Category Archives: Small-House Living

The Joy (and Danger) of Estate Sales

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

Once we got rid of more than half of our belongings when we downsized, I figured going to estate sales would now be out of the question for me. Otherwise, how would I handle the temptation of more stuff?

I’ve been going to estate sales for years. I used to live down the road from a very wealthy town where people lived in beautiful old houses on acreage. Those were truly estates! By going to the estate sales, I could go inside these lovely old houses, appreciate their architecture and decorating, and sometimes pick up a few goodies as well.

Now that I’m committed to not bringing home more stuff unless I get rid of an equal amount simultaneously (so that I never overstuff a home with clutter again), I’ve been surprised to discover that going to an estate sale can actually encourage me to stick to my guns.

How can this be? Well, now when I go into a house where an estate sale is taking place (as I did the other day), and I see table after table covered with old glassware and plates, countless knick-knacks, faded costume jewelry and worn linens, I think with gratitude that I’m glad this mess isn’t mine, and that I don’t have to deal with it. It’s a good reminder of the quantity of stuff we went through when we downsized, and how happy I am to have that behind me.

Of course, my stuff was newer than most of what I see in estate sales. But it’s the sheer quantity of stuff spread all over someone’s home that is a good visual reminder of how much stuff a house can hold if you don’t stay on top of things.

So going to estate sales actually helps me keep on top of my own clutter. But there are other benefits as well. Since I no longer live near that wealthy area, the houses I go into now aren’t palatial or architecturally significant. But their contents often include things I remember from my childhood, so it’s almost like going into a museum of my youth.

For instance, at the sale I went to the other day, I saw an ashtray with a gold-colored metal top and a red-plaid bean-bag bottom, just like one I remember from my grandpa’s house. Seeing it took me back to Sunday afternoons visiting my grandparents, where the women chatted in the kitchen while Grandpa and my uncles sat around the tiny black-and-white television set, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes as they cheered on the Sox. All those important people in my life have been gone for years, but what a nice memory of them that ashtray brought back to me.

That’s why, as long as I can keep to my pledge not to bring home anything unless I get rid of something else, I will keep going to estate sales.

Tiny House Living in Retirement

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

I recently discovered a new book about tiny houses that’s packed with photos and interesting information from people who live in tiny houses; some of them even built their own tiny houses.

Now, while I don’t think a tiny house is for me (we use our basement almost every day for our work and our hobbies), I can see how well the concept works for some people. In the new book Tiny House Living: Ideas for Building & Living Well in Less than 400 Square Feet, author Ryan Mitchell shares the stories of a variety of tiny house residents.

My favorite is that of Kathy, a retiree whose son began building her a tiny house without her knowledge (“He knew if he told her ahead of time it would be a much harder sell, so he waited until it was almost done to show her.”) Kathy now lives in the tiny house with her husband, and has found that the tiny house has made some big positive changes in her life:

She can do all that she needs to do in her home, without a mortgage and with very low bills. Her power bill tops out at $25 a month and water is about $12—not because she uses that much, but because that’s the minimum charge to keep the service on….Since she is retired, it is very important to keep her living expenses low and it means that she can do much more, like visit her grandchildren more, go out to eat with her friends more, focus on her hobbies and simply not have to worry about the bills as much…..For the first time she has had the money and the time to visit her grandson for his birthday….

So many Baby Boomers don’t have big pensions waiting for them and were unable to save up much for retirement; a tiny house might be one answer to living successfully in retirement on only Social Security and some modest savings. If that sounds like you or someone you know, you should check out this book!

In the story about Kathy, she says that her friends with large houses are beginning to wish they had smaller homes to care for and more free time like Kathy does. But she says something holds them back:

“It’s because they don’t know what to do with all their stuff that they spent their whole lives trying to pay for. They are so inclined to having stuff that it’s scary for them to think of paring down.”

To Kathy’s friends, I say “Downsize, people, downsize! Lose the clutter and gain your freedom!”

One more thing: in most tiny houses, the sleeping area is always up in a loft. Who wants to risk falling down that tiny loft ladder in the middle of the night when they need a bathroom? But Kathy’s tiny house has a futon in the living area that turns into a bed, so she doesn’t climb up into a loft to sleep. Smart!

Small House Regrets?

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

If anything could make me regret downsizing to a small house, Easter would have. And it almost did.

We can squeeze eight people into our eat-in kitchen. Our family now numbers 16. You do the math.

By Good Friday, I was thinking about putting up a table for eight in our living room (which would require moving furniture out of there first). The living room isn’t connected to our eat-in area, so it would be like having two separate parties. Bummer.

We couldn’t use the finished basement like we usually do because it’s so darn cold down there right now (it was a long winter) and Grandma and Grandpa get too chilled in the basement even when the rest of us think it’s comfortable.

So, thoughts of “What were we thinking buying such a little house?” began to surface.

But here’s the thing. We love this little house, and 95% of the time, there’s more than enough space for us. It’s only when the entire family gets together that it feels a little too cozy.

  • All year long, I enjoy the low utility bills.
  • All year long, I love that it only takes me a few hours to clean the entire house.
  • All year long, I enjoy the mental freedom of knowing that we have no mortgage. (We chose a small house so that we could remain debt-free.)

Weighing those things against a little coziness made it clear that we were thinking just fine when we bought this house. In the end, it didn’t matter. We had our first 80-degree day of the year, so we were able to have our family Easter gathering on the patio. What a lovely day!

Falling Off the Decluttering Wagon

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

I was so good when we first moved into our little house. I never let anything pile up on the counters. No more library books stacked on the floor next to the sofa. No more boxes labelled “Miscellaneous” parked in dark corners.

But over time, my old habits began to return. I had been putting Christmas presents that needed to be wrapped on the bed in the spare room; before long, other odds and ends that had no specific parking spot ended up there, and the bed became the parking spot for too many things. It was so easy to just set something there instead of making the effort to find a place for it.

Meanwhile, the closets began to get more crowded. I hadn’t taken the time to pitch something after buying its replacement. Repeat that a few times and pretty soon the lovely feeling of spaciousness in my little closets disappeared.

Then there was the garage. Last year we replaced almost all of our home’s windows with lovely new energy-efficient windows. But the old windows would make a terrific greenhouse in the back yard, so as they were removed from the house, we stacked them in the garage, where we forgot about them until winter came and we wanted to get the cars in the garage.

Combine these incidents with a few others too similar to mention here, and our little house began to feel snug. That’s when I realized I had fallen off the decluttering wagon. The feeling of panic that resulted was similar to the one you get when you can’t zip your pants after the holidays. Yikes!

I did not like that feeling, so it didn’t take me long to become motivated to declutter again. I spent some time going through our clothes, made a stack of items that we no longer needed, and put them in bags in the trunk of my car. I cleared off the bed in the spare room, finding places for everything (and getting rid of a few old things to make space for those new things). The old things were also sent to the car. Then I immediately took them to the local thrift shop and donated them.

Meanwhile, my husband and I discussed the windows and the likelihood that he would have time to make a greenhouse this year (answer: very unlikely) and decided to put them up for free on Craig’s List. They were gone by evening, and both cars made it into the garage. No more scraping off ice and snow before we could go anywhere!

I’m relieved to be back to our uncluttered state, but it kind of alarms me that I fell off the wagon after we worked so hard and got rid of so much stuff when we downsized. It just goes to show that vigilance is key; stay on top of your stuff if you don’t want to fall off the wagon.