Living Small

I find the idea of living in a small home wonderful.  We live in a smaller home currently, 840 sq.ft. but it is a rental so there are minimal changes we can make.  Hopefully we will buy a house one day, and it will be small, and we can make the many desired changes I would love to currently make to our home, i.e. murphy beds, built in book shelves, shelving for storage, etc..  There are many ideas out there about how to make your small home very livable for +3 people living in minimal square footage.  This type of living goes with the minimalist lifestyle that I would like to live by.  Having a small home makes you keep your stuff to a minimum since there isn’t much space for lots of stuff.  This is a stark difference to having 1,000 sq.ft. per person which is the average for Americans now.  This explains why we have so much in our houses and are constantly needing to buy new stuff, we have too much space.  It also explains why consumerism can dictate our society.
The inspiring thing about these tiny homes is that they don’t seem crowded.  It could be good planning, good lighting or just less stuff but their homes seem open and spacious for being less than 1000 sq.ft. A part of this is that each person has minimal possessions.  To me this sounds nice because we don’t really need as much as our society makes us believe.  For some reason society (and family) tries to tell me I don’t have enough toys for my son when I know I do because he doesn’t play with most of his toys on a weekly basis.  All he really cares for are his musical instruments, books, puzzles, animal figurines and Sesame Street playhouse.  Everything else could disappear and he would soon forget.  By having minimal toys, books, clothes, etc. you don’t have to have much storage or space in your house.  Reading articles about small houses makes me wants to Spring clean my house and visit Goodwill with a sizable donation.  It also makes me envision how I will plan my future home.  Here is to hoping.

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