Had some tears in my eyes reading this beautiful whole hearted post that Grace is sharing with us today. If you’d like to be featured in my interview series please email me at rachel@theminimalistmom.com. Thank you Grace!
Downsizing beautifully from a large house.
My name is Grace. I’m in my late twenties and I live in Wisconsin with my husband, Michael, and our four pets: two cats and two dogs. We live in a very small house in a city and we love it. It is around 650 square feet (60 square meters) with two bedrooms and a single bathroom. While we do have a single car garage, our yard is also tiny.
The house works well for our needs and we have found that it has really made us assess what is important in our lives. More specifically, what we are willing to give space to in our lives? My husband is an avid biker, and I have a passion for art, interior design, and organization. We also enjoy spending time with our dogs and of course, and as any Wisconsinite would understand, going out for drinks with friends and family.
Before they lived tiny
We did not always live so tiny. About a year ago, in 2017, we were living in the suburbs in a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2500 square foot home. We had two cars in the two car garage and a lovely sized yard. Over time we filled up the available space in the house and I would spend entire weekends meticulously cleaning each room.
I would organize and reorganize our many kitchen cabinets just to make things fit a little bit better. I would agonize over paint colors and furniture for each room. I was ready for a family of our own, and I wanted our space to be perfect.
Eventually, I got pregnant and the excitement set in. I got to put together a nursery!
Things were coming together and I was prepared for everything except a miscarriage. This was my second pregnancy loss and I remember avoiding the nursery for a long time until one day, when I was walking by it, I thought to myself, “how silly to have a room that we don’t use!”
And that was the very first moment I thought critically to myself about what we had versus what we needed.
Decluttering a large house takes time.
It took months, but my husband and I began to realize that the amount of money and time and energy we put into all these rooms and all these THINGS was completely absurd. I was spending countless hours vacuuming rooms we never went into. We each had an office of our own that we didn’t need to have. We had a theater room and a bar, which in theory sounds wonderful, but in practice was never used.
We had multiple closets filled with things we didn’t need.
We had extra rooms we were paying to heat and cool that just collected cat hair.
Slowly, we started getting rid of things.
I found the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo to be such a wonderful starting place for our journey. Then came countless google searches that eventually led to the word that would describe exactly what I needed in my life at that time: minimalism.
Minimalism was a breath of fresh air. It made so much sense and we spent a few months purging anything and everything we owned.
We downsized our belongings by nearly 75% and I had never felt more free.
Shortly after, we started looking for a much smaller house and I am so glad that we did.
Of course, there are always challenges when it comes to intentionally living with less stuff. One of my biggest personal obstacles is living with someone who doesn’t think this way naturally. Michael likes “stuff.” He likes knick knacks and odds and ends, and it took a while to figure out how to not trample on the things he loves in the name of minimalism.
This isn’t to say that he doesn’t understand or appreciate a more minimalist lifestyle, but that he understands it differently than I do. I feel like we have struck a good balance in most areas, but of course, life is always a work in progress.
On the opposite end of my husband enjoying lots of “stuff,” I have a tendency to not know when to stop getting rid of things. I have learned that minimalism isn’t really about hitting that ultimate goal of less but more about having a constant awareness of the things that come in and out of your life and how they affect the way you live. This, of course, is easier said than done.
Decluttering stored mementos.
Another obstacle we faced when downsizing our belongings was having to deal with our stored boxes. Boxes and boxes of storage that were filled with old memories, things we might need some day, and other things we didn’t want to part with. I am not going to lie to you, it took many separate occasions of going through each box, item by item, before we got down to what we felt was a reasonable amount of stored items for us.
We landed on each having a container for childhood items, and a container for more recent items, like wedding memorabilia. I thought I would for sure miss some of the things we had gotten rid of but honestly, a year later, I could not even tell you what it is that we got rid of!
My little family moved into this little house about 8 months ago, and it has been such a wonderful experience. I was nervous to have so much less cabinet space in the kitchen, but it turns out that we don’t even fill the space that we DO have. I was worried about only having one (ONE!) closet in the entire house, but we’ve fit our life into it just fine.
It is so rewarding to embark on a new adventure with my husband and to learn that the way of life that we knew wasn’t the only way to live. Currently, we have a two bedroom home, and while that second bedroom will become a nursery someday, that is the only extra space that we have.
It takes the two of us a only couple hours to clean the whole house and we have so much more free time for each other and the things that we love to do.
We’ve even been able to pay down debt by spending less money on the mortgage and utilities. I think William Morris said it best when he said, “ Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” I can honestly say we endeavour to live our lives that way.
A small house that will grow with her family.
We do plan to have children in this house in the future. We know it is small and that it won’t always be easy to have children in such a small space, but I am confident that family time and less stress trumps more space. We really want to focus more on what we can do with our time together when we have children and less on what materials they can have.
Hopefully, our family can learn to use the world as their playground and rely a little less on material possessions in the home. There is so much to experience, I would really love for my children to feel encouraged to explore the world around them. I think that as things naturally progress and change over time, our version of minimalism will reflect where we are in life, and happy to accept those changes.
I really don’t believe that there is one way to experience or live a minimalist life.
Ultimately, the goal is never losing sight of the important things: what is useful in your life? what makes your life beautiful?
Instagram: @everythinglittlehere
Email: EverythingLittleHere@gmail.com
You can see all of the posts in this series on families living a bit smaller here.
Thanks for sharing, Grace. We are moving to Wisconsin and while we looked at 1000+ sq foot homes on large lots, we are actually upsizing to a house (for a family of 6) that is double yours and then some. It feels huge to us and the yard is big! We were 5 living in an under 1000 sq ft condo but it wasn’t cutting it for us since the location wasn’t suitable for us, and no yard. Part of me is going, oh my goodness, let’s not overfill it! But we felt led to a home with “extra” flexible spaces since we feel led to share our home and space with others, and this home will allow us to do that. But I’m with ya, 2000+ feels huge! God Bless.
I love your attitude towards your life. Don’t get discouraged, I had 7 miscarriages, but I also have 2 Beautiful daughters and 2 awesome, outstanding, grandchildren. I’m now a single grandma who is looking to get a Tiny House. Thanks for the inspiration.
GOD Bless You and Your Family, Debbra
We have been in our 1500 square foot “starter home” for 9 years now. We are a family of three and are realizing that we probably don’t need to upsize after all. I have a feeling this starter home may just be our forever home and I am increasingly okay with that. It is a very freeing realization.
I find this interesting because I’m in the process of upsizing….mostly this move was driven by my husband, but now that we are in the middle of it, I’m seeing how life-changing this will be for our family (in a good way). I really think it depends on each family/individual. We feel like this move to a bigger home with some land is finally giving us the space to pursue what is important to us.
Maybe I’ll feel differently in 6 months and long for my smaller home…time will tell.
Thank you for sharing, Grace. We are upsizing too, from a under 1000 sq foot condo into an 1800 sq foot house on a large lot…it feels huge! We could’ve done with less for our family of 6, but the condo wasn’t working out due to layout and location. The new space is a lot, but we felt drawn to the house since we feel led to share the space with others and it gives much flexibility.
Sometimes I regret moving from a smaller house to a bigger house just because I feel like I am constantly trying to keep our “stuff” under control. However, the five of us do use the space. I’ve just finished reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up this week too and have already gone through my clothes and it has been so freeing. I have a hard time getting rid of things because I don’t want things to go to the landfill or burden the world with our excess stuff but then all our stuff stresses me out. I agree with what Grace said about using the world as their playground. When we first started having children and lived in a small apartment we would be outside at the playground down the street every morning before kids were even at school. I find that having less forces you to be more creative – and that is what I am hoping for my family. Thanks for sharing your story Grace.