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Get rid of the clutter and you won't feel so claustrophobic! Americans have too much STUFF and then we need gigantic houses to hold all the stuff. Less stuff = less need for space = less hassle = liberation!
Yes, it's called Freeing, Freedom. We have no clue going thru it all. Till we start to get rid of it all.
Yes, it's called Freeing, Freedom. We have no clue going thru it all. Till we start to get rid of it all.
get RID of the stuff! We are retiring to Brunswick County,NC and are going from a 3700 sq. ft home to a home less than 3000 (and incredible less taxes than NJ) and NO BASEMENT. never lived without a basement before. Here's what we did. Saved a lot of my three kids toys, school projects, etc. Had them come over and said, whatever you want we toss. I kept ONE box for each of them for future grandkids toys for the future for the new house - they took what was sentimental to them - and believe me it was FAR LESS than I thought it would be - and tons of stuff they decided to put on EBAY $$. Was a win-win. Never realized ALL the pots/pans I had. Really? I needed five of the same size??? Yard Sale them. You'll be more apt to yard sale when you see the $$ you get. Had yard sales every year for about 25 years and when I see a feeding frenzy of people in my drive way, I run inside and pull my crap to sell$ Did over $500 last spring alone! Less to clean, less clutter. Believe me, young millenials do NOT want silver, china or crystal. It barely gets a price on Ebay, too!! Don't leave all of this for your kids to clean up after you are gone......as my husband said, "if its not going in a truck to NC - do something with it!!"
We went from 3700 sq. ft. to 1200 when we retired at ages 50/51. HOWEVER, during the first five years at the smaller home we traveled incessantly. Probably spent less than 150 nights a year at it while we roamed around. Once we took a break from travel, we realized it was too small. Bought a second larger home and kept the first one as a vacation home.
Both those homes were sold when we relocated in 2013 to be nearer my FIL who needed us to manage his care as he declined physically and with dementia.
Now we are again in 2 homes, one is 1800 sq. ft. the other is 4,000 sq. ft. Much more comfortable than 1200 sq. ft. but again, if you plan to travel a lot (as do many new retirees) a smaller home works OK, but not IMO, fulltime.
We went from 3700 sq. ft. to 1200 when we retired at ages 50/51. HOWEVER, during the first five years at the smaller home we traveled incessantly. Probably spent less than 150 nights a year at it while we roamed around. Once we took a break from travel, we realized it was too small. Bought a second larger home and kept the first one as a vacation home.
Both those homes were sold when we relocated in 2013 to be nearer my FIL who needed us to manage his care as he declined physically and with dementia.
Now we are again in 2 homes, one is 1800 sq. ft. the other is 4,000 sq. ft. Much more comfortable than 1200 sq. ft. but again, if you plan to travel a lot (as do many new retirees) a smaller home works OK, but not IMO, fulltime.
I'm curious. How is 1200 sf not large enough? Pets, kids, etc? I'm single living in a 1200 sf rental and I'm comfortable. What are you doing with so much space? do you use all of the rooms? I hope to buy a 12-1800 sf house in a year or two.
I have NO problem downsizing. But my husband is the hoarder. He save everything, boxes, jars, etc. His "space" is the garage and a bedroom known as his mancave. Both are packed full of crap.
Since retiring, I've gotten rid of most of my working wardrobe on ebay, so all I can do is downsize my stuff. He loves all the doo-dads in the china cabinets, etc.
If I outlive him I will just have an estate sale, move to a 500 sqft apartment and finally be free of all this stuff and vacant space.
I'm actually looking forward to having more space. I'm single and live in an 1100 ft house. It's certainly adequate for me and I don't have a lot of stuff. I do have a 1930s collection of CA pottery I will downsize and I also have a 1964 train set given to me by my father when I was 4 years old which I don't want to leave behind or sell. The train set alone takes up one bedroom when it's set up. I'd also like to have a guest room and or office.
So when I retire in about 3-4 years a 1500 -1800 ft house sounds really nice to me and where I wish to move to, an older house with more space is cheaper than a newer house with little space.
I'm curious. How is 1200 sf not large enough? Pets, kids, etc? I'm single living in a 1200 sf rental and I'm comfortable. What are you doing with so much space? do you use all of the rooms? I hope to buy a 12-1800 sf house in a year or two.
If a single is comfortable i 1200 sq. ft., ergo a couple needs 2400 sq. ft., no??
Yes we use all the rooms both our houses, though about 450 sq. ft. of the 4,000 sq. ft. house is a separate casita. We have constant guests (we live in Central Mexico). My husband and I each have our own offices in this house. Plus a separate guest room in the main house. There aren't that many rooms but the rooms are very large with 18' high ceilings.
In our 1800 sq. ft. house, he has his own office but I do not. It is a beach cottage and fun to visit but we spend 80% of our time at the MXN house.
This is such an individual thing. We have owned huge rambling properties and managed to completely fill up every closet, every storage space, garages, barns, etc with really great stuff.
When time to move we were quite surprised at how much great stuff we had and if we needed to downsize it was actually painful to get rid of some of it.
Over the years we moved around a bit from big to little back to big and so on. We noticed we would generally fill whatever sized space we had - it's the American way after all, good for the economy buying stuff and all that.
Now we live in about 550 sq ft and it didn't take long to have every little storage area filled up. That 'one in one out' idea doesn't work when you can just put up another shelf!! To keep it under control we've agreed on - No renting storage spaces, no outside yard 'lockers' and nothing stored under the bed.
It's not much of a sacrifice for us, we have everything we want and need but if given more space we would have no trouble filling it up with more 'needed' stuff!
Oh, you can feel claustrophobic in a space even when it's not packed to the brim with stuff. I think a lot of it has to do with how much natural light a space gets, and whether you can easily see outside while in the space. Lot's of light + decent views = the space doesn't feel as 'tight" (even if it's still small).
We looked at an apartment that had 6-1/2 foot ceilings painted pea-soup green, and only a single window at the front. So oppressive! and that wasn't even the worst part of the place; the landlord didn't have a key, so she slid out one of the jalousie panes to get the door open; then assured us security was good. hah! no, we didn't rent there.
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