Monday, August 10, 2015

Creative and Contented: Large Families Living in Small Homes (a Mini Series!!)



Large family living in a small home?  "Large" and "small" can be sort of subjective, so I hesitate to say that we are either a large family or that we have a small home.  Despite the fact that we often feel crowded, curse the tiny shoe-clogged entryway, and play musical beds every afternoon at rest time, there are plenty of families living in spaces much smaller than ours.  

Maybe it's because "small" is so subjective, but I often feel like these fours walls are closing in on us... there's more people, they're getting bigger every year, and there's more stuff.  Seven people in 1,400 square feet is not unreasonable, but in the day to day, it feels unreasonable that I have to make it work.   When we moved in over 6 years ago with just two children, living in a three bedroom home with one and half bathrooms was easy breezy.  Now, managing the needs of a family of seven in the same space tends to either make my blood boil or exhaust me.  Either way, I'm usually left thinking, "there must be something better out there."  

My husband and I often discuss "should we move to a bigger home?" or "what can we do to this place to make it more livable?"  We never get anywhere because we don't want to spend the money to buy bigger, an addition on our current home eats up yard space and doesn't increase the value of our home, and we actually love our neighborhood and home and aren't dying to get out of here.  I just need a little more "here" here - like another bathroom, a family room, an extra bedroom, a bigger entryway, a mudroom, an eat-in kitchen, and maybe even a school room as long as I'm listing and can use as many commas as I want.  Those things would make life here problem-free!  (cause, man, do we have problems...)

I had the idea to host this series by guest bloggers because I quickly realized that more than house hunting and do-it-yourself-This-Old-House-style projects, what I really needed was an attitude adjustment about the home we already have... in the condition it's currently in.  

As I read the articles that were submitted by the guest writers you'll meet this week, I was inspired by their wisdom and experience.  In addition to the obvious decluttering (KonMari, I'm looking at you),  I identified a few things that would help me live more contentedly in our current home:

* I need to practice deeper and more habitual gratitude for the blessing of the home we have, as well as for the less "visible" blessings such as our good neighbors, the relative safety of where we live, and our proximity to my parents.

* "The grass isn't always greener" in the larger, perfectly planned home we're always one the lookout for.  We can't know what difficulties would come with another home, so it's foolish to imagine that the future home of our dreams is made with sunshine and flowers and has wild unicorns that graze on the dew-dropped grass of the picturesque wooded lot.  
* Perhaps this home, much like my vocation as a mom, has been given to me so that I have opportunities to improve in my deficiencies (patience, orderliness, organization, high levels of neediness as far as personal space and me-time is concerned...).  All the "problems" that I imagine would be solved in a larger home (more personal space = better patience, spacious rooms = less kids quarreling over "he's in my way", more cupboards = less stuff on the floor)  might actually be part of my virtue training if we stay here and we have to conquer them (instead of just sweep them under the rugs of our new and ginormous home.)  (Hehe... yes.  I'm going to stick with this growth in holiness argument.  That's why we're staying in this house :) )
  
* Basing current decisions (like a move or an addition) on stumbling blocks you imagine encountering in the future is not always wise.  I tend to get sweaty and panicky when I imagine all my children older and larger (like teenage boy large) and trying to get our family in and out of our teeny tiny bottleneck entryway at once.  I silently shriek "this will never work!" when I try to picture three or four adult-size people passing each other in the narrow upstairs hallway or stooping over the bathroom sink to brush teeth.  But I get all worked up about something that hasn't happened yet and which I can't even clearly picture - my adult children won't barrel through the tiny hallway and swarm the sink all that once like my "children" children do.  I can't assume that my adult children will be tripping over each other getting in and out of the house because (God willing!) they'll have the patience, good judgment and coordination that comes with age, and somehow I imagine we'll all make it through the door unscathed.  The majority of my children now possess very little patience, good judgement, and coordination but it's senseless to assume it will always be that way and buy a bigger house tomorrow because I'm "trouble shooting" the future stampede of large children I envision in the hallway.  

* Declutter.  Oh wait, I already mentioned that.  

The moms who will share their small home experiences with us this week are sure to inspire you!  They have inspired me to commit to prayerful gratitude and contentment and have given me some ideas on practical solutions that will help in the day to day operations in our home.  I look forward to sharing their stories with you and hope you'll welcome them warmly to Ordinary Lovely <3 

In the mean time, I invite you click on over to Ronni's at The Screenwriter's Wife.  Earlier this year, Ronni wrote a great post on how her family of four makes it work in a 700 square foot home.  She was generous enough to let me share the link with you, and I think you'll be impressed with some of the ideas she has for saving space and making their small space livable!  Thank you, Ronni for sharing your wisdom with us!  



And don't forget to check back each day this week for a new post in the series!  

my kiddos last fall in front of our lovely home!

18 comments:

  1. I'm so excited for this series! We'll be a large family in a small home starting this weekend and I'm interested to see how everybody makes it work!

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  2. This type of discussion just got started on my local homeschooling group. I'm off to go share the link. Great idea!

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  3. The shoe pile. Sweet Jesus knows the shoe pile is going to be the death of me in our 1050 square foot home (for soon to be six people). I have no idea how to handle it, so it's just a great big pile of shoe next to our tv stand. And it kills me (not to mention is probably a super serious safety issue with all the cables/electronic plug ins back there). I hope someone in the series addresses it ;)

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    1. I was just telling someone else that I joke that every time we have to get out whole family in or out of the house -- through the teeny tiny box of an entryway, with ALL those shoes (some of them with a weapons-grade aroma) -- it's a near occasion on sin :) So, I hear ya on the shoe pile struggles. Stay safe, Mary! Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  4. What a great idea! Just before I was pregnant with our 4th we were able to add on to our home, which gave us more room to breathe but there are still times when I wish there was a bit more room in the kitchen or when I wonder how we'll fit around our table when the boys grow teen size. Not to mention that we have way too much stuff, which makes life cramped no mater the size of your house. I'm not in the same boat as you but I have been working on the decluttering and can definitely practice more gratitude for what I have an stop wishing for something different. I'm looking forward to more words of wisdom here. :-)

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    1. Thanks, Bobbi!
      I fear the grown teen boys years too :)

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  5. I'm super excited too! We've got six so far in our 1700 square foot home and it doesn't feel too small to me but we had plenty of horrified family members who couldn't understand why we didn't pick something larger! A lot of the square footage is in the basement so it's good for storage and guest space but not somewhere I want the kids to be alone so it doesn't add much to our livable space :)

    I like the "growth in holiness" argument for small house living. I think it really is true! A bigger house is more space but it's also more to clean and more to furnish and doesn't require the same sort of thought when buying things--i.e. where is this new thing going to live in my house? I am sure that I've been (*not always willingly--or happily*) changed into a better person for having chosen to live in a smallish house :)

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    1. Thanks, Cristina! I think you'll enjoy the posts coming up!

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  6. I love this idea! We have soon to be 7 in 1400 sq ft (and we do not even have a basement for storage). We have talked, on and off, for years about moving to a bigger space. I think homeschooling adds to the desire/need. But, due to the adoption, we have made the "final" decision to stay in this home. And it has really made me reflect on what I really want and need. We have done a bunch to be more contented here. Much of it is learning to be grateful for what we have and thanking God for this home and the space we do have. But, practically, we have moved rooms around and gotten rid of A LOT of stuff. We are book lovers here and I had to realize that we just needed to get rid of most of them, even though we homeschool and even though we read lots. We are holding on to favorites and getting rid of the rest.

    And the shoe pile . . . the kids have to put their shoes away. That's it for us here. I have realized that I do not really crave a bigger space, but I truly just want the space I have to be clean and I always figured that if we had more space, I would be able to keep the space cleaner/less cluttered.

    I look forward to reading the series!

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    1. YES to the homeschooling thing! That's honestly one of the main reasons we keep looking for someplace bigger and with more land. We're practically ALL in the house ALL day long (not really! but more than if the kids were in traditional school ;) ) It feels like we need more room for our school stuff and just for our bodies to be not so close to each other all day long :)
      I LOVE that you chose the expense of adoption over a larger home! Your little place will be bursting with love for sure! God bless you guys on this journey <3

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  7. Looks like a great series! When we were fostering, we were a family of five, now a family of four in >800 sq ft. We've been here 10 years and I'm still refining the process :)

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  8. This looks fun! We have 6 kids in under 1400 sq ft. I can't wait to see everyone's posts!

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  9. I am so excited for this series. We are a family of six in about 1300 square feet...but we were once a family of four in about 800, so this still feels like space to me! The thing that's made it hard is homeschooling- we're home all the time, and there is so much stuff that goes with homeschooling...the books, the papers (so much paper! save all the drawings! God save me from the drawings!), the art materials, the math manipulatives...sometimes I think can I either homeschool or have a tidy space, and my preference isn't always the virtuous one, you know? I'm with you totally on the growing in virtue thing and I'm trying to see this as an opportunity to do so. Sometimes, though, it's just hard. :-) I'm glad you're doing this series and can't wait to see what people share. Thanks!

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  10. Look forward to your series:) One of the biggest game changers for us when living in a 77sq m house with 11 people was footprint space. I distinctly remember when my husband built a new pantry that was floor to ceiling high and fitted 4 times as much food in compared to a cupboard the same footprint size how it changed everything.

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  11. Thanks so much for linking to my blog post! I'm looking forward to seeing how other people make it work! My husband and I recently decided that though we'd love to move, that we'll need to stay in this home for a couple more years at least. So we've started planning for my major decoration and reorganization in order to utilize space even more. No new babies are on the horizon yet, but it's a very real possibility that we'll need to fit in another child before we'll be able to move. My daughter will be starting Kindergarten next school year too, and I'm also weighing the idea of homeschooling, so we'll have that to fit in as well.

    In a weird way, it's kind of a fun challenge trying to find a way to make it all fit - I feel like I should be an Ikea consultant, ha ha! :)

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  12. We are currently ten (or twelve when my parents are with us) in 2200 sq ft and are considering a move into a much, much bigger house (nearly three times bigger) and I'm a little scared that I'm going to lose all my children in that much space. But at least they'd each have a bed, which they don't quite now.

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