living at in-laws

My husband and I are a few months married, and due to the state of the economy we are living at his parents’ home. We’ve agreed that this is not a forever thing, but we’re planning on starting a family soon and agreed to find our own place when that time comes.

His parents live permanently in a town about 1.5hrs away from the city the house we’re staying at is in, but they do come down at least 1-2x/month for a few days. My in-laws have always been very sweet and kind to me, but we’re still trying to build that more familial and familiar relationship. Their family dynamic is quite different from mine. My in-laws are more distant and kind of in their own world and don’t keep their home as orderly as I’m used to growing up. Whereas my family dynamic was more warm, communal, and keeping the home clean was a priority.

Although we live in the home, it’s still full of his parents’ furniture, belongings, etc as if they still live here. Essentially the only space that is “our own” is our room and bathroom.

In the grand scheme of things, I feel really grateful to have in-laws who’ve opened their home for us to live in without the stress of rent. But I can’t shake the feeling that I still feel like a guest, and want to be able to nest and decorate and create a home for my husband and I. We’ve gotten lovely wedding gifts to fill a home, but 1) we don’t have space bc of his parents’ personal affects in the house 2) I don’t want to disrespect his parents by adding things to the common area when it’s still their home.

When the in-laws are not with us, I can kind of maintain some feeling that it’s “our” space especially w the level of cleanliness. But when the in-laws come to stay with us, it feels like the dynamic shifts quickly where any effort I’ve made to maintain “order” and our own way of doing things goes out the window and reverts back to how the in-laws run their home—loud voices with one another but little interaction w me, staying in their own rooms and not sharing meals together, leaving things strewn across the house, dirty dishes around the kitchen, their dogs having accidents in the house, leaving dog poop all over the yard for me to pick up..in short just a feeling of overwhelm and chaos comes over me.

I know these visits are short, but I’ve found it hard to feel comfortable when they happen and find myself leaning into my work-at-home situation and staying in our room. I know it’s not my place to set boundaries when we’re being given a free place to live, but it feels a bit stifling and doesn’t leave room for my husband and I to set our own rules or standards in the way we’d like to live. Sometimes my in-laws give notice of when they’re coming, other times not. On some instances they’ll have family friends I’ve never met stay with us who are passing through town, and it leaves me with the responsibility to be “on” and entertain and look after their comfortabilities.

My husband doesn’t feel this quite as much as he goes into the office for work and has been staying at this house before we got married. I feel this also makes him less pressed to find a new place to live especially when we’re considering cost of living. (Note: we’ve had discussions about finding our own place a few times)

TL;DR how do I effectively express to my husband my reasons to find our own place when we technically have our needs met with our housing situation? If we’re to live here for some time, how do I make this house feel more like home when his parents’ belongings are still here?