Right this minute, I am at the dining room table writing, Gavin is in the kitchen disassembling a Nerf gun, Mikey, Sean & Ethan are all in Ethan’s room playing a game that requires a lot of yelling and banging on walls and Dennis is in his basement office. We are all, seriously, about 15 steps from each other.

We live in a small house. I hesitate to say ‘tiny’ because I recently watched ‘Tiny‘. It profiled several people who own/have built ‘Tiny’ homes (usually considered under 200 s.f. in total) and it was very interesting. I think we each have about that here.

I feel like we were totally ahead of the ‘downsizing curve’. 6 of us live pretty comfortably in a 3 bedroom cape – about 1300 square feet. We do enjoy two bathrooms – but the one Dennis and I share (and often with the kids) can barely be turned around in. We share a closet that is 3 ft. by 3ft. Our living room and ‘entryway’ are the same room 🙂 The kitchen/dining room is also our ‘reading-writing-tv watching-chemistry lab-craft studio-game playing-laptop-my office’ space.

EVERYTHING in our house is multifunctional – and it has to be.

Stool or tray-table? Couch in the kitchen?

Thank God for the open floor plan of the first floor. Do you remember our kitchen remodel? A life-saver, for sure. How about that move to ‘family closet’. Worked like a charm.

I used to yearn for space. Once, Dennis and I looked at a half-finished, mega-fixer-upper that would have been 9 bedrooms on 6 acres. Years later, I can barely keep what we currently have clean and organized – and quite frankly the postage stamp lot does not always get cared for the way we would like. We don’t heat 11 foot ceilings, can’t keep tons of ‘stuff’ and no one sits alone in a room – ever 🙂 Our little house leaves cash in our hands and time to do lots of other things. Someone very wise once told me that anything you own – owns you.

I believe it.

(Before Dennis and I bought our house, we lived in a 3-room, railroad track apartment and Ethan slept in pantry. I also did not own a washer & dryer until this house. I am grateful.)