FAQ: How will you get away/Where will you go for privacy?

When we tell people what we're doing, some people get it immediately and are both excited and supportive, others don't get it at all but don't sweat it, and some think that we're making the biggest mistake of our lives.  We're cool with all these reactions (although the first one is the most fun for us) because we understand that we're doing what's best for our family in this moment.

Regardless of what people think about what we're doing, we do get lots of questions.  One of the biggest questions is how to get personal space.  Any parent of a toddler knows that personal space is hard to come by regardless of the size of your house.  We're not worried about our daughter just yet, but we are giving her a bedroom once we reach the garage.  I believe the question is directed more at what Scott and I will do when we need some quiet time that doesn't involve a child.  Luckily, we have a solution for that at our new apartment.

Behold, the lounge.

There is a large lounge on the first floor with several seating areas, multiple tv's, desks and tables to work at, free wifi and a small kitchen with free coffee.  It is open until 10 pm and is a great space to use when we just want to get away for a bit but don't want to go anywhere and spend money.  There's a water cooler there that our daughter loves and the fireplaces operate via remote which she discovers each time.  Scott will take our daughter down here to hang out if I need some time in the apartment to myself, or he's been known to come down here to work quietly on the weekends.  This space could also host play dates if I ever decided to have more children over than could comfortably fit in the apartment.
The lounge is all well and good, but what will we do once we reach the garage?  We are lucky to live in a diverse and thriving neighborhood.  There are already coffee shops and several restaurants that could be used to get away.  More coffee shops are slated to come to the neighborhood soon.  There is a library a few blocks away and a community center in the area.  It won't be hard to get out and get away within a several block radius.  One of the reasons we believe that the move will be so successful is because of all the businesses in the neighborhood.  If all else fails, there's a YMCA a mile away with free childcare ;)
I want to remember to give the yard a mention.  One of the tenants of tiny living is that outdoor space counts as a living space.  We're working with a landscape designer and spending lots of extra time designing our part of the yard to ensure that we'll have an inviting space that will be fully utilized by the entire family.  As our daughter grows she'll be able to play outside independently while we work inside.
Privacy is by far the most commonly asked question, but we get asked others.  What questions do you have that we might be able to answer?  Is there something you've experienced that we should consider?  We'd love to hear your questions and/or input.

The State of the Garage, Vol 1

So now that we've already downsized into a 650 sq. ft. apartment it should be really easy to fit everything into the garage, right?  I dearly wish that were the case.  Let's look at some pictures taken of the garage at the beginning of this year, shall we?

We'll begin with the view of the back right side of the garage as you enter from the double doors in front.  All the gray bins stacked so neatly are garage stuff from when we lived in the house, so it's stuff that we really don't use much.  However, a lot of it is extra parts for things that may come in handy when we need to replace/repair things.  Scott will have to spend a lot of time going through this to determine what to get rid of and what to keep.  All the boxes and stuff below were from our house and just got placed here because they wouldn't fit in the apartment.  They kayaks and workbench will stay, they just need to find a new home outside where they'll be safe.

 Meet the view of the back left of the garage.  Here's where most guys are thinking?  Is that a lift?  In a normal garage?  With a truck on it and all sorts of crap stored below?  Yes, yes and yes.  Scott bought this 1960's Chevy with dreams of restoring it to its former glory.  I should kiss this truck as it prompted getting the lift, which prompted raising the ceiling three feet, which will allow us to loft our bedrooms and actually make this space work.  Scott was able to get all his truck stuff gathered into the bed of the truck, but doesn't think that it'll be a problem to sell...if he could just clear all the stuff out from underneath and actually get it down.  There's also lots of yard waste in the picture that needs to be taken out at the quarterly pickup as well as some miscellaneous things that will need to get hauled off to the dump- when he has time.

 This view was taken while standing under the truck.  It is the view of the stuff directly to the right of the double doors as you walk in.  It has the most space in the garage to move around, but the truck blocks the floor to ceiling shelves loaded with bins and other things yet to be sorted.

Finally, this is the view directly to the left as you walk in the double doors.  There are more floor to ceiling shelves and lots of tools.  Scott will need to really go through his tools for an eye of what he absolutely needs to keep and what he can sell.  

That's pretty bad, right?  Because it's not easy to get to, we didn't even show you the bump out which you can kind of see with the cabinets in the picture directly above.  Imagine more cabinets and more stuff taking up all the floor space.
What I have yet to disclose is our dirty little secret.  Because we downsized so quickly into our apartment and didn't have time to go through and sell everything, and because we weren't sure exactly what there will and won't be room for in the garage, we also have a 10x20 storage unit.

Luckily, it's deep but it's not stacked terribly high.  We have some furniture that will need selling in here, lots of boxes of our daughter's things that will be sold at Spring consignment sales, and some patio furniture and bikes that will go outside.  There's many boxes of things that still need sorting through, but I think that this space is more intimidating than it looks.

So how's this for keeping it real?  Have we accumulated a staggering amount of stuff in our approximately 40 years on the planet?  Absolutely.  The next seven months will be a great exercise in downsizing once and for all.  We definitely have our work cut out for us and our main obstacle is time.  Weeknights are full and it's hard hanging out with our toddler all week and then all weekend while Scott sorts through everything and gets it ready for sale.  Any tips on getting rid of/selling this stuff most efficiently?

Design Kick off

Last night marked a very important occasion in our household- we hosted our kickoff design meeting!  We actually have two people on our design team.  B is the lead on the project and she is our architect/project manager.  She invited one of her coworkers, L, to help with the project.  Our understanding is that B is very good with storage and layout, while L excels in design and feel.  Because we're currently living in a 650 sq ft apartment with will be similar in size to the garage, we invited them here to look at our space, how we're using it and discuss what we would change.

The Lead Up

In preparation for the meeting, hubs and I began jotting down notes of what we wanted or didn't want for the space.  There was no particular order, just as it came to mind.  We wound up with a couple of pages which we sent to the team before the meeting for review.

Some of the items may seem silly, but after living in a small space for a month and seeing some friends' apartments around town, we wanted to be clear about what we were looking for in the space.  The design team also sent us a list of questions to consider and be ready to discuss at the meeting.

Generic Questions:

-Think about a day in the life for each of you. As a group? During the week? On the weekends? As Anna grows up?

-How long do you see yourselves living in the DADU?

-How specific do you want the design to be? Hyper personal with a narrower audience? Or generic and flexible to accommodate a wide variety of tastes and functions?

-Do you have any specific sustainability goals you'd like to accomplish? I live life through this lens, but there may be specific things you're wanting to explore or incorporate. 

-Degree of privacy between you guys and daughter.

-What furniture, equipment, fixtures, etc are you wanting to bring with you?

Activities: (How would they be physically manifested in the design of your home?)

-Sleep

-Shower

-cook, eat, grow, store

-waste mgmt: trash, recycling, compost

-learn

-work

-clean and maintain home 

-visitors, day and night

-seasonality of activities (stuck indoors in winter, outside spring/fall, etc, )

-recreate

-leisure

-socialize

-hobbies

-technology + electronic integration

-exercise, meditation, spiritual/religious activities

-media storage (books, music, movies, etc.)

-clothing storage

-child development / stages of life + their accommodations) (coming from a person with no children. Going to need your guidance on explicit needs!) 

The Meeting of the Minds

With our daughter at the babysitter, we were free to really look at our space and get into the details of what we wanted.  Once the design team arrived we all got straight to work.  We went through each room, opening up all our cupboards, storage areas, etc and talking about what was there, what worked for us, what we wanted out of the new space, and what was absolutely a no go.  Ideas were thrown out room by room as they tried to tease out our style and exact needs.  We purposely didn't clean for them so that they could see how we really live.  During parts of the meeting I felt very exposed with all my stuff on view, but I was glad that they could see exactly what we had, where our inefficiencies were and why we weren't using some places well.  All of us are well-researched in tiny living, so it was also fun to throw out some possibilities for what might be in our final project.

The Exercise

In an effort to further tease out our tastes and refine what we're looking for, B&L posted tons of images on the wall.  Some of them were just rooms, some were storage options, some were tiny house samples- it really ranged.  S and I were each given 15 dots- 5 green, 5 black and 5 red.  We were to use them as stoplights (black representing yellow) and place a dot on pictures that spoke to us.  There were way more images than dots, so this was a difficult exercise.  After we were finished, we removed the photos with no dots.  S and I had to each justify our dots and talk everyone through our rationale.

As we discussed our choices it became clear that we were looking for completely different things.  S was most interested in storage and choosing designs that wouldn't be expensive to build.  Having no knowledge of the building process and trusting that the storage will be there, I focused more on the design and feel of the spaces.  We didn't conflict on anything, we just didn't put stickers on the same photos, like, at all.  In the end, our tastes are similar and I think that we'll be a good balance for each other as we continue to navigate the design process.  

After that was complete, B&L determined they had the information they needed to proceed.  The next step is for them to come up with three ideas.  In a couple weeks we'll meet again, they'll present their ideas and we'll choose one for them to flesh out in more detail that will eventually become our garage.  I'm so excited that I can't wait for the next few weeks to fly by, and yet, when I think about all the things currently sitting in the garage and in our storage unit, it makes me with that time could slow down.  

Downsizing for Dummies

Once we decided to make the move to the garage, we began casually downsizing.  Minimalists call this the first wave- getting rid of the obvious things that you no longer need or want. If someone mentioned something they were looking for that I had, I sold it.  We participated in our community garage sale.  We took most of our books to the second-hand bookstore to sell and began distributing other things to family and friends.  Carloads of things went to Goodwill.  There were entire rooms in the house that became empty and went unused.  Perhaps we became a bit cocky.
We decided to downsize to an apartment during the design and renovation.  We weren't ready to list our suburban home (we were only there 11 months!), so we found some great tenants.  They surprised us with an offer we couldn't refuse to vacate the house in just 6 days.  When deciding on their offer, we looked around the house and, while we hadn't packed a single box, we thought that we were doing so well on our downsizing efforts that it shouldn't be a problem getting out in time.  Anyone who's ever moved knows what naive thinking that was.  I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that as the tenants were moving in the front, we were moving the final things out the back.  It was wild.
Looking back at that whirlwind of a week, we picked up a few tips on downsizing.

1.  Downsizing is best done in small chunks.  It was easy and we were able to get top dollar for our things when we were moving slowly.  Also, it was easier emotionally to say goodbye to things when we had some time to do so.  It also frees up the space for you to emotionally detach from the next round of 'stuff.' It was really difficult emotionally to have to get rid of so much stuff at once.

2.  Get some support.  The easiest/cheapest thing to do would be to have a friend come over, open a bottle of wine and make an event of going through something.  For example, I had a closet full of clothes that ranged from pre pregnancy clothes to my current size.  I desperately needed help and an objective eye to help me purge my closet.  I actually hired a stylist that week to help me weed through my clothing.  I got rid of 8 garbage bags worth of clothing in 3 hours.  It was exhausting and my wardrobe is much smaller than the typical woman's, but I love going to my closet now because everything I have fits.  It also encourages more creativity.

3.  Sometimes donation hurts, but it's worth it. The 8 garbage bags of clothes sat in my car for two days because Goodwill was closed on Thanksgiving.  I thought about all the new JCrew dresses and other brand name clothing sitting out there begging to be rescued and sold on eBay.  It was so difficult resisting and I made my husband take the donation first thing on Friday morning.  In retrospect, I know that I could have made some money and may have played with it if I had time, but I'm so glad that I'm able to move on and have one less thing to worry about.  It actually makes me feel better when I think about how excited someone is going to get when they see my clothes on a Goodwill rack for a great price.

4.  Pick a threshold amount for donation vs. selling.  What I mean by that is that selling your stuff can help you earn back some of your money, but it can also be a hassle.  We tried to sell things throughout the week we were packing and it was so difficult.  Managing the lists of people replying, answering questions, taking additional pictures, setting up pickups and meetups took up a lot of time.  Don't even get me started on the frustration of people flaking out.  Some people won't bother selling things worth less than $25, other people won't sell things less than $10.  Choose your amount and then donate the rest.  It will save you a lot of hassle.  Remember, your time is worth something, too.

5.  Categorize your things when you list them.  It's much easier to sell multiple things to a single person if you list them all in one ad.  Once we stopped our frantic dash and actually took some time with our ads, we had more success.  One woman bought $120 worth of baby toys/equipment.  Sales like that will make your life much easier.

These were just a few things we've been learning along the way, but definitely hit home during the week that we moved. While we were able to get out and successfully moved to an apartment, we still have a lot of stuff we need to get rid of.  What tips do you have for us?

The Beginning of Minimalism

Our Background
This is not a post about the history of minimalism, but more about how our family came to embrace the idea for ourselves.  To give you a little bit of history, when Scott and I got together, I lived in an approximately 1600 sq ft urban house and Scott lived in a 2400 sq. ft. suburban home.  Since I was in my forever house, we agreed to live there once we got married.

Home Sweet Home

A 2400 sq ft house accommodates a lot of 'stuff' and we had great difficulty fitting it all, even after building a large garage (550-600 sq. ft.) on the property.

Please disregard the lack of landscaping- I can't believe I can't find a finished picture!

 Once our baby girl came along with all the 'stuff' that she required, we were bursting at the seams and agreed that perhaps we needed a bigger home in the suburbs.

We really thought we did it right.  The house is about 2100 sq. ft. and there is a 500 sq. ft. unfinished bonus room that we could finish out when we decided we needed more space.  We were living the American dream.  The problem is that it didn't feel that way to us.  When all was said and done, almost 50% of Scott's salary was going to the house, so we never had any money left for traveling or doing fun things.  Home projects like building mud rooms and learning towers, and fixing things started to overtake our weekends, so we couldn't even enjoy the fun events in town.  While the house was beautiful and we loved the neighborhood, we didn't love our quality of life. We just didn't know what to do about it.
Which Came First: The Movie or the Tedtalk?
Summer arrived and I truly don't remember which one happened first, but we watched both the movie  TINY: A movie about living small and a Tedtalk about minimalism.  They both spoke to us in different ways.  While I appreciated the movie TINY, I wasn't about to pack my family into a 200 sq. ft. home on wheels- that was just too extreme for me.  However, we both loved how the people spoke about the absolute freedom they had because they weren't worried about a mortgage or maintenance costs.  When we watched that first Tedtalk about minimalism, and then linked to more and more, we realized that we personally were slaves to our things and made a conscious decision to start downsizing.
Remember our Urban Home?
About that house in the city- yeah, we never sold it.  A minor league baseball stadium is being constructed a few blocks away and we decided to hold onto the house as a rental property as we waited to see what would happen to the property values.  Best. Decision. Ever. As we continued to let the idea of minimalism percolate, Scott came to me one night and suggested that we convert our lovely garage to a living space.  "Great idea!" I said, as the thought of double rent and what we could do with the extra money set in.  A few weeks later Scott suggested that we be the ones to move into the garage and continue to rent out the house as passive income.  He suggested that because we embraced minimalism and decided to remain a family of three, we no longer required all the space in the house.  It took a little while for me to get on board, but eventually I saw that it makes total sense for us.  Sell the house in the suburbs and allow the rent from the main house to pay for us to live in the garage for free?  Sign me up.  And thus began our need to embrace minimalism in earnest. We hope that you enjoy this blog and get inspiration and motivation as we fumble around during this process.  We would love for this blog to be interactive and to get as much input from you as possible. Do you have any advice for us?  Are you curious about anything we might be going through?