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

Score!

Yesterday while K and I were out working off our Saturday "to do" list I realized we were just a block from REI and my car, as it's wont to do, went on auto-pilot straight into their parking lot.  Fortunately for me as I discovered they were having a store-wide "garage sale".  Some of it was returned items on sale for cents on the dollar, but they also had tons of new stuff marked down 50%, too.

I found this $180 Primaloft-insulated mid-weight REI jacket for $83.  Now I just have to fight Luke for it.  (He looks "ready to rumble."  Grrrrr!)

I don't understand clothes merchandising.  Here it is barely a week into winter, there is still snow on the ground from last Tuesday's storm, and already stores are clearing out their winter stuff and making room for....what....summer shorts and t-shirts?  It seems like they start earlier and earlier every year trying to sell us the upcoming season's styles.  I'm thinking someday they'll actually get ahead of themselves a full 12 months and put next winter's stuff on sale at the start of this winter.

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My banana pudding is in demand again....by ME!  I took a huge bowl of BP I made to the in-laws for (part of) our Christmas dinner dessert, and as we left K said, "Y'all just keep the rest and enjoy it."  DOH!  I got one modest-size bowl for all my effort.

This afternoon we're going to have Christmas with two of my daughters who live in the area and grandkids Parker and Blakely, plus grand-daughter Reese still "in the oven".  I made another banana pudding to share with the family, with the understanding I'm bringing back at least some of what's left over.  I mean, one serving is just a teaser!

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'Tis the best of times....it's college football bowl season....and the worst of times....after January 7th I won't have any more NCAA football for eight months.  Oh, the horror!

So far we've only had some of the minor bowl games like the Boudreaux's Butt Paste* Bowl (or something like that) where my Texas Tech Red Raiders lucked out and beat Minnesota as the clock ran out.   Hey, it's still a "W"....I'll take it.

Now I'm gonna go check the newspaper to see which NFL players added to their police rap sheets over the weekend.

Y'all have a nice Sunday.

S

*Yes, there really is such a product.  (I don't make this stuff up, folks.  Well, not most of it.)

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

1/3 of the way there

Yesterday evening I took a full truck load of "stuff" from our storage room here at our apartment over to my daughter's house for their weekend garage sale. This afternoon I have to move about the same amount from our warehouse. I've stirred up more dust in the process than a west Texas sandstorm. That will put me 2/3 of the way there.

I told Wonderful Daughter #3 I would be at her house by 7:30 to help her set up and price all this junk. I'm going to put a garage sale notice on Craig's List this evening, and I guarantee by first light tomorrow morning there will be cars parked in front of her house, waiting for us to open the garage doors. By mid-afternoon I'll be finished with this ordeal, and ready to enjoy what's left of my weekend.

What do people who buy all this stuff do with it? Are they the ones we see featured on Hoarders on TV? I've examined it all carefully and I'm pretty sure there are no Picasso's in the pile. It's just pure junk.

S

Somethin's gotta change

Usually by Hump Day I'm beginning to get pumped about the upcoming weekend. This Hump Day I'm definitely NOT looking forward to what awaits. Why? I have to haul several truckloads of "stuff" to my daughter's house for their neighborhood garage sale.

I know I'll feel better later when I can see my dramatically cleaned out warehouse and storage room, but getting to that point is nasty, dirty, sneezy work. Why do I let myself get into this position? Why do I buy more and more stuff, then quickly shuffle it off to the closet (first stop), then on to it's final resting place (rotting place?) in storage? This is becoming an every-few-years ordeal. I need to change this pattern.

S