When you live alone, you don’t have to compromise on how your home looks or functions. You don’t have to explain your layout, your colour choices, your furniture (or lack of it), or why your desk is there instead of a kitchen table. (Easy access to the fridge is important, OK?)
You don’t have to think about whether the space “makes sense” to anyone but you.
And that’s the joy of it.
My home isn’t designed for guests. It’s designed for me. It’s set up for how I actually live—not for how I’d want someone else to see it.
I have a sofa I rarely use, and for the rare occasions I have a friend stay, it folds out into a bed. Mostly, it has a jacket or two on it. I have a stand near my front door, that’s for my motorbike jacket and helmet. It makes sense there. For me.
The chair that fits my back. The desk that holds just what I need. The cushions that make me smile. The stack of books that migrates across the house, always close but rarely tidy.
The way I’ve arranged things is personal, functional, and occasionally unconventional, whimsical. I’ve moved desks between rooms when the light changed. I’ve changed the purpose of a space because my life changed. I’ve chosen comfort and utility over convention.
I had a spare desktop bookshelf, so my bedroom chest of drawers now has a bookshelf on top of it. Why not?
My living room is my workspace and gaming zone. My bedroom has no TV, no distractions—just calm. My kitchen has a drawer full of random things that make sense only to me. It’s not chaos. It’s mine.
My writing desk is cluttered but curated, it’s an intentional space, and everything on there makes me happy in some small way—the satanic duck (that’s Baphomet) I talk to when I’m thinking things through, the helpful raven (That’s Matthew, he holds a light for me), the brass octopus (who doesn’t have a name yet) who sits atop my small stack of index cards that relate to my current WIP.
When you live alone, you get to create an environment that reflects your habits, your moods, your priorities.
And maybe that means you eat dinner on the couch with your feet up. Maybe it means your ‘home gym’ is just a yoga mat that never gets put away. Maybe it means your bookshelf is organised by mood, not alphabet.
The point is, it doesn’t need to impress anyone. It just needs to support you.
Your home isn’t a showpiece. It’s your launchpad, your hideout, your sanctuary.
So build it for who you are—not who you think you should be.
And definitely not for who might be visiting.
That’s the freedom of living solo. That’s the magic of making a home just for you.