Since we came to the unlikely decision to move into a tiny house (and I'm just beginning to feel comfortable referring to the bus in this way. It's a bus...that we're turning into a house...that's just over 200 square feet. I guess it's a "Tiny House"), I've begun to recognize the feelings of dissatisfaction I'm harboring with the amount of stuff we have.
It's not that I want more.
It's that I want so much less.
Don't get me wrong; we have some very nice things. And it's not that I want No Things. And it's certainly not going to be easy for me to give away or sell many of these things. Like I've said before, I attach sentimental value to just about everything. You can see from these pictures that my decorating style could be described as "Three Dimensional Collage".
But I've come to realize just how much all this stuff consumes my time. So much of my week is structured around the care and keeping of this stuff. These photos show a whimsical side of too many possessions; I'm purposely not showing the mountains of laundry (dirty and clean...but mostly dirty), stacks of used dishes in need of a wash, ever-expanding toy corners, and the fine dust that settles over everything the day after I clean.
I've started to wonder what our lives will look like without it all. How much more free time will we have when we reduce our possessions to the essentials and only those things that hold real meaning for us? What will the kids and I get to do when it's not necessary to stay inside nearly every day so Mama can catch up on laundry?
Yet when I look around, I know this is going to be hard for me.
Hard, not just because of the amount of work that's going to go into downsizing, but because I'm going to have to let go of things that I treasure for one [silly] reason or another. Hard, because I happen to like many of my Three Dimensional Collages. Hard, because the sooner I do this, the longer I'm going to live in a house that feels empty by comparison.
I'm aware it sounds more than a little contradictory to say in one breath, "I can't wait to have less stuff!" and, "What will my house feel like with less stuff?" But there you have it. It's hard.
Moving will be hard, too, because I love where we live now.
It's huge for an apartment: 2,501 square feet, to be precise. There is more than enough room for both of us adults, our three small kids, and our black Labrador retriever. There's ample closet space. We have cathedral ceilings in our living room. I've got a studio, Nate's got a studio; we have a balcony that's as big as a studio apartment. We live above the place where Nathaniel, my mom, and stepdad all work, so we can get by with only one vehicle; I can ask my mom to run up and visit or watch the kids for short periods during the days she works. We even have a yard (with trees!). Not only all of this, but the rent is totally amazing. Like, "we can support our family on one income while living here" kind of amazing. No doubt, God totally blessed us when he brought us here.
I have told people - and myself - over and over that this is the place we're staying until we can finally afford to buy land. In this line of thinking, I reasoned that our family would be just fine in this house (apartment, whatever) for another decade or more. Actually, as I write this it occurs to me that we've just hit our fifth anniversary in this place; we moved here when I was super pregnant with our first daughter. Time flies. Anyway. We've got a lot of memories here; it's the first place I've lived since moving out of my parents' place at age nineteen that has honestly felt like Home with a capital H. And for all the quirks (drafts, mice, fake wood paneling, ugly carpeting, general disrepair that comes with an aging home), it's still a warm and inviting place.
It's funny how things change.
Like my aversion to tiny houses. I used to look at them and think, "I like the aesthetics. I like the storage. I like how people can build one themselves. I hate the lack of space."
And that's still kinda true, I guess. But since we'd begun talking about downsizing (tinysizing?), I began to realize how this enormous space impacted our daily lives. One, it's a lot to clean, so much of my week revolves around simply keeping all this space tidy (to varying degrees of success). Two, with all this space, it's simply too easy to justify bringing in more stuff without taking out a corresponding amount. Even after getting rid of a lot this past summer, there's still a shocking amount of stuff to go through. Three, all the shouting.
Parents of young kids can relate, I'm sure. It's not that I'm shouting at them, it's that they're shouting at me. If we happen to be in different rooms, my girls see nothing wrong with shouting across the house to talk to me. No matter how many times I stress that they should come close when they want to say something, it rarely occurs to them to do so. And how silly is it to shout back, "Quit yelling! Come here when you want to talk to me!"
Now, when contemplating living in less than a tenth of the space we currently occupy, I think, "How great; a place for everything and everything in its place."
"How lovely, to simply go outside when the space feels just too small."
"How manageable, to only keep what we truly want."
There's nothing inherently better about a tiny house. It's just a different way to live. A way that I think would suit Nathaniel, myself, and the girls. So we can take the focus off of our space, our stuff, and all that goes into both, and begin focusing more on the things that truly matter to us. Our faith, our family, our friends, our goals, and the world around us.
Sounds good to me.
It's not that I want more.
It's that I want so much less.
 |
| Some stuff.... |
Don't get me wrong; we have some very nice things. And it's not that I want No Things. And it's certainly not going to be easy for me to give away or sell many of these things. Like I've said before, I attach sentimental value to just about everything. You can see from these pictures that my decorating style could be described as "Three Dimensional Collage".
But I've come to realize just how much all this stuff consumes my time. So much of my week is structured around the care and keeping of this stuff. These photos show a whimsical side of too many possessions; I'm purposely not showing the mountains of laundry (dirty and clean...but mostly dirty), stacks of used dishes in need of a wash, ever-expanding toy corners, and the fine dust that settles over everything the day after I clean.
 |
| ...And more stuff... |
Yet when I look around, I know this is going to be hard for me.
Hard, not just because of the amount of work that's going to go into downsizing, but because I'm going to have to let go of things that I treasure for one [silly] reason or another. Hard, because I happen to like many of my Three Dimensional Collages. Hard, because the sooner I do this, the longer I'm going to live in a house that feels empty by comparison.
I'm aware it sounds more than a little contradictory to say in one breath, "I can't wait to have less stuff!" and, "What will my house feel like with less stuff?" But there you have it. It's hard.
 |
| ...And still more STUFF! |
It's huge for an apartment: 2,501 square feet, to be precise. There is more than enough room for both of us adults, our three small kids, and our black Labrador retriever. There's ample closet space. We have cathedral ceilings in our living room. I've got a studio, Nate's got a studio; we have a balcony that's as big as a studio apartment. We live above the place where Nathaniel, my mom, and stepdad all work, so we can get by with only one vehicle; I can ask my mom to run up and visit or watch the kids for short periods during the days she works. We even have a yard (with trees!). Not only all of this, but the rent is totally amazing. Like, "we can support our family on one income while living here" kind of amazing. No doubt, God totally blessed us when he brought us here.
I have told people - and myself - over and over that this is the place we're staying until we can finally afford to buy land. In this line of thinking, I reasoned that our family would be just fine in this house (apartment, whatever) for another decade or more. Actually, as I write this it occurs to me that we've just hit our fifth anniversary in this place; we moved here when I was super pregnant with our first daughter. Time flies. Anyway. We've got a lot of memories here; it's the first place I've lived since moving out of my parents' place at age nineteen that has honestly felt like Home with a capital H. And for all the quirks (drafts, mice, fake wood paneling, ugly carpeting, general disrepair that comes with an aging home), it's still a warm and inviting place.
It's funny how things change.
Like my aversion to tiny houses. I used to look at them and think, "I like the aesthetics. I like the storage. I like how people can build one themselves. I hate the lack of space."
And that's still kinda true, I guess. But since we'd begun talking about downsizing (tinysizing?), I began to realize how this enormous space impacted our daily lives. One, it's a lot to clean, so much of my week revolves around simply keeping all this space tidy (to varying degrees of success). Two, with all this space, it's simply too easy to justify bringing in more stuff without taking out a corresponding amount. Even after getting rid of a lot this past summer, there's still a shocking amount of stuff to go through. Three, all the shouting.
Parents of young kids can relate, I'm sure. It's not that I'm shouting at them, it's that they're shouting at me. If we happen to be in different rooms, my girls see nothing wrong with shouting across the house to talk to me. No matter how many times I stress that they should come close when they want to say something, it rarely occurs to them to do so. And how silly is it to shout back, "Quit yelling! Come here when you want to talk to me!"
Now, when contemplating living in less than a tenth of the space we currently occupy, I think, "How great; a place for everything and everything in its place."
"How lovely, to simply go outside when the space feels just too small."
"How manageable, to only keep what we truly want."
There's nothing inherently better about a tiny house. It's just a different way to live. A way that I think would suit Nathaniel, myself, and the girls. So we can take the focus off of our space, our stuff, and all that goes into both, and begin focusing more on the things that truly matter to us. Our faith, our family, our friends, our goals, and the world around us.
Sounds good to me.
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