Home Inspections and Downsizing our Sh*t

Dining Room Set - Buh-Bye!

With the successful sale of our house underway, the next step in the plan is to start the downsizing process.  Our current home is 2230+ square feet (that does not include the full, finished basement).  Less space means we need to bring along less stuff with us when we move.  Our large furniture pieces are useless in the new house which is just under 1500 square feet.  Storage space is limited.  Bedrooms are smaller.  There is only one bathroom.  (Gasp).  This shocks a lot of people.  I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about only cleaning ONE bathroom.  ONE toilet.  ONE tub.  That is a slice of my version of heaven.  Furthermore, there is no dining room in the new house.  No "bonus" living room.  That means my china and dining room set is useless.  The kitchen space is actually larger space-wise.  The pantry has less space, but not by that much.  I am grateful that there is a pantry. Many of the smaller homes that we have seen just don't have one.

C-ya!  Matching Bookcase!

Aside  from the dining/living room furniture we need to downsize on bedroom furniture (our current set is way too bulky and we have way too many pieces to fit into our new, "cozy" master bedroom).  Basement furniture needs to go.  We have a great basement space in the new house but the furniture needs to be more functional than the black leather sectional and large oversized stuffed chair that we currently have.  Our kitchen table and buffet is going.  Our family room couches are going (they should have gone a year ago, they are super worn out from all of our "love" over the years).  Basically, we are starting from scratch.


I listed all of this stuff and more on Craigslist and within 48 hours more than half of it was sold.  After Friday we will have no tables or chairs in our home to eat off of and we will have no master bedroom furniture to put our clothes into (we are keeping our bed), but I will have cash in my pocket to go and buy some new stuff that fits our new home and is functional for the needs of our family.  My biggest struggle is trying to remember the space of the new home.  I have pictures of course, but that differs so much from actually being IN the space.  Not to mention when we were IN the space, the current owners stuff was in there.  It is really hard to picture your family in a home that is currently 100% occupied by someone other than yourself.  This person has a LOT of stuff.  Stuff on the walls.  Furniture stuff.  Clothes stuff.  Knick-Knacky stuff.....  Just a lot of stuff.  It is hard to plan past the stuff.

So basically I Pin things and I obsess over the pictures we took of the new house while we were there last.  Today our current home passed its inspection with flying colors, which we had assumed it would.  Tomorrow our new home gets it's inspection.  I will feel a lot better when that is over.  In the meantime me and Pinterest and Craigslist are becoming quite familiar.