There is a lot involved with
moving your family of four into a considerably smaller house. Obviously there is the “stuff” that needs to
be gone through, packed, sold, whatever.
Our family went through EVERY ITEM WE OWN and easily got rid of 75% of
it in some way or another. Our stuff was
weighing us down and really I didn’t want to move anything that I didn’t
need. After the move I have noticed two
things. 1) No one has missed any single
item that we have purged, and 2) We can stand to lose another 30% of what we
have moved. I still have boxes of
“décor” that I haven’t unpacked yet. I have no idea really what is
in these boxes. Well, I kind of do
because I labeled them BUT I would miss a thing in them I don’t think. I am going to wait and unpack them but I bet
by the end of summer when the real house renovations begin I will be tired of
moving those unpacked boxes around once and for all.
Speaking of my packing method
I must warn you. No matter how organized
and well equipped you are with lists, colored packing tape and organizational
spreadsheets/notebooks – the packing will at some point get out of control and
shit will just be tossed directly from a drawer into whatever moving box is
nearest and opened. Note: This is only true if
you are not using movers. If you are
then I have no idea what kind of heaven you are living in and I would rather
not hear about it.
Something I wasn’t really expecting
to have to deal with when moving to a smaller house was explaining to my kids
that we are neither poor nor are we getting a divorce. Apparently the dissolution of my always-solid
marriage of nearly 15 years is easier to grasp to some (most?) people than the
reality of us just taking a (big) step towards financial freedom and less space
to be in charge of on this Earth.
The Dream (as I call it)
won’t always hold up. The dream of
moving my simple family from a rather complicated life of large spaces, bills
and responsibilities into a smaller, uncomplicated house with less space, less
stuff and more time to be who we want to be as a family isn’t exactly a fool
proof plan. It is what it is. A dream.
A vision to work towards. There
was no poorly drained and over grown backyard in my version of The Dream. In my Dream kitchen, the hot water and cold water
than ran from the sink was not backwards.
And there most certainly wasn’t a pile of large furniture garbage left
outside the garage in the driveway of my Dream house from the previous owner
because she was lying or lazy (or both) and never called to have them collected
like she claimed.
The Dream is ever
evolving. We have definitely grown as a
family in more ways over the past month since we have moved that I could have
imagined. I kind of feel like we have
taken a step back to who we used to be when we first got married in our first
(small) house. The excitement of making
our space fit who we are is still there.
There were many bumps during the move, some were expected and others not
so much (i.e. our driveway garbage dump site).
Thankfully not one bump has been anything more than that. Our kitchen now has hot water coming out the
hot side and cold on the cold – you know silly things like that. I am sure there are going to be more things
that we encounter as we tackle the remodel of each room but we are handy and we
will figure it all out I am sure.
Pinterest is mu new best friend.
That was most definitely NOT around during the time that we had our very
first and second homes. I do fee l like
The Dream is still kicking for us but I am just not quite sure what it will
look like when we are done.
