Smaller Space

Reality is setting in that we are moving into a smaller space. Holy crap!

From where I sit and blog every morning in the living room, I can see the entire living room, dining room and hallway leading to the bedrooms and the main bathroom. The other thing I see is light coming from large windows everywhere, something we will have to get used to not seeing in the new place, especially not having windows in the bathrooms. I suppose that means that during the summer when we hardly ever turn on a light here, we’ll have no choice but to do so there. Ugh.

Okay, so it isn’t all bad. Less yard to take care of, since the front yard is a rock garden with minimal plants and the backyard only has a small patch of weeds to keep down. I just wish we could start moving stuff in next week instead of a month from now so that we will be able to sell off or donate what won’t fit into the new space. That or maybe call my sister and get measurements of her house so that I can play with the dimensions on the computer. Alas, I know that once we start packing there will be piles of stuff to get rid of, hence having a garage sale before moving will be inevitable.

Actually, the more I think about downsizing, for the time being anyway, the more I welcome the challenge. Besides the obvious dilemma of trying to figure out how to even fit a queen size bed into the master bedroom, the kitchen issue must also be raised. As my husband and I were talking last night I told him it will be interesting trying to get used to having less cabinet and counter space, to which he asked, “That place has less counter space and cabinets than we have now?” He didn’t notice, but it is true. Since the kitchen is identical to my sister’s, I know for a fact it has about a third less cabinet storage and the counters are four square feet smaller. However, with it being a dining room and kitchen combination, that means the dining room table will be in there as well, which will have its own plusses and minuses. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to look into the portable kitchen and island concepts at IKEA to extend the counters a bit, but I’ll see if I can simply make more space by getting rid of stuff we don’t use first and using what we already have for extra storage, such as the large wire shelving unit we have in our current kitchen to store most of our small appliances when not in use.

I guess the only way we’re going to figure this whole downsizing thing out is by doing it. If only the waiting game were over.