Every home seems to gather its own collection of scents.

Some come from the things we choose — a favourite soap, fresh flowers on the table or the perfume someone wears every day. Others simply arrive with life in the house: coffee in the morning, onions softening in a pan, laundry drying nearby or rain coming through an open window.

We live among these smells so often that eventually we stop noticing many of them.

Then we leave home for a while.

Coming back, even after a short trip, can make the familiar noticeable again. You open the door and for a moment the house smells exactly as someone visiting it might experience it.

"Some memories return before we've even had time to remember them."

The Smells We Grow Up With

Think about a home you knew well as a child and there is probably a smell somewhere in the memory.

It might be Sunday lunch already cooking when you woke up. Furniture polish in a grandparent's living room. Soap in the bathroom. Damp earth after rain. A particular spice that seemed to find its way into almost everything.

We rarely decide that these things are important while they're happening.

Years later, one familiar smell can bring back details we didn't know we'd kept — the room, the weather outside, perhaps even who was there.

Every Season Changes the House

Homes don't smell exactly the same throughout the year.

Warm weather brings open windows, cut grass, flowers and food eaten outdoors. Colder months move life inside. There is more cooking, heavier blankets come out of cupboards, windows stay closed longer and warm drinks appear more often.

Even small changes become part of the season.

A bowl of citrus on the kitchen counter. Bread in the oven. Fresh sheets on a weekend morning. Herbs being chopped for dinner.

None of these needs to become a special occasion to leave an impression.

A Home Becomes Familiar

Of course, we can choose some of the fragrance around us. We can light a candle, bring flowers home or find a room spray we enjoy.

But much of what makes a home smell familiar comes from simply living there.

It comes from meals being cooked, clothes being washed, windows being opened and people moving through the rooms day after day.

Perhaps that's why the scent of home can be so difficult to describe.

We know it when we walk through the door.