Downsizing and Simplifying

Downsize … Simplify…

Those are trendy trigger words these days. Along with so many baby boomers entering our golden years and becoming empty nesters, we are thinking about having less so we can do more. Well, I’m no different.

Over the years I went from having a very large family (by today’s standards) at home, to being an empty-nester. At the age of 52, I will see my youngest daughter graduate from college this year, my oldest grandson enter middle school, and my husband and I will build and move into our “dream” home.

Being an organizer, I’ve always been pretty good about moving things I no longer need out of my home (after careful consideration, I’ve decided my husband stays.) However, a transitional move in November, to a small, one bedroom apartment, pushed me a little further. Having our home on the market for nearly a year, we had plenty of time to shed items we no longer needed, pack boxes, and say good-bye to our former life.

We were ready to build a home in the country. A 6-acre, wooded lot, where we had been camping for years, was calling to us. We had it all figured out, we would rent a storage locker for a few months, and when our home was ready, we would move everything in. That was our plan…

As you can imagine, it’s not ideal to start building a home in November. Along with my husband, a general contractor, we are planning to do most of the work ourselves. We will enlist the help of friends we have bartered with, and of course all those kids we gave life to – that’s gotta be worth something, right?

Then there is the issue of money. In this economy, we sold our house for considerably less than we originally planned. So we went back to the drawing board. Our modest 1200 square foot floor plan has become a 780 square foot floor plan. We will have the use of our basement, and you can be sure, somehow, we’ll have two bathrooms in that humble abode!

Finally, Spring! We gathered up all of our drawings and bids and headed off to the building inspectors office. We ran into another stumbling block; Wisconsin laws are a little different than Minnesota laws, and we had some more legwork to do. No problem, just because we gave notice to vacate our apartment by the end of June, starting to build a month later than planned shouldn’t be too big of a problem, should it? Yikes!

I’m thinking that a little more “letting go of stuff” is in order. We also have to figure out our living arrangements during this adventure! Thank goodness we’ve been relatively nice to our family members and most of our kids like us, so we’ll have several options for crashing a night or two around town. We can both work out of our vehicles, and we’re looking for compact folding cots to carry with us. We’ll just see how little a person really needs to live on for a while. I know people do it, I was just thinking that I would read about them, not live like them.

More downsizing. More simplifying.

Stay tuned to find out how this adventure progresses.