The Great Experiment

Dot's square footage is up for debate, but there's no arguing the fact that she's on the smaller side of today's American home standards. I know this because one day at playgroup, before we officially closed, someone asked how big she was, and I'm pretty sure there was an audible gasp when I mentioned the specs. And then at Wal-mart, I ran into someone I know who knew we'd just moved, and he asked if we bought a "nice big house." I think he was disappointed when the answer was no.

Anyway, the debate is over two conflicting square feet evaluations. We bought her knowing that she had 1138 square feet, that's what it is according to the county assessor. When we got the assessment back from the bank, they put her over 1200 square feet. Wow, we're moving up. Either way, most families would shy away from a house this size all together. Did I mention two bedrooms and one bathroom? There's also an office, that Magnolia is currently using as a bedroom. The room that Cora and Magnolia will share is 14x14. I don't really know how big our bedroom is...brb

Okay, our room is just shy of 12 x just over 11. I think the perfect sized bedroom is 12x12, so we're almost there. We got rid of a dresser and the night-stand from our bedroom set. I was reading about bungalows one day, before we found Dot, and it said that everyone should have the opportunity to live in one. They're completely utilitarian, you can fit what you need, and live comfortably. In talking about bedrooms, it said, a bed and a chest of drawers is all you need. I took them up on that advice. Though we also have a trunk and a chair in our room. It's perfect. And less drawers means less places to accumulate things I don't really need.

One of my three resolutions for this year was to Live with less. And we've been working on it all year, but when we found Dot, I had a moment of panic. Buy a house that's an experiment? Can we really do it? The answer is yes. We're still in a bit of disarray. There are three boxes of things that are going to go in our studio (We have a small soon-to-be studio space behind our garage), as soon as a few things get picked up, which will happen tomorrow, phew. With all the purging we've done, I feel like there's always more that I could do without. That's a nice feeling.

So, less storage space means more creativity. I know I'm going to arrange and rearrange things a few times before it's at optimal convenience level. I'm excited to have my father-in-law on board for some storage/canopy beds for the girls. It will be rad. Aside from our indoor living space, we also have two decks and a front porch, so we're taking advantage. Jake put together four chairs this weekend. It's liberating knowing that we don't need a house to match our stuff - that we can pare down and have stuff that matches our home and life. Did I mention Dot has twenty-seven windows? I'm talking walls full, and I'm quite certain nothing makes a home feel bigger than that.

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