Author Archives: Claire

About Claire

I’m a writer, declutterer, and lover of fabric, furniture and books (oh, and my laptop!) I especially like to write about decluttering and debt-free living.

Downsize: Living Large in a Small House by Sheri Koones

By Claire Posted in downsizing, Simpler Living, Small-House Living Tagged , ,
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Author Sheri Koones downsized from a nearly 7,000 square foot house to 1,400 square feet when she and her husband became empty-nesters. So she has personal experience with downsizing, and brings that knowledge to this book.

It’s packed with photos of a variety of houses, some small, but others not so small at 1,800-2,000 square feet. (Perhaps the book’s subtitle should have been “Living Large in a Smaller House.”)  Nevertheless, this book offers all sorts of inspiration for those who need or simply want to downsize their living situation.

One very useful aspect of this book is that it includes some homes with separate living space for an adult child or an elderly parent. That’s a common situation these days but you don’t often see it addressed along with downsizing.

Many of the homes are new construction, which won’t be affordable for many people who are downsizing for financial reasons. But the color photos of the interiors offer plenty of inspiration for anyone who is considering furniture arrangements, use of artwork without going overboard, and how to put your personal mark on a home without filling it with clutter.

The author notes that she and some others highlighted in the book went through several purges of belongings before finally settling down in their new, smaller home. Nice to know we weren’t the only ones!

Arranging Furniture in a Small Living Room

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

After we moved here, we spent hours trying to arrange our huge furniture in our little living room. No matter what we tried, nothing looked right. In the end we only kept a loveseat, two recliners, two end tables and a wooden chair that we put near the front door. In the years since, we moved them around a few times but never found just the right set-up.

Now we’re starting over. We’re planning to buy a small-scale sofa, a smaller recliner (the two we have are huge!) and an occasional chair or two (one of us wants one chair and the other wants two). Of course, we’re also spending time figuring out where everything should go.

One of the few books that survived the Great Purge when we moved here is a book from the 1990s called Use What You Have Decorating by Lauri Ward. I used that book on our large house and loved it. I’m so glad I saved it because it’s still useful: since she recommends arranging your furniture into groupings (as opposed to spreading it apart and pushing it up against the walls as many people do), it works well for this small house as well as our former large one.

Of course, the photos in the book look pretty dated now, but the principles are still good. I highly recommend this book for anyone who feels like their furniture is just not in the right spots.

Small Scale TV Stand: Found!

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

We’ve made a little progress on the living room, I’m happy to say.

Since our small house has a small living room, our goal is to replace our current furniture, which came from our much-larger house, with furniture that is more appropriately scaled to a 12’ X 16’ room.

Until now, the television sat on a sofa table that took up almost the entire length of the wall. After much searching online, I found two tv stands that qualified for my desire for something that was somewhat taller and not as wide in hopes that proper scale with space around it would help give the room a more open feel.

I also wanted a tv stand that would hold our many DVDs without revealing them. (In a small room, the last thing you need is lots of miscellaneous stuff stored where you can see it.)

Ironically, we ended up having to choose between two polar opposites: a lovely oak Stickley media center and a nice-looking tv stand from Wayfair, which was not made of oak. But it was also narrower than the sofa table; meanwhile, the Stickley stand was almost the same width as the sofa table had been, but I chose to overlook that because the piece was so pretty.

We drove nearly an hour to see the Stickley piece, where we learned of its $2400 price tag. I would have been willing to pay that amount, except that as it turned out, the piece didn’t have a dedicated spot for a DVD player. Putting it on top of the stand would add to the look of clutter that I didn’t want. Putting it inside the stand meant we’d have to open the doors to play DVDs, but those doors would open into a traffic pattern.

Then the Wayfair stand went on sale for the ridiculously low price of $218, and we decided we had to give it a try. It arrived in a few days, having survived the shipping process with no dings or scratches, and it went together beautifully. We collected DVDs from the three areas in the house where we’d been storing them, and they all fit inside….and you can’t see them. Just what I wanted.

All the stand needs now is something to fill that empty spot under the DVD player. We had a boom box on the lower shelf of the sofa table, and we miss it. So we’re waiting on this system with Bluetooth, CD player and FM radio to arrive, and it will go in that spot. Can’t wait!