Sam, Coffee, Money, & Thyme: house

My butt may not move for hours! Finally, after a 13 week wait, my new sectional has arrived. This is not just about the sectional itself, but about real progress towards getting my home back after the lower level water damage, that started the descent to home clutter. I feel instantly lighter, and motivated to keep progressing towards creating the sanctuary a home should be. My home is not tiny, at total living space of just shy of 2,000 square feet. However, I lack storage space, meaning too much stuff becomes visible clutter. The family room needs some reorganization; the positioning of the sectional isn't quite right yet, and we need a bigger T.V. stand than what we have. Some color and texture is in order as well, but for now, I am relishing in the open simplicity, clean lines, and no extra items in the room that aren't being used.

I'm not sure where the desire for people to continually up size and increase space came from. I understand everyone wants to have a little place of relaxation for themselves, but the big cavernous modern houses have no appeal to me. Sure, I can appreciate the openness when a room full of people are together. Both my sister, who hosted Christmas Eve, and brother in law who hosted Christmas day have very large, beautiful houses, and being able to have guests move around without literally being on top of each other was nice. But for everyday, I know my sister feels her house is too big now that she is an empty nester. I literally can imagine that my BIL's family could disburse when they all come home at night and on weekends, and literally not even see each other except meal times.

I hope I don't sound critical of people with big houses, just that it is not for us. I do think the right size is important, and that is a matter of personal opinion. When my sister had three kids at home, the large house was right for her. With a large family with more than a decade of still having kids at home, my BIL felt they were constantly in each others space in their former house, and opportunity came knocking to buy their new house. Before we moved to our current house 26 years ago, our first house was under 650 square feet. Of course very tight space wise once child two came along, but we did not have the volumes of "stuff" we have now, so it did work well for the previous three years. Interestingly, that first house is exactly the type of house DH and I might like to have again after DD2 is fully launched. Had we been able to keep it at the time as a rental property rather than sell it (we had special first time home buyer financing so would have had to refinance and with buying a new house, we weren't approved for the loan on both), we would be positioned to just move back into that, and then rent out our current home for a continued income stream.

I hope we purchased well quality wise, and will never need to replace either my living room or this new furniture. I'm watching episodes of flea market flip, and am thinking through what I already own to see if I can repurpose something for a "new" T.V. stand instead of buy something. If I never buy another thing for the house, not counting maintenance and repair items, I will be happy. Size matters-the right size for each of us. I have more inner "home calm" this morning than I have had in years.