What is a House? What is a Home?

What is a House? What is a Home? Is there any difference between the two or these two are the same thing? Have you ever thought of how a house differs from a home? Let’s figure it out in this blog.

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.

-Mother Teresa

A house is a makaaan (in Hindi) and a home is a ghar (in Hindi). There is a saying in Hindi “मकान ईट पत्थर का बना होता है और घर उसमें रहने वालों से बनता है”. Translated in English “A house is made up of bricks and rocks and a home is made up of the people living inside it”.

In 2011, I came across a beautiful poem on this topic that I would like to share with you all today. The poem is “A House, A Home” by Lorraine M Halli.

What is a House? What is a Home?

What is a house?

It’s a brick and stone and wood that’s hard.

Some window glass and perhaps a yard.

It’s eaves and chimneys and tile floors

and stucco and roof and lots of doors.

What is a Home?

It’s loving and family and doing for others.

It’s brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers.

It’s unselfish acts and kindly sharing

and showing your loved ones

you’re always caring.

– Lorraine M Halli

No one can deny that this poem is true and lovely. Each word of the poem reflects the true feeling. House remains a house until someone makes it a home. The people living inside the house, make it a home.

Building a house can be easy but making a home needs patience, courage, love and dedication. 

My acrostic poem on HOME is as follows: 

H = Happy to live in with

O = Our family members

M = Making sweet memories and 

E = Enjoying every moment of life.

What is a House?

A house is a structure made up of bricks, wood, stones and cement. The more money you spend on making a house, the more beautiful and magnificent it can be. A house may or may not have people living in it.

What is a Home?

A home is the most comfortable place to live in this entire world that provides you the feeling of security and love. It can be big or small, but it hardly matters. What matters is the love, happiness, care and the memories of the people living inside a home. 

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.

– Benjamin Franklin

What makes a House a Home?

A home is always a house. To make a house a home many attributes play a role. The attributes that really makes a house a home are as follows:

1. People: People are the most important attribute that makes a house a home. The people here includes the family members such as mother, father, parents, children, etc. 
2. Love: After the family members, the second thing required for a house to become a home is love. Without love between the family members, a home cannot be a home. 
3. Happiness: Happiness is also a requirement for a house to become a home. A happy family makes a happy home. 
4. Food: Smell of delicious food coming out of the kitchen is what makes a happy home. I cant forget how much I missed my mom’s food when I was in hostel during my post graduation studies. Food also connects family members to each other. 
5. Security: Sense of security and feeling safe inside a house also makes it a home. A house which does not provide security cannot be the best homes.

There are other attributes too like a cozy place, furniture, a warm and clean bathroom, spacious bedrooms and living rooms that are important for a comfortable home. But to make a house a home, a house does not need to be spacious and humongous.

A small cozy house with favorite people residing, spending time together, loving and caring about each other is what makes a happy home.

Home is where the heart is.

– Pliny the Elder

Those who have spend some part of their lives living in a hostel or traveling for long time, can really understand how important a home is. We long for our favorite spot inside our house. We long for the food of our moms. We long for the warmth and coziness of our homes. 

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.Maya Angelou

– Maya Angelou

Learning from the Pandemic

East or West, Home is the Best. At least this is what we learned from the Pandemic 2020. House is the best place, that protects us from visible and invisible enemies. We feel more secure in our homes than anywhere else.

What is your thought on this topic? Do you agree with the poet? or Do you have other take on it? Please share your views in the comment section. I would love to know. 

I would like to end this post with a funny quote that I found on home. I hope you will like it too.

I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, ‘Get the hell off my property.’

-Joan Rivers

Happy Home Happy Living.