In my recent post, I listed several things that we have been working on in our home over the past year or so. The first one on the list was minimizing our belongings. This act of trimming down our “stuff” started as a challenge, but has become a bit of an addiction. There is not a corner in our home that has not been emptied and its contents carefully considered, twice over. Not a week passes where we don’t end up filling a donation box or two of things we are letting go of. But there is a reason behind our desire to get rid of as much as possible, and it has to do with where we see ourselves in the future: we want to live a simple life in a tiny home. There is a “tiny home movement” sweeping the nation (and beyond) right now, and we are totally on board.
Photo: Saludariverclub.com
Where we have found our inspiration comes from several places. For instance, there are a few quotes that I often think of when I am considering each of the items in our house:
“Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age, a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.” -Peace Pilgrim
“Everything in your home should reflect your vision for the life you want.” -Peter Walsh
“The world says that you will find contentment when your possessions rise to meet the level of your desires. A Christian comes to contentment, not so much by way of addition as by way of subtraction…Contentment does not come by adding to what you have, but by subtracting from what you desire.” -Jeremiah Burroughs (I LOVE this one!)
Each one of these quotes pops into my head as I am trimming down what we have in our home. Let me just be clear on something before we go on, because I used to make a mistake in the way I thought about this. Before we started downsizing, I could look around our home and not feel like we had a bunch of stuff- our home was never cluttered (can I just say that I despise clutter?!) One friend even coined our house the “Mary Poppins’ Handbag” home because she never realized we had all that we did, or that we could fit it into such a small place. So, yes, it is possible to have too much stuff and not even know it. All of our drawers, cupboards, closets, and even our garage used to be pretty full. And I wouldn’t even say that we had a lot of junk- we had some nice things. But the point is that we had nice things that we weren’t using, so why not pass them along and maybe someone who actually needs them can have them?
Most of our inspiration though comes from an amazing woman named Carmella who writes a blog called Assortment (assortmentblog.com). This is one of those blogs that I mentioned in my previous post that has changed my life. Sounds dramatic, but when something changes the way you think, it tends to change the way you live your life, yes? Carmella and her husband live with their three sons and their dog in a 665 square foot home which they designed. Her tiny house has been featured recently in Country Living Magazine- check out her story on her blog. She is so inspiring, and she has four new tiny home plans nearly completed, which my husband and I are super excited to see. Who better to design a small home than someone who lives in one? Remember that a home doesn’t have to be expansive to be beautiful and to meet your needs.
Photo: http://micasaessucasa.tumblr.com
I can now say with certainty that we use everything in our home. Everything has a purpose or fills a role inside our four walls. Our drawers are no longer full, our closets are nearly bare, and our garage holds very little. It. Is. Awesome. I never knew the freedom that comes with letting go of “things!” And when we move out of our current place, there will be things that go straight to our local donation center, like a few furniture pieces that have a purpose right now, but that we do not want in our next place. And with four flights of stairs into our home, our move out will be a heck of a lot easier than our move in, even with an extra little person to move.
One thing that we continually do is purge. We go through the house nearly every day and keep pulling things out for donation. We have even been getting rid of things that we DO use because we have alternatives. For example, we got rid of our toaster because we can make toast in the oven. And if we didn’t have a microwave built into our current rental, it would also be gone in lieu of the stove. In addition to getting rid of small appliances, we can figure out what we hope to have and not have in our home someday; we don’t see ourselves with a dishwasher in our future home, which means needing fewer dishes since everything would be washed, dried, and put away after every meal. More cupboard space and fewer dishes? Well that’s a win in my book! And another key to continual downsizing is NOT REPLACING items. Self-explanatory, but I think it would still be easy to fall into this trap. To ensure we don’t do this, we get rid of two items for each single item that we bring into the home, and that single item must fill a need and be of good quality. My husband and I are not big shoppers either, which cuts out temptation.
Photo: underthecarolinamoon.tmblr.com
Because we only have a limited number of items in our home, we make sure everything is of good quality. This does not mean that you have to spend a lot of money- check craigslist, garage sales, thrift stores, sales/coupons, and don't forget that you can add things to your birthday and Christmas lists if you come from a family of gift-givers. Most of our nicer items have been gifts, like our KitchenAid mixer, Vitamix blender, many of my shoes and my only handbag, to name a few. This idea of having fewer items of good quality is a topic that will be echoed in my upcoming post about my capsule wardrobe.
Photo: Refinery29
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