Friday, May 13, 2011

Life In A Small Pink House

In the 1950's the average American family had 3 children and lived in a home of approximately 983 square feet with a single bathroom.  Today the average family has two children and the average home is 2,329 square feet with 3+ bathrooms.   Our home is 1100 square feet, we have 4 children and one bathroom.
 We get a lot of  "One Bathroom! And Four Daughters??"  Yep.

 Put whatever spin on it you want: sustainable living, simple living, vintage living, etc...  We choose to live in a smaller home.  So how do we do it?   I am still figuring it out, but I'd love to share what I have learned, and what I am learning.

Common sense tells you that if you live in a smaller space you need to have less "stuff"-and boy do we love our "stuff"!   We had to really limit our collecting and many of you know when you love vintage it is hard to pass any up.    We ask ourselves "Do I absolutely LOVE this piece?" if the answer is no, then we don't buy/keep it.   Headvases? Not any more.  Tiki masks? Nope.  Roseville? Stopped-but kept some.  Books? We sold many, this we regret.  Royal Copley? Gone.  Collectible toys? The first to go.   You get the picture.  There are sacrifices to living small.

My biggest weapon in keeping the 'a place for everything and everything in it's place' rule is shelving and storage pieces.  Not your typical Ikea storage solutions, but items that are functional and fit the character of our home.

Built ins are wonderful

Shelving!

A secretary with glass display.  Full of stationary, paper, stamps, envelopes etc...

This buffet houses our school work, photographs, linens and randomness.

A vintage treasure chest of pieces we just can't part with.

Books!  and an old bar that once doubled as our TV cabinet.

Flat files for artwork.

4 comments:

  1. I too live in a small house, although there are only 2 of us, myself and my 3 year old. Smaller spaces for me feel safer and much more homey and cosy. Lack of storage space gives us parameters to work within, always a healthy thing. I love your furniture!

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  2. Love the bookshelves on top of the doorframe, must keep that in mind when Im moving together with my boyfriend. (Im a bookseller)

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  3. I agree on the smaller house front, although we live in a 4 bedroomed house and there is only 2 of us HOWEVER the reason we bought it is that we run our own business and some of our house is actually storage, which is cheaper than renting business storage - see there is a method in our madness!!

    I agree shelving is the key, believe it or not we have very little space in our huge house because of our lack of good storage, however we are working on that. Also I agree the more space you have the more you 'collect' We are now trying to get rid of stuff cos we continue to buy stuff, we've always got rid of stuff too, but we've been selling off stuff for years and still have loads to go!

    I like the shelves above the doors, that's what I want to do with our books, they are currently on cheap Ikea shelves - all we could afford at the time - but take up so much room so we want to move upwards.

    Great and interesting post!

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  4. I've got to give credit to Mav for the books over the door. They are great. I almost want the whole house in bookshelves-but then where would I hang pictures? Also those are from Home Depot made by Rubbermaid.

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