The footers being poured for the mechanical room bump out.
It happened! This past week, after a few years of designing, planning and re-designing, we finally broke ground on our future “Simple House” at the farm. I have to say that for both of us, it was a pretty incredible moment to see the soil at the top of the hill pushed aside to make way for the next chapter of our life.
Our “Simple House” project is in reality about simplifying our life. It’s about downsizing to live comfortably without the wasted space of rooms we rarely, if ever use – and filling them with “stuff” that we never needed in the first place.
Our “Simple House” which will overlook the farm
At right around 1050 square feet, our “Simple House” certainly doesn’t qualify as a “Tiny House” by any means – but for us, it is both reasonable and practical. Reasonable because it will allow us to live comfortably with the space we need and use every day. Practical, because by constructing on a smaller scale, we’re not wasting money to build and fill up unneeded rooms. Most important of all – we won’t be spending all of our time in the coming years trying to upkeep all of that unnecessary space – instead, spending that time doing what we love.
There is a tremendous amount of freedom in living with less. It quite simply lets you live with so much more. More freedom to travel, garden, spend time with family and enjoy life. It also allows you the freedom to not be held captive by the expense, space, energy and stress of a larger home. See: The Simple House Floor Plan
De-Cluttering On Steroids – Moving Out Of Our House This Week
About 12 months back, in preparing for the eventual downsizing move to the farm, we began the process of eliminating unneeded clutter from our current house – calling it our “One-A-Day / 365 Project.” Our goal was to remove one unnecessary item each day from our house for one year, either by donating, selling, recycling, or at last resort, throwing away. We also began the practice of never buying anything new unless it replaced something currently in the house. See : 365 Project
Those two actions were the turning point for us in realizing that eliminating the clutter eliminated stress in our lives. The more we cleared out – the better we felt – and the less we spent buying “stuff.”
So that leads us to this week – and the final stage of downsizing. With our current house selling much quicker than anticipated – we need to be moved out by the end of May. So these past few weeks – our downsizing efforts have been in high gear!
The extra kitchen utensils found as we cleaned out the cupboards
Even with all of our clearing efforts over the last year, it is amazing for us still to see how much “stuff” we had accumulated that simply took up space. Multiple sets of kitchen utensils, pans we hadn’t used in years – and still more things stashed here and there in those “extra” rooms we had long ago forgotten about.
But the end is in sight – and at the end of this week, we will move to a temporary house until our home at the farm is finished. One step closer to our dream of a simple life, in our simple house at our little farm. And that makes it all worth it!
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Happy Gardening and Downsizing! Jim and Mary