Simplified Ride: BIG MOVE : LITTLE HOUSE

"Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned by them rather than housed by them."

-Henry David Thoreau

I have been reflecting a lot on how many people questioned the wisdom of downsizing into a smaller house. So many people just couldn't get their minds around why a family of five would ELECT to go from an 1100 square foot, three bedroom house down to 800 square feet and two bedrooms. Well, we have been in the little house for 10 days now. And can I just say that it has been amazing?! Downsizing and simplifying our life has really proved its worth this past week.

I love this little place that Tom made for us. I wish I could REALLY make you understand how much work he put into it. Literally every square inch was toiled over by him in some way. My most recent hobby of collecting mid century furniture played some perfect timing for the decorating. I must admit that I loooooove how it all turned out. This house was built in 1943 as employee housing for the US Army's Manhattan Project . We wanted to decorate it to reflect how it may have looked as a family would have lived in it during the 1950s. Most of the furniture is in fact, from the 50's or 60s.

Don't you love the blue fridge Tom found for me?


The kids love the hardwood floors for sock skating...and they are great surface for Dizzy's trains! The electronics are clear indicators that we are, in fact, in the 21st century.

The new section of kitchen is still under construction, but I still love all the room in this space.

We dropped one bedroom, about 300 square feet, and a lot of closet space for this house. And amazingly, I have never felt so much space! We have only been bringing over what we absolutely need to live with. That has been such a great feeling....to leave behind the "things" we don't actually need. If I am being honest...we are still swimming in things that we don't need around here. But we probably downsized by at least HALF! We are going to have a big estate sale soon to get rid of the rest of that stuff at the other house! In the meantime, this is how I keep the stuff I still can't bear to part with from cluttering the house back up. See those suitcases? I have about 30 of them. That is not a dramatic exaggeration. That is most likely an understatement. I do, in fact, have a little crush on vintage luggage. So I am putting a few of my favorites to good use and selling the rest. Simple as that!


How do you fit 5 people's "stuff" in 2 bedrooms with virtually no closet space? Like this : )

So can I summarize all the things I adore about the new place?

CLEAN: Every night we have a clean house. It is sparse, simple, and CLEAN. (Maybe not your version of clean...but this is white gloves on my scale!) For those of you that know the tornado of a home I have historically kept....you can totally understand why this is a big deal for me!
NO MORE SHUFFLING: I am no longer frustrated at myself, Tom and the kids over the amount of CRAP that just gets moved from this corner to that corner. All. Day. Long. I swear I spent every waking moment at the old place just moving stuff back and forth! You know what I've learned? If you don't have it....you don't have to move it. Yeah. It is actually that simple.
RESOURCEFULNESS: I am only bringing things into this house as I need them. I am treating this as baby steps to the ultimate goal of learning to live on the absolute minimum. One day soon, I want us to have the confidence and freedom to put our lives in a backpack and meet some adventure. So I am learning to re-think what we actually need around here. That means I might be making dinner and realize that I do, in fact, need salt. But guess what you don't need?

A Microwave. Stoves are really hot and I already have one.
Slotted Spoons. Have you ever tried to drain liquid off the side of a TOTALLY run of the mill spoon? Crazy...I know! I challenge you to try it. You will not believe your eyes.
23 Cookbooks. Years ago I copied all the recipes handed down to me in my own personal cookbook. And the rest come from...wait for it....wait for it.......the Internet. Call me new-fashioned. Call me a sell out if you must. But at the end of the day I want to know that 735 people have tried this recipe and gave it 4.5 stars. Yes. I am THAT dependent on your opinion people.

MY BACKYARD...AND MY FRONT YARD. I have this amazing view of our crazy big and fun backyard from a massive living room window. The kids have so much space to play and it makes me so happy to watch them from almost anyplace in the house! And then...directly across the street is the perfect parking lot for riding bicycles. And a rope swing that Tom hung from a big beautiful tree. And the most amazing climbing tree. And a swing set. And best of all, a very random but perfectly placed STAGE in the middle of this huge park. I've already been invited to a "performance" that they have been practicing this week.