Tag Archives: small house living

One Hazard of a Small House

By Claire Posted in Clutter, downsizing, Retirement, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

An elderly couple I know has lived in the same little house for over 50 years. They raised their kids there and it has served them very well, until now.

The problem is that there’s not a lot of room to move around in their house, and they both use walkers. So “traffic jams” are not unusual.

There is one solution: remove some of their furniture to make more room for them to get around. But they’re very attached to their belongings and don’t want to allow any changes to be made (their offspring are willing to do the heavy work).

This actually reflects a common problem that keeps people of all ages from decluttering: they hate change, so they would rather live with belongings that no longer serve them than to give them up. That’s how they end up living in cluttered houses.

In a large house this might not be such a problem (unless even the hallways are full of clutter). But in a small house, it takes very little for the halls and traffic patterns to become blocked. Only someone who is committed to keeping their home livable would be willing to get rid of possessions if that’s what it would take to keep them in their home.

I’ve thought that about my own small house. The living areas have some spare space, but the bedrooms do not. They’re pretty small. If we live here until we’re elderly, we’ll have to get rid of some furniture in order to move around safely if one or both of us end up using walkers. We have several tall bookshelves that are full of our treasured books and hobby materials. They would probably be the first to go.

The Furniture Hunt Begins

By Claire Posted in downsizing, Personal, Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

I know I said I wouldn’t start looking for smaller scale furniture right away, but apparently, I lied. Today, I couldn’t resist the temptation to take a peek into one furniture store that I have to drive past to get groceries.

Oh my gosh. Last time, I noted that there are tons of small sofas for sale online. Well, there were none in this store. Only ginormous sofas. Even the loveseats were big. And I saw a sectional sofa that was so long in both directions that it would not fit in our living room unless we let it completely block the front door.

I can see this is going to be harder than I thought. Many of the small sofas I saw online were not of the highest quality. They often call them apartment sofas, I suppose because people use them to fit into apartments, which tend to be on the small side. But such people often move frequently so they aren’t looking for quality, long-lasting furniture. However, I am.

With the Christmas tree up, we’re more cramped in the living room than usual. This has only increased my motivation to find good-quality, small-scale furniture for our living room. However, I suspect this might take a while.

A Small House Should Cost You Less, Not More!

By Claire Posted in Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged

At the public library, I saw a book about small house living. It was full of very modern and expensive-looking new small houses with lofts, stone siding, high-end appliances and pricey floors. I felt like the author and publisher were missing the point.

One of the biggest benefits of small-house living is that it keeps your costs down, freeing up your money (so you can stay solvent) and time (so you can do other things instead of working like a dog to pay for an expensive house). Having a small house filled with expensive features requires a certain level of income that an increasing number of people don’t have anymore. So it seems silly to focus on so many showy small houses with inevitably large price tags.

Small houses were once very much in vogue, and can still be found all over the country. Now that small houses are making a comeback, people are realizing that an older, well-built small house in a good neighborhood makes more sense than anything else in the real estate market. Unlike condos, there are no HOA fees or rules. Unlike large homes, there are low utility bills and property taxes.

Some of the houses in that book I saw had fancy stairways with backless steps made of metal. Many existing small houses also have two stories, but I prefer a ranch. It’s a lot easier to move into a one-story house than a two-story house. Also, as I age, I can see that someday, steps will become my nemesis. Many other baby boomers are coming to the same conclusion, so I think ranches will be extremely desirable for the foreseeable future.

In any case, once you age out of the need or desire for a large house, small-house living becomes very attractive, whether you want a basic small house or one of the modern ones like I saw in the library book. It just makes so much sense in the times we live in now.

Off-Grid Dwellings Could Be On-Grid, Too

By Claire Posted in Small-House Living Tagged , , ,

Off the grid dwellings seem to be a big thing these days. I’d like to see inexpensive flat-pack homes become a fad in areas near pricey cities, so that working people have more affordable housing options. What good is it to slave away all day to earn barely enough money to live near your work? People are getting stressed out by this lifestyle. If you can’t or won’t move to the more affordable sticks and learn to live on a lower income (and I’m not dissing that! It’s what we did), then wouldn’t you jump on a small, affordable place of your own near work?