it takes a heap of living to make a house a home

alternative it takes a heap o' livin' to make a house a home

1. USA house is simply a physical structure and does not count as a home until significant events in the inhabitants' lives have occurred there over a substantial period of time, and they have developed an emotional bond to the house and its immediate environs.

   We often hear the famous lines quoted that it takes a heap of living to make a house a home, but we have to recognize that the family cannot do it without a house in which to start.

   1973, Government of Canada, House of Commons Debates, Official Report, Volume 3, p. 2476 (Google search result)

   2 more examples

   It may take a heap of living to make a house a home, as the old cross-stitched samplers used to urge, but a commission-collecting realtor cannot deposit a six percent cut of a seller's hearth sentiments in a bank account.

   1989, Carlton T. Mitchell, Values in Teaching and Professional Ethics, →ISBN, page 123

   Just as "it takes a heap of living to make a house a home," and just as it takes character to turn an individual into a reliable person, so it takes sustained moral human interactions to make any institution viable.

   1995, Max L. Stackhouse, On Moral Business, →ISBN, page 28

   Synonyms: it takes a lot of living to make a house a home