Thoughts on Living with Less

Happy New Year!  I loved having up my Christmas stuff, but  was anxious to get it packed.  I am always pretty excited about a New Year and a tabula rasa.  Plus, we had such a here or there, gogogo sort of year last year with the move.  So, I'm ready to start this New Year.  Before we moved, we knew we were seeking a smaller home.  So, we purged and sold and donated what we didn't truly love.  After physically moving to a home that is smaller (by about 600+ square feet,) we are still editing.  I'm having to be so picky about what I keep and sometimes it is hard.  But, other times, I feel so free!  It is so much easier for me to pass up some cute vintage piece (with a great price) when I know that I will have to give away something I already love to make it fit.  A "one in, one out" philosophy, if you will.

We aren't just living with less vintage stuff, but with less small appliances and what not.  When we started ripping out the kitchen, we decided that in order to execute our grand scheme of centering the sink under the window, that we would have to leave out the dishwasher. Now, I had already not used the dishwasher in our old house for over a year, so it wasn't a huge sacrifice.  And, honestly, I will complain about doing the dishes whether I am loading them  or doing them by hand.  We also decided that we didn't really need a microwave after we took the  one over the stove down to rip out the old backsplash.  We replaced it with a simple range hood.  Not only do we not miss these things, but that is 2 less appliances to replace when they inevitably stop functioning.  I also gave up my coffee maker for a simple Chemex and a kettle.  My old coffee maker would have taken up a fourth of the total counter space in the kitchen.


Our last home had 2.5 bathrooms.  This one has 1.  As today was my bathroom cleaning day, I can tell you that I do not miss an extra toilet, sink, or tub to clean--not one bit!  And, since we have exactly 7 rooms, I only have to clean one room a day.  I'm technically not even cleaning our ***Room of Requirement yet since I can barely walk in there, let alone vacuum.

Living with less house has been better for us. I know that our house is still huge to some.  And, that we have a long way to go in simplifying.  We don't miss the extra space at all.  I think with some well placed built in shelves that it will work even better than our previous home with more space. And, it frees up time to do things we enjoy (besides compulsive vintage shopping!)

We aren't completely finished with anything in the house, but here is a little before photo for comparison to the first photo.  I'm going to pretend my kid didn't just tell me that this red kitchen looks better.  We need to have a little talk about keeping certain thoughts to ourselves.

 

Here's to a simple New Year!

***affectionately named since if you can't find a place to put something, it goes there.  If you are looking for something, it is probably in there.