Several years ago, I "babysat" Dixie, a sweet little beagle, while my friend Brady visited his family over Christmas. I'd never been to Brady's apartment before I met Dixie, and I remember being struck by how little Brady had in the apartment. He had a futon for a sofa, a small bed (maybe a double?), a small bookshelf filled with books, and that is all I remember.
I remember thinking, "This is someone who knows what is important. He's not bogged down by things. Someone who could sell everything and move to Europe or take a year off to go backpacking."
I've since lost track of Brady. I don't know if he's acquired more stuff or not.
And maybe he had more stuff than I knew about. After all, when I knew Brady, I was living in an efficiency apartment. Maybe 80 square feet. But I was storing a lot of stuff at my parents' house.
I saw "Downsizing to 100 square feet of bliss" on CNN.com a few weeks ago and I keep thinking about materialism.
Last summer, we moved from a 1,000-square-foot 2-bedroom condo into a 3-bedroom, two-story house with a basement. Probably 2,500 square feet including the basement and garage. I'm so glad we did because we have been able to invite my sister and her family to stay with us while they are looking for a house. But when they move out, will we start to fill up space just because we have it?
I don't think I would want to downsize much while we have small children. We have two unfurnished rooms — a "formal living room" acts as a playroom and a "formal dining room" that is completely empty and gives the kids space to literally run in circles. I could live without a basement, but my husband really wanted a basement. It does give us a place to work on projects and to store some things that would otherwise take up space in the garage.
But this is as large as I would want to go. I have enough trouble keeping this place clean. I worry enough about the cost (and environmental impact) to heat and cool it.
How do you feel about the size of your house? And all the stuff you have in it?
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4 comments:
I remember 24 years ago, when we moved into our house, we had very little furniture. The living room remained empty for at least a year, at which point we recieved some furniture from my MIL when she remarried. It was actually great to have all that space, as we had three preschool boys, who used it as their wrestling arena.
We've filled the space, and it's a constant battle to keep more stuff from acumulating. If I had it to do over again, I would not have aquired so much furniture.
We definitely have filled our space with "stuff". Our bedroom has an add on that doubled its size or it would have been impossible to have a king size bed in there. Now it's way too big and we keep furniture in it to keep it from seeming too empty.
As our family grows, we've decided that all of our kids will share rooms. This is one of the things that I've seen as "waste" in house size. Kids don't need their own rooms. Heck, they get in less trouble if they have someone else to share a room with.
Before I married my hubby, I was living in a 300 square foot apartment - HEAVEN! I loved it! He had a house (about 1800 square feet). I didn't want a house and still don't really like the idea that I have one now, but I had one pet and he had 3. We weren't going to get approval for 2 adults and 4 pets in a 300 square foot apartment. Wasn't going to happen. So I gave in and move in with him.
Just because we have all this space, though doesn't mean we use it. We have 2 entire rooms and a bathroom that stay shut off because they are completely empty. I'm sure we could have another couple move into those rooms and they'd be just fine. I'm at heart a minimalist and I refuse to buy stuff we don't need to fill space we don't use.
One day I hope to downsize again. All this space is just something more to clean and I don't really like it, but the house had a great yard for a garden so I'm enjoying it while we're here. I do know that if anything ever happened to my hubby, the first thing I would do would be get rid of the house and move into a teeny tiny apartment again.
Ugh...my house. My husband built this house so I hate to ever say anything negative about it. It's beautiful, sure, but way more than I ever wanted. I wish we would have taken the same money, bought a huge piece of countryside, and put a small house on it. :)
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