Category Archives: Small-House Living

Finding Solutions That Don’t Add to Clutter

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

One of the ways I ended up with too much clutter is that when I replaced something, I usually kept the old one “just in case.” My parents grew up during the Great Depression, so were raised with a frugal mindset that they passed on to me. Having raised a large family on one income, it often served me well (until we had to move and deal with all that clutter. See my new book for the gory details!)

Now that I live in a small house, and there are only three of us here, it’s really not a useful concept anymore. If something needs to be replaced, I’m best off doing so and then donating or pitching the original item. There is little spare room for “just in case” items.

So I was left in a quandary recently when my husband complained that one of our two little bathroom rugs had lost its grip and kept skidding when he stepped on it. The top of the rug still looked just fine, but yes, that skidding became annoying very quickly, and was also a disaster waiting to happen. We don’t need any broken legs around here.

I shopped online and found a lovely set of matching rugs from a vendor known for high quality. They really didn’t look much better than what we have, but of course they wouldn’t skid. The pair cost $60 plus shipping.

I thought about what I would do with the old rugs. They looked just fine, and one of them was. But I’d have to pitch them both. I wasn’t going to donate bathroom rugs.

The thought of pitching something that looked good (not to mention spending over $60) kept me from immediately acting on the situation. Then something occurred to me.

When I sew, I keep small squares of ribbed plastic shelf liner under the pedals of my machines so they don’t slide when I’m sewing. I vaguely remember throwing out the rest of the shelf liner after cutting pieces for each pedal. But I also remembered where I found it in the first place: the Dollar Tree.

So I ran out and picked up another roll for a whole dollar. I cut out a rectangle just a bit smaller than the width of our bathroom rug and placed it under the rug. It’s been a few weeks now and guess what? No slippage. So I saved a lot of money and don’t have to decide where to pitch those good-looking bathroom rugs.

My parents would approve.

Life on the Road? Not for Me

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

I’m still fascinated by women who are spending their retirement years hitting the road in a van or RV, or living in a tiny house with only the minimum of necessities. But I could never be one of them.

Why? I have too many interests. One of them is cooking and baking. I’ve been unable to break the habit of preparing large quantities of food after many years of feeding a large family. But I’ve found that cooking or baking in quantity lets me freeze things so I don’t have to cook or bake as often. However, it requires every bit of the small counter space I have to use my giant mixing bowl, my 11” X 15” baking pan, or my big crockpot; if I’m using two of those three, I could never live with less counter space than I have now. I couldn’t do what I do in a tiny home, much less an RV. No way!

I also love to sew and quilt. I have two sewing areas; the upstairs room is for sewing and serging, and for piecing quilts. The basement, with two large tables pushed together, is where I quilt my quilts, and also cut out clothes. How would I do that in an RV or tiny house? Not happening. There are some women who vacation in their RVs and also sew in them, but they prepare their projects ahead of time at home and just bring the cut pieces, a small iron and a sewing machine along. Waiting back home are their large stashes of fabric along with the areas where they cut everything out ahead of time.

Just about the only interest I have that would work with life on the road is reading. I can imagine filling my tablet with eBooks, which would hardly take up any space. But I’d get bored reading all day. I like a variety of activities each day, not just one.

Could you spend your life on the road, or in a tiny house? If you’ve wondered about it, check out YouTube for some fascinating stories of people who do just that.

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?