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It seems like the trend is to try to keep getting a bigger and bigger house. Well, that was certainly the trend we were following. That is, until we took ourselves off of the hamster wheel and purposely went “backwards” in houses. The home we purchased last August is smaller than our last two homes. The finishes aren’t as nice as our last two homes. The yard is much bigger, but the patio areas are smaller. Still, this is the best move we could have made and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
I do understand our new home is not actually small – what I mean is it is all relative. I don’t want to give the false idea that downsizing means we went into a tiny-home, it means we chose a home smaller than our last two homes. We wanted a home that matched our interests in simplifying our lives.
These are MY thoughts on the size of OUR home. I am certainly not judging anyone else on their home. Every family functions differently and wants/needs different spaces. I’m just explaining why we wanted certain things and didn’t want certain things.
What we did NOT want:
- an upstairs
- a media room
- a 4th bathroom
When we had an upstairs, sometimes I felt too far away from my younger kids and I don’t want to feel far away from my older kids either. I want them to have their privacy, which is why we wanted them to have their own rooms, but I want them to feel closer in proximity.
We didn’t need a media room, we’ve had one and not used it as much as we thought we would. We realized we still liked watching movies in our family room because it was closer to the kitchen for snacks.
Bathrooms are my least favorite thing to clean, I thought we could have one less and get by just fine. It has not been a problem!
What we wanted:
- a separate bedroom for each kid and us
- 1 office
- 1 family room
- kitchen & dining
- 2-3 bathrooms
- laundry room, closets, storage, etc.
- big yard
This home was hard to find because normally homes with so many bedrooms have a lot of extras or two stories. And with that extra, bigger space, things tend to be a nicer and more expensive quality. We were looking for a needle in the haystack! We wanted a simple home with lots of rooms.
We found it!
More house is just more to take care of! We are loving the simpler life where we are at. Life is so good!
Downsizing has been great for us and we’d definitely make this choice again. We took a step back and thought about what we really wanted for our family’s lifestyle, and then we made that happen. It is different than asking “what is the most home we can afford?” and it is asking instead “what is the right home for my family?”
And it is worth repeating – more house is more to do, more to clean, more space for clutter. Smaller houses have less to maintain!
See more of our Arkansas Home (our 3rd home together after we were married, but I didn’t start this blog until we lived in this house)
See more of our home in the northern Fort Worth suburbs (we lived here just under 2 years)
See more of our home in the eastern Dallas suburbs (we moved here August 2018)
From my home to yours,
Mary