Downsizing

There is a lot of buzz these days about "downsizing" and small homes.  HGTV even has a series about it.  Unfortunately I don't believe many people think through all that the concept implies.  True, moving from a 6,000 square foot home to a 5,000 square foot home is technically "downsizing", but it's hardly a sacrifice.  But what about cutting your space in half, or less?

For decades I've made a living by building BIG homes for others.  If you have a family of 4 or 5 or more, downsizing is hard to do.  For them, bigger is always better.  If you have a home stuffed with fine furniture you've bought or inherited over a lifetime, and if you're unwilling to part with any of it, downsizing is virtually impossible.  But if the kids are grown and out of your space, if you don't have a lot of overnight company, if you don't throw big parties, and if you aren't married to your "stuff", downsizing is a great way to de-clutter and live simply.

I can, and did, many years ago, and here's how it all started:  One evening (back when I was single) I noticed my closet shelves were dusty.  I took everything out, cleaned every surface, then started to put things back in.  That's when it dawned on me I had tons of stuff I never, and I mean NEVER, used or wore.  Like jeans that *ahem* must have shrunk in the dryer, and shirts that went out of style back during the Clinton administration.  And empty boxes that I kept in case the contents turned out to be defective and I had to send back, but of course never did.  When I put back in only those things I used, I realized my closet was waaaaaay bigger than I needed.

That got me to thinking about what else I might be holding on to that was just taking up space.  Soon I was like a commando on a mission.  Every closet, the linen cabinets, every chest and drawer, underneath every lavatory, everything got inspected and culled.  Then I began thinking about furniture.  Why do I need a sofa and 3 big chairs in a den when I only have one butt?  And what's the point of having bedrooms that never were used?  (I finally gave up on the Swedish Bikini Team ever paying me a surprise visit.)  Or a dining table with 2 leaves and 6 chairs...or was it 8 chairs?...and a hutch?

Then I put a pencil to what all this was costing me.  The payments for a large house that I didn't need, plus the taxes, utilities, insurance, maintenance and upkeep, that @%&# yard....it was depressing!  Eventually I met and married K and we decided (me enthusiastically, her grudgingly at first) that we could do just fine with half the space.  The "For Sale" sign went up, a deal was struck, and then it was time to put my money where my mouth was. 

By the time the movers arrived we had given some stuff away to friends and family, put some in storage (it's still there), took some with us, and sold some on Craig's List.  My moment of truth was when I was packing up my 450 +/- books.  K asked me if I ever re-read any of them, and I said no.  Then she pointed out that all I really had were 450 hardcover dust catchers.  *Hmmm, good point*  I kept a few volumes that were special to me and gave away/sold the rest.  Today I pretty much read only kindle books.

We moved into temporary quarters in a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment, but found it such easy living we decided to just stay put and let maintenance handle all those pesky old chores I so hated.  We have since downsized from even that as we still had more space than we needed.  I'm now thinking about 1000-1200 square feet, or about the size of the den and kitchen shown in the photo at the top of this post, would be perfect.

My friend who lives full-time on a 35' boat in St Pete, FL would be proud of me.  He taught me to keep only what I needed and nothing else.  That's only a slight exaggeration.  We do have to stay vigilant as it's easy to backslide and buy things that wind up stuffed in the back of the closet a few weeks later.

I would consider building a home again if I could ever find the right site to put it on.  Not to sound picky or anything, but I could probably be happy in a small, cozy little place like this, complete with a similar view, of course. 

S

How much is too much?

Yesterday my friend Joe Hagy, aka "Cranky Old Man", posted about all the things he didn't have as a kid growing up in the 1950's....things like color TV, Netflix, cell phones, FM radio, air conditioning, a car with power windows and lane departure warning, etc, mainly because those things hadn't been invented yet.  I grew up without those things, too, and we were still happy as could be.  Today we have two of everything, and lament the fact that we don't have three of everything like our neighbors, the Jones's.  'Merica!

Six years ago we sold our 3500+ square foot home and moved into a two bed / two bath apartment.  It was supposed to only be for a year until I could find a suitable lot and build us a home more appropriate for two people.  It turned out I / we liked the maintenance-free apartment lifestyle.  It didn't take long, however, for that second bedroom to turn into our catch-all / junk room, so after another "stuff purging" we downsized again into a smaller but nicer one bedroom.

Now here we are about to downsize again.  This time it was prompted by the fact that the $10 BILLION dollars worth of new construction going up within a mile radius of us, and the 8,000 new permanent jobs that will come with it, are making our little utopia a congested nightmare.  Plus, management seems to think that our community is now worth its weight in gold.  It isn't.

Last week we went through every box, every cabinet and drawer, every closet and nook and cranny, and simplified once more.  What we've found is that if you downsize in steps, it's much easier to accept.

We've gone in six years from one huge rolltop desk to two smaller desks, and shortly to just one.  Much of our furniture, none of which held any sentimental value, was given away to family and friends, sold on Craig's List, or put into storage for later use, except "later" never came.

We decided we didn't need that extra blender, or the food processor, pressure cooker, or the toaster oven that we only used twice to melt cheese on open faced roast beef sandwiches.  Ditto for the two extra coffee makers that were made obsolete (according to my wife) by the new model that George Clooney was hawking on TV, the extra set of cookware and dishes and drawer full of dull knives, and all those old towels that two people will never, ever need. 

Most of our books long ago gave way to Kindles, and a Bose radio brings us magnificent sounds that belie its tiny size.  I also finally gave up hope that all those pairs of jeans I saved that "shrank" in the dryer will ever somehow stretch back enough to fit my 2016 waistline.  And as much as I've cut back, K has cut back even more.  :)

This time we're giving up about 200 square feet, but because it's arranged much better, and without any long hallways, I think it will actually live larger.  Plus we'll now have an on-site dog park, a "pet grooming station", and a gym with actual instructors.  (And you know how much I love exercise....I could sit and watch it for hours!)

So how many more downsizes are there in us?  Where will this all end?  Maybe....  

Umm, probably not.  Looks like a lot of maintenance.   How about....

....the Ultimate Woodie?  No?  OK, I have it....

 Yup.
 

S

Living large by living small

I always chuckle when I see that commercial on TV for a retirement investment fund when they ask, "Will you be able to keep your same standard of living after you retire?"  *gasp*  I wonder, "Why would you want to?"  Why would you want the same big 'ol house that you raised 3 kids in when you're down to just two empty nesters?

K and I  (mainly I) realized this about 7 years ago and sold / gave away most of our "stuff", a prelude to downsizing our living quarters by 2/3.  Things were surprisingly easy to part with.  Our furniture was very high quality, but it had no sentimental value.  Over 30 years I had collected a 400-500 volume library, and I just assumed it would move with me.  But then K pointed out that if I don't re-read them or use them for reference, they're just 500 dust catchers.  Good point.  I kept a few special volumes, but then got rid of the rest.  Now I buy (mostly) e-books.

We found a 2 bed / 2 bath apartment in the Shops of Legacy, an upscale residential / restaurant / entertainment district in Plano (a north Dallas suburb) which also not by coincidence was just 1 mile from K's work, and just 2 blocks from a freeway that took me straight to my work.

We were super excited....until we signed the lease, they gave us the keys, and we opened the door.  "OMG", we thought.  "What have we done?"  The place looked tiny.  

Our house had a 24' x 36' Great Room, and this apartment had a den less than half that size.  But as we moved in and started to put our remaining stuff away we found we had more than enough room.

You have to learn to think in 3 dimensions.  It isn't just about "floor space", but about vertical space, too.  These days TV's are only an inch thick and can hang on the wall.  Stereo speakers are the size of Rubick's cubes and can fit anywhere.

The Container Store has the perfect sized see-thru storage boxes to fit under beds.  Their larger boxes can be stacked to the ceiling in a corner of the closet with out-of-season clothes, then switched twice a year.

Those dead spaces high above washers/dryers can be utilized with Elfa style shelves and clothes rods.  No space goes unused.

Downsizing includes furniture, too.  Two people don't need a huge dining table with leaves and 6 or more chairs when a simple drop leaf table will work just fine.

And as we settled in more it got even better.  The grounds were beautifully manicured, the trees were perfectly pruned, fresh flowers were always being planted, and I didn't have to do any of it.  Hungry?  Bored?  Just a 2-block walk took us to Bishop Street, a 6-block-long strip that offered 25+ eateries, a multi-screen theater, and several adult beverage establishments.

Something around the apartment need maintenance? The A/C filter need changing?   I just fire off an email and it's fixed.  They even change our light bulbs.  No joke!  And time NOT spent doing chores around the house left us more time to enjoy....well, life.

But eventually we found some of our old habits returning.  We would impulsively buy something, play with it a few times, then relegate it to the spare bedroom / catch-all room.  We once again had too much space.  We decided to downsize yet again, this time to a newer, nicer, but slightly smaller 1 bed-1 bath apartment.

My giant oak roll-top desk and tall file cabinet went away and were replaced by a smaller, more efficient style desk and file box (kept in the closet).  I'm fascinated by efficient things.  I love this multi-purpose furniture (link).  (Wait for the top video to load.  It's very impressive.)  It's meant primarily for those tiny Manhattan apartments, but I can see using some of those tables in my house.

I recognize that downsizing isn't for everyone.  If you have a large brood and your house is their assembly point or you have lots of out-of-town company, you're pretty much stuck.  And you have to be willing to check your ego at the door.  This lifestyle won't impress many.

But if you'd rather spend your time golfing, playing tennis, cycling, or painting yet another picture of a tree (if those are your thing) vs. worrying whether you'll land that big client and get that sorely needed bonus, it's a nice way to live.

We've cut our housing expenses by 50%, even after figuring in the tax advantage of owning.  I'm not saying we'll never own again, but if we do, it will have to be a small townhouse or condo, one where everything outside is maintained by someone besides me.

It's a great lifestyle that I will never give up.  Smaller is good....unless you want to build a giant 6,000+ sq ft house.  Then I'm your builder.  Call me.  *wink*

S

Murphy's Law of Downsizing*

* "The amount of stuff you have is directly proportionate to the amount of storage space you have."

OK, so my downsizing story might not be a spellbinder, but it definitely changed my world.

Once upon a time I was on the same treadmill as pretty much everyone else in the free world.  The goal was to have a big house, gold plated this, fancy that, blah, blah, blah.  Whoever died with the most toys won, or so the story went.  Key to the whole scheme was the house.

We were taught to find the biggest one you couldn't afford, then keep looking until you found one a little bigger.

One day about 10 years ago I noticed the shelves in my closet were dusty.  (Who dusts closet shelves?)  As there wasn't much on TV that night I decided I'd do some cleaning.  Everything came out of the closet and it was dusted top to bottom.  Then I started putting things back in and thought, "Why do I have this?  Why am I keeping that?"  

If I hadn't used it or worn it within the last year, out it went.  My Goodwill pile grew and grew until it was larger than my keeper pile.  I found that all my stuff would now fit in one small corner of the closet.  It felt good.

Then I figured I'd go through the cabinets / linen closet in the master bath.  All those old sets of sheets that were there as backups, but were never used?  Gone.  Same with those old ratty towels.  I had stuff under the cabinet so old the labels on the bottles had faded away.  I reduced my stuff by 50%.

I was on a roll.  Over the next few weeks came the other bedrooms, the hall closets, the other baths, the utility, the study, and finally the kitchen.  Whoa, I was living lean and mean!

Eventually I began wondering, "Why do I have this big(ish) house?  Why am I paying all these taxes, and utilities, and mowing and maintaining it all?"  Turns out I didn't actually use but a fraction of what I had.  

Then I met and married K, but she didn't come with much "stuff" so I still felt like we were living excessively.  None of it brought me any more happiness and in fact was just a royal pain in my butt. 

I kept remembering a friend of mine who lived on a 35 foot boat in St. Pete, FL.  He once told me if he brought something new onboard, he had to take something off to make room for it.  That concept appealed to me.  I had developed a phobia of clutter.  

By this time it was 2007, the price of oil was shooting up, and storm clouds were on the economic horizon.  I figured all this would eventually affect the housing market, so if we were going to sell and move somewhere smaller we'd better do it then. 

The "for sale" sign went up and we began in earnest to hard-core simplify.  We kept the furnishings we thought we would truly need, then gave away or sold pretty much everything else, ending with The Mother Of All Garage Sales.

It's amazing what some people will buy.  I was happy to be getting rid of so much junk, while everyone else was happy to be adding to their collection.  "One man's trash is another man's treasure" as they say.

At the end of the day I took the few remaining unsold things and stacked them on the curb with a sign, "Free....you haul it, you can have it."  It was picked clean in 15 minutes.

Phase I complete.  (Not really....it's an ongoing lifetime process.)

Next:  From talking about it to doing it.

S

Let the fun begin

I wonder which is worse?  This, or packing, moving, and then unpacking 10,000 boxes? 

We're moving in 10 days.  Fortunately it's just to the other side of our building, one floor higher.  Why?  Because it has a terrace with a view, "view" being a relative term.  It's also 150 sq ft +/- larger, but that's just incidental, and of course it costs more, but the wife wants a terrace, so.....  The good news is we can just load stuff on furniture dolly's and roll it, no boxing required.  

My final remaining life torment is going away today:  I have a HUGE Ethan Allen entertainment center that has found a new home as of this afternoon.  I'm convinced moving this monster last year is what gave me a herniated disc in my back.  Now it will be somebody else's problem pride and joy.  

It was beautiful in our previous home (with the 24' x 36' Great Room), and the gigantic old tube-type TV fit perfectly, but with flat screen TVs these days and the trend, at least for us, to downsize, it's become a dinosaur.  Prior to my last move my dread was what to do with my old, monster desk?  Fortunately at the 11th hour a fine gentleman with exquisite taste (or did he just have a screw loose?) stepped forward and bought it.  *whew*

We're slowly-but-surely getting back into fighting trim.  Excess stuff accumulated over the past several years has been disposed of, which should once again make our modest abode quite comfortable.  If I can just stand the clutter for the next 10 days.

Oh....and a Happy Labor Day to you all.  :)

S

My downsizing saga, Pt. 2

So I left off with our home sold and moving day about a month away.  Where to live?  It turns out the place we spent a lot of our weekend time, The Shops at Legacy, a super popular shopping/entertainment district, was less than a mile from where K worked, and was just a block away from the Dallas North Tollway which was a straight shot to my work.  

Over an eight-block-long stretch in The Shops there are about 25 restaurants, several clubs, a theater, and more.  And best of all they had lots of adjacent apartments to choose from.  We found a 2 bed/2 bath just a block away that seemed nice enough and was less than half what our home cost per month.  Perfect! We were soon having so much fun we quickly put building another (smaller) home on the back burner.

But before we could move we had to face reality....much of our stuff wasn't coming with us.  First off, everything upstairs had to find a new home.  We gave some of it to our friends and family, sold some on Craig's List, and put the rest in a moving (garage) sale.

Clothes....Jeez....where'd all that stuff come from?  I had 55 casual shirts.  K asked me how many of them I had worn in the past 6 months?  Twenty.  That left 35 that went to charity.  Same with shoes.  Same with lots of old pants/jeans that...ahem...shrunk in the dryer.

I thought the hardest thing for me to part with would be the 500 hardcover volumes I'd collected over the years.  K asked me if I ever went back and re-read any of them?  Ummm....no.  That meant I really had 500 dusty door stops.  Some were given to friends and family, some were sold via Craig's List and in the moving sale, and the rest were sacrificed to Half Price Books.  I kept a few that were signed by the authors or given to me by friends, but the rest are now being enjoyed by others.  Turns out they weren't hard to part with at all.  Now I read Kindle books on my tablet.

Fortunately as things turned out we didn't have any heirloom furniture.  We had very good quality stuff, but it had no sentimental value.  We kept what we needed and no more.  Our HUGE dining table w/ 2 leaves, 6 chairs, and a sideboard was replaced by this...

....and it works for us just fine.

My GIANT oak roll top desk was eventually replaced by this much smaller one....

....and my tall oak file cabinet was condensed into this....

....which fits nicely in the closet.

Every nook and cranny is used for storage.  The backside of most doors has been put to use.... 

In the spring, winter coats, hats, gloves, sweaters, etc are put into plastic boxes and stored under the bed and on the top shelf of closets and are replaced by summer shorts and T-shirts that had been put away the previous fall....

The apartment installed one shelf over the washer/dryer, but I added 2 more....

Need a rod to hang up clothes as they come out of the dryer?  Improvise....

The Container Store became my best friend!

Unless you have a bunch of heirlooms or are auditioning for a roll on Hoarders, it really isn't that hard to downsize.  In fact, it wasn't long before we found that second apartment bedroom turning into a catch-all room, tempting us all over again to collect more stuff we didn't need.  The solution....downsize once more.  

After three years in our first apartment we moved again into another newer, nicer, but even smaller one bedroom apartment.  

We're now down to 850 sq ft and loving it.

The grounds are beautiful with a pool, gym, and 3 courtyards that I don't have to maintain!  And if anything needs fixing (very rare) I just fire off an email to maintenance.  They even change light bulbs!

Our downsizing adventure has been very worthwhile, the disadvantages being few and far between.  "Apartment grade" is a far cry from "custom home", but if you're willing to check your ego at the door, it's a pretty sweet ride.  

Another home for us some day?  If I could replicate my carefree downsized/renter's lifestyle and still give my bride another (mini) mansion she could call hers, I'd be willing.  Never say never.  :)

S

Am I ahead of my time or just "out there"?

Did you hear about the two snails that mugged a turtle?  During the police investigation when they asked the turtle what happened he said, "Gee officers, I dunno.  It all happened so fast...."

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This must be a slow news day.  Every news network in the world I think has rushed at least one reporter to London to give us a puke-by-puke account of how Kate Middleton's pregnancy is going.  This is just the classic definition of Too Much Information.   I actually feel kinda guilty for not caring.   Maybe I'll send her one of those big, shiny helium balloons in a few months, how's that?

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I recently read an article in the paper about a couple in North Carolina who decided their big 3,000+ sq ft home was more trouble than it was worth.  They downsized "to one that is half that size, cutting their property taxes in half and their aggravation even more."  Been there, done that.

I think I'm more appreciative of not having all the responsibilities a big house comes with than K is.  When we met / married K called my house "a mansion".  Hardly, but comparatively speaking to her it may have been.  All I saw was a lawn that needed maintaining, never ending painting, fixing, updating, etc.  Every storm brought with it a fear of having to possibly deal with insurance adjusters and tree trimmers.  (I damn sure wasn't climbing up there!)

After renting for four years now the idea of building a small house, very small, is slowing creeping back into my mind.  But instead of thinking up all the "things" I could build in, I think about how bullet-proof I could make it, up to and including using those lifetime light bulbs. 

This would work

Or maybe even something more whimsical

The big problem is finding a city that would allow me to build such a small house.  Around here they're all still hung up on zoning for BIG houses.  That leaves building out in the country where they have no zoning restrictions, which has NO appeal to me at all.  I like being a 5-minute-drive away from everything I could possibly want.  I'd actually prefer to be a 5-minute walk away.  I wish the rest of my area would catch up with me and those folks in North Carolina.

S

Easier said than done

I read where there is a fledgling movement underway in North Dakota to entirely do away with property taxes.  'Course, the pesky 'ol issue of how to replace the loss of revenue remains (and no, they haven't found THAT much oil!).  One quote I heard did make sense, however.  A guy said. "Even if my house were paid for, I'd still have those taxes.  We're always renters, never homeowners."


Interesting...  Case in point, my brother has a large house, a true McMansion, and his monthly taxes are more than my rent.  True, he and his wife have 5-times the space to ramble around in than K and I do, but so what?  How much space to you need to eat, sleep, read the paper, and watch TV?  I can understand a bit larger home during those years you're raising a family, but those years do have an expiration date.  


We as a society seem intent on living in larger and larger houses, I guess because we need the space for the more and more stuff we buy.  It's just a vicious circle.  And if we one day decide we'll "downsize", that's when we realize all that stuff we've spent a lifetime collecting will have to be discarded, something most of us are unwilling to do.  


My advice?  Learn early on to buck the trend and live modest.  Instead of impressing your friends with your "stuff", impress them with photos of your world travels for example.  Travels you could afford because you didn't buy all that "stuff".


You'll now excuse me while I leave my Apple computer, turn off my big screen TV, and go sit in my overstuffed leather chair and read my Kindle.  Have a good day everyone.  ;)


S

The saga of my old desk

I've always liked roll top desks, so back in the late-'80's I splurged and bought a nice one, along with a matching 3-drawer oak file cabinet.  I had cubby holes and drawers and little compartments for everything.  I was a happy camper.  By the mid 90's, however, when PC's became popular, roll top desk's drawbacks became apparent.  I had a succession of laptops as they were the only ones I could use on my prized desk.  Problem is, I don't like laptops. My fingers and their keyboards don't get along.


Over the years I had to move it twice.  OMG, what a nightmare!  My philosophy of buying the best possible furniture and then taking good care of it forever was and still is good advice, but "the best" usually means solid and heavy.  That came back to bite me big time!  About three years ago I/we bought an iMac, and it was love. *sappy music*  The roll top had to go.  Sort of.  I took off the roll top part and had my cabinetmaker fashion a new flat top, and we were back in business.

Then I had my "downsizing" epiphany and my desk's days were numbered....again.  Few people wanted a desk that large, and those that did wanted a roll top.  Go figure!  (The old roll top part was long-gone, somebody's garage sale trophy.)  Finally, at the 11th hour before....actually during....our recent move, a guy answered my Craig's List ad.  On Saturday morning he came out to see it, we haggled a bit, and money changed hands.  Whew!  Now it was his problem.


I loaned him and the young guy he brought with him two furniture dollies to get it out to the parking garage.  I walked with them so I could retrieve my dollies, but instead of stopping at a pickup truck, they stopped beside a ragged-out old Lincoln Town Car.  What the....?  


If I hadn't seen it with my own four eyes I wouldn't have believed it;  the two of them picked it up and put it on top of that car, then secured it with a couple of ratcheting straps.  K met him in passing while we were moving and sized him up as being "not right".  What an understatement!  I later checked the news expecting to hear of a massive traffic jam on the highway caused by a desk that fell off the top of a car. 


I guess he got it home in one piece.  I can only imagine the home he took my prized desk back to.   Of course I'm glad it's gone, but at the same time I kinda miss it.


S

Plan for the worst, hope for the best

We have a truck, several dollies of various sizes, and lots of muscle-pain-numbing aspirin to see us through our move.  I have help coming on Sunday if needed, but I'm hoping we can get it done ourselves before then.  I'm looking forward to moving but dreading the move itself.

We've already discarded lots of stuff we don't use, and I'm hoping we can cull even more as we unpack.  Call me weird, but I love small, organized spaces.  K says I over-think things, but it's what I do.  My mind can see things 3-D ( no doubt from decades of reading blueprints) so I know where most everything will fit before we even get there.  It drives her nuts, but I see it as an advantage.

Best news of all....late last night after we had gone to bed I had a call regarding purchasing my desk.  Yes, the monster desk from hell!  I'll plan to move it last and hope the guy shows up with cash in the meantime.

I hope this doesn't turn into a near-death experience.  *deep breath*  Cover me....I'm goin' in.


See ya in a few days.  Y'all behave yourselves.  :)

S

More Microsoft pollution

I read today that Ford, which was flying high after saying NO to government bail-out money during the financial crisis, is now in a tailspin.  According to Consumer Report, based on reliability they've dropped from 5th to 10th place, while JD Powers has dropped them from 5th to 23rd place based on customer satisfaction.  And it has nothing to do with the engineering or styling of their cars.  No, by those criteria they're quite good, actually.  They're being panned because of their "MyTouch" system, a dash mounted touch-screen used in place of traditional knobs and switches.  It was developed by Microsoft, and it's crap!


I'm Microsoft-phobic. I loathe Microsoft.  Every PC I've ever owned proved to be more trouble than it was worth, all thanks to Microsoft.  They froze up regularly, need "patches" daily, and were a virus nightmare.  I finally tried a Mac a couple of years ago and have nothing but good to report.  I know Windows runs most businesses, but I also know it's a huge source of irritation for them.  I don't think I'm alone feeling the way I do about this:  Microsoft has been losing market share and their stock price hasn't done squat in 5 years.  Apple on the other hand is on a roll, and is now the most valuable company in the world, worth over $500B.  Which begs the question....What was Ford thinking?

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Our downsizing continues.  Last night a guy came by and bought my file cabinet.  It would have made my day if he'd taken the desk, too, but no such luck.  Fortunately I still have over two weeks to unload more stuff find new homes for my family heirlooms.  *sniff*  Today I'm back to The Container Store for more plastic see-thru storage boxes. Those things are great!  

They ought to put me on TV...."Anti-Hoarders".  All the slobs would watch and think, "Ewwww!  How could those people live like that?"  Haha!

Ciao, y'all.

S

"Down-sizing" finally makes it to "right-sizing"

I read an interesting story in the paper recently about empty nesters and their downsizing dilemma.  The jest of it was that people stay in their huge homes where they raised their family, loaded to the gills with a lifetime of accumulated "stuff", then they retire and find it difficult to simplify and downsize like they promised themselves they would.  They say you should gradually wean yourself from the thinking that "more" and "bigger" are better.  It's like an auto race:  the winner doesn't cross the finish line and then stomp on the brakes.  He gradually decelarates and eventually walks to the podium to collect his prize.

That's essentially what K and I have been doing for the past three years.  In 2009 we sold our large 2-story home with the big yard (that I promise you DIDN'T mow itself!), gave to my kids whatever stuff they wanted, then sold or gave to Goodwill all but the things that were important to us that we wanted to keep.  We moved into a comfortable apartment which was supposed to be temporary until I could build us another patio home-sized residence, but found we actually liked the maintanence-free lifestyle.  (Something needs fixing, just fire off an email.  I like!)

Now we're on to phase II of our "right-sizing" journey.  We're signing a new lease today on another apartment a couple of miles away, still in a great location, but which is new and immaculate.  It's actually a bit smaller, and a bit cheaper, too, but it's arranged to feel larger.  Granite countertops, porcelain tiled floors, stainless steel appliances....all very upscale.  And all that stuff we brought from our old home we really wanted to keep?  Much of it has been stuffed into the back of closets and in our storage room ever since, untouched. 

Tonight we start culling through it all....again.  It really feels liberating to pare yourself back to less "stuff".  I remember many years ago I had a friend who lived on a 35 ft. boat in Florida.  He could take everything he needed for a week's vacation in a carry-on duffle bag.  If he bought something new and took it onboard his boat, something else had to come off to make room for it.  I doubt I can ever match his efficiency, but I think I can get reasonably close.  K too.  This is one move I'm actually looking forward to.  :)

I'll leave you with my favorite sarcastic cartoon-of-the-day:

I feel so much better now that the banksters have said they're sorry and made amends for their past sleazy practices.  Bless 'em all.

S