postal service information, but those don't always solve the needs of settling into the house.

And the Simons have a lot of experience settling into to new homes after spending 20 years as part of the Marine Corps.

The couple has been married for 18 years and throughout that time they have lived in various parts of the country for varied amounts of time. They spent five years in North Carolina before moving to Kentucky for one year.

"You have to do a lot of cleaning and painting and all other stuff," Simons said about moving in.

Each house the family has owned has its own look and its own feel. house a home "Each house gets its own set of colors," Simons said. "This house is on a wooded lot and gets no sun. So next weekend we are going to take down the paneling and paint it some nice bright colors."

In the three months that they have lived in the house most of the boxes have been unpacked, but she says they are still trying to find places to put everything.

"It's creating your own home environment," she said.

The most important rooms the Simons try to re-establish are the family room, the kitchen and the kids' rooms. The other rooms then fall into place.

This time the family is taking another big step to establish the new home. They are buying new furniture.

"We sold a good portion of our furniture just so we didn't have to move it," she said. "A new environment and a new place and it was time to get new stuff."

She added that it was time for much their furniture to be replaced and updated anyway.

Megan Reitz also moved to Westminster this summer with her family.

"We bought an old house, so I think the house had a lot character when we moved into it," she said. "I was lucky because the person that had the house before us had great taste. We kind of like the old stuff."

The family bought a house on Pleasant Street. She said the key to getting settled is putting up the family photographs especially for the children.

The goal when she moved was getting the children situated.

"I think with kids that was our main focus - letting them pick where they want their furniture and how they want it set up," Reitz said.

Adding and updating the kitchen can be an important step because many family activities focus on that room.

Simons bought a new dishwasher and refrigerator for her house.

But some people don't want to spend that type of money.

"Just changing cabinet hardware can change the look and make a huge difference," said John Baker of AtHome Design in Fitchburg. "If they want to get into something more, change the counter top. That isn't a huge amount of money. You will have a totally new look if the cabinets are in good shape."

Baker added that moldings can be added throughout the house and those will change the look of a room.

"The main thing was that it's a new chapter in our life," Stephanie Simons said of the move to the new house. "We did a lot of research and fell in love with the area. We're getting comfortable and established. It's starting over."

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Caitlyn Kelleher can be reached at (978) 827-3386, ext. 15, or e-mail: editor@thecommunityjournal. com