Category Archives: downsizing

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.

What Was I Thinking?

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

I have two sewing areas. One is in the little sewing room on the main floor, where I sew clothes and piece quilts on one of two vintage sewing machines, and also have a serger squeezed in there. The other is in the basement, where my high-speed sewing machine sits on two large tables so I have lots of room to spread out whatever it is I’m quilting.

Nearby on an old dresser sits a basket full of thread for that machine, and a dish tub filled with extra parts and feet for it, along with other related items. That dresser was supposed to have been given to a relative 18 months ago, but then the pandemic came along.

I got to thinking that I would like a cabinet to replace that dresser once it goes; that way I’d have somewhere to park the thread, extra parts, feet, etc. I’d want something with cubbies up high, because I have a bum knee and have trouble reaching things in lower cabinets. I began looking at freestanding cupboards and cabinets online, trying to find just the right thing.

And then it occurred to me: I have no business adding furniture to this house! It’s got enough furniture in it. So I looked at the furniture we do have, thinking something could be repurposed as my new sewing cabinet. But nothing would work.

What to do…..as with so many other things in life, I realized I should just wait until an idea came to me. Within a few days it did. If I reorganize the storage under the big counter where I cut fabric (it was our kitchen island in the big house we gave up) I should be able to easily fit in the stuff that currently sits on the old dresser.

And here I was looking at new furniture. What was I thinking?

Preparing for Smaller Living Quarters

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

I read an article that suggested if you’re planning to downsize to a tiny house, you should reduce the possessions in your current home to the bare minimum so that you’ll be acclimated to living in a tiny house before you get there.

On one hand, I can see where that’s true. Living with the bare minimum is going to be a necessity for you. On the other hand, I don’t think anything can really prepare you for going from a large house to a small one. You just have to jump in with both feet and do it.

Once you get there you’ll quickly realize that not all of your furniture will fit, and that you don’t have as much storage as you once did. That’s not a bad thing, though: it’s like being given guidelines for how much you can keep. You can only fit so much in and the rest has to go. So bring in your favorites and keep everything else out in the garage, or in a storage unit if there’s no garage, and then filter through everything.

There’s also no way to prepare for the feel of living in smaller quarters. In some ways, it will be tough. When you’re used to a large kitchen, a small kitchen feels almost claustrophobic at first. You’ll need time to learn to work in it. If you’re used to a huge bedroom, your new cozy one will also feel different. But since most of your time in there is spent asleep, it quickly becomes a non-issue.

Ultimately, these things can’t be experienced until you’re actually there, so I don’t think you can really plan for them. If you’re heading for a tiny house, you might consider renting one first to see if it’s for you.

Downsizing: A Great Solution to Job Loss

By Claire Posted in downsizing, My Books, Personal Tagged , ,

One of the saddest effects of the coronavirus lockdown has been the number of people who have lost their jobs. Although the government did send many of them a stimulus check, that will only help for so long. Then what?

If you’ve lost your job, unless you work in a sector where you can always find work, you might want to consider downsizing to either a smaller house or a less expensive area. When we went through our business loss several years ago, we found that downsizing was the perfect solution to our dilemma of an unemployed breadwinner in a career field that was disappearing. All of our financial pressure disappeared once we did that. It was amazing how well it worked out for us.

Of course it’s not for the faint-hearted. If you can’t find more affordable housing in your area, you have to leave town or even leave the state. It’s not easy to start over, especially when you’re, um, older. But the freedom and peace you can find by downsizing makes it worth the trade-off.

Consider also that downsizing is much easier when done voluntarily as opposed to waiting until you’re forced to do so. You can read stories of other people who downsized proactively in my book Downsizing Your Life for Freedom, Flexibility and Financial Peace.

See more downsizing posts here.