Tag Archives: small house

Middletons’ Grocery Store

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

If you’re a minimalist, you might not like this post.

I’m going to advocate keeping a large supply of things you don’t need right now but may need in the future.

As I’ve mentioned before, problems with supply lines have caused certain products to be in short supply. We’ve seen this at our local grocery stores, where certain products have just disappeared.

Case in point: our son who lives with us has some digestive problems. One of the things that keep his system on an even keel is a daily small glass of prune juice. But we haven’t been able to find prune juice for several weeks now. I hate to think of how his system will react and how he will feel if we run out of prune juice.

Fortunately, we have quite a few bottles of prune juice because we’ve been squirreling it away for months. They aren’t the only things we’ve been stocking up on, either. We have two large 6’ tall shelves in our basement packed full of non-perishables including coffee, tea, and canned goods like meats, fish and vegetables. These are joined by large packages of paper goods nearby.

This makes an imposing sight; it looks like we have our own little grocery store downstairs. It certainly breaks all the decluttering and minimalist rules I’ve ever heard of. But in these times, it makes sense. Not only does it keep us from running out of things we can’t find, but it also stretches our dollars during a time of high inflation.

If this offends your minimalist sensibilities, I’m sorry. But I don’t want my son to go without his prune juice, or my husband to go without his coffee….or me to go without my tea!

A Flexible Spare Bedroom

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

After a lot of thought, I finally figured out how to make the most of our spare bedroom.

It’s not a large room; when one of our children lived there until they moved out and got married, they packed that room with a bed, flat-screen television, small dresser, end table and chair. Add the many posters and mementoes on the walls, and that little room felt like a closet.

After the wedding, it became a spare bedroom which was rarely used. The bed offered a place to display my quilts as I made them, but more often than not, other things soon covered the bed, like presents bought but not yet wrapped, household items we received as gifts but couldn’t find a permanent place for, and the excess of library books that I sometimes bring home.

When I decided that the room should be used more often, I turned it into a sewing room by bringing up one of my machines and the table designed for it to sit on. This worked well, but with the bed and dresser still taking up valuable space in that room, it was pretty cramped, especially whenever I was actually sewing and needed to set up the ironing board.

Last winter, I became tired of reading and writing only in the living room. I wanted another space where I could read or write in silence, or talk on the phone when my husband was watching something on television. So out went the bed and the dresser, and now the little room is uncluttered, with just the sewing table, a cozy chair and ottoman, a small end table on wheels, a small cart on wheels (holds sewing supplies) and a floor lamp. As a result, the room gives off a very peaceful feeling.

This past week, a relative came to visit for several days. We put our double-decker airbed in there, and she was quite comfy. I had packed up my machine and its table and put them in the closet, so some open space remained.

Next week, a few of my grandchildren are coming to stay. The airbed turns into two single beds, so we’ll set up those beds and the kids can sleep in there for several nights, with Grandpa and me right next door if they need anything during the night.

Then, after they go home, my machine will come back out and I’ll be back to work on my quilts. This room is now quite useful, and will continue to be so, IF I continue to keep clutter out of it.

Build Your Own Small House with a 3D Printer

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

I’ve been known to complain that no one is building small houses anymore, even though many people would like a new small house because of convenience and low cost. As it turns out, you can now bypass builders and build your own small house using a 3D printer for as little as $10,000.

Not everyone wants a small house, of course, but many of us who live in small houses love them. For those who may not be retiring with as much money set aside as they might like, this could be a way to live affordably and securely. I look forward to seeing this concept grow in the future.

 

Most People Don’t Need a Big House

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

Over at getrichslowly.org, they’re discussing how people who live in big houses only use a small percentage of their total square footage when it comes to daily living. That wasn’t true of us.

Our big house had five bedrooms and an office. We ran two businesses from home, and I homeschooled our children. For many years, every single room of our house was used every day. I used to say that we got more mileage out of our mortgage payment than anyone else we knew.

But that was then. The kids are in their 20s and 30s now and on their own; we downsized to a smaller house several years ago. There are three of us living in 1000 square feet, and we’re quite comfortable. However, had we stayed in our old house, we’d be rattling around with more space than we’d know what to do with. I can easily imagine that, like the people mentioned in the link above, we’d be spending most of our time in just a few rooms of the house.

Thinking about how you use the rooms in your house is a really valuable exercise. Unless you have more money than you know what to do with, you might want to consider whether your current house is really larger than you need it to be. A smaller house means lower costs; lower costs equals more freedom because you don’t have to earn so much money to support yourself, leaving you more time to do the things you really want to do.

I suspect that for many people, the big house ties them to their jobs. If they love their jobs, that’s fine. But many people don’t love their jobs. Living in a smaller house might free them to work somewhere that pays less but offers work that they love.

Some people love the status that a big house confers on them. If status is your goal, then you probably don’t care whether you use many rooms in your house or not. You’re more concerned about what other people think.

I certainly enjoyed having all the space we had in our big house (the master bath was bigger than the master bedroom in our current small house). But that house took a long time to clean, cost us a fortune in property taxes, and maintaining it would probably wear us out now, since we’re a little older (ahem) than we were when we built it 30 years ago.

I loved that big house, and I miss it. But I love this little house, too. Ultimately, some people actually need and use a big house, as we did, but only for a certain stage of their lives. After that, I think most people will find that living efficiently gives them more freedom.