7 Essential Rules for Living in a Small Space
Living with my partner and 2 cats in 400 square feet has been a learning experience. Moving to a smaller space has actually improved my marriage, health and overall quality of life. I’ve learned a lot by downscaling and wanted to share 7 essential rules for happy small space living.
1. Listen and communicate.
Living in a big or a small house requires communicating and listening to your partner and family. Don’t make assumptions. If problems arise ask open and non-accusatory questions. I’ve found this approach to be very helpful, especially when it comes to discussing finances and cleaning.
2. Make your home a clutter free zone.
One of my favorite bloggers, Leo Babauta from Zen Habits, recently wrote a great post on clutter-free counter space. I think the tips Leo offered in this article can be applied to all areas of the home. For instance, Leo talks about finding “a home” for each object in your house.
If you want to declutter and aren’t sure where to begin read: Zen Mind – How to Declutter. Some tips offered in this article include, decluttering in small chunks, setting aside the time to get it done, tackling one drawer at a time, being merciless, and creating a “maybe” box.
For more information on Decluttering, check out these posts:
- How to Eliminate Clutter, from Basic Instructions
- FlyLady: How to Declutter
- FlyLady: Declutter 15 Minutes a Day – 5 Great Tools That Make it Easy!
- What Is Clutter?
3. 100 Thing Challenge
If you want to try extreme decluttering, you can read more about The 100 Thing Challenge. I stumbled across Dave’s blog a months ago and learned that he is living with 100 personal possessions. Why?
Dave is trying to remove himself from consumerism. Reading about this project inspired me to do the same! I’ve found that scaling down to under 100 personal things has enabled me to question what I need and has removed a tremendous amount of clutter from my life.
4. A clean home makes for happy people.
There is nothing worse that walking into a grimy home. Living with others requires cooperation and sharing chores. Always having one person clean the house isn’t fair. I’ve found that it’s important to split up cleaning responsibilities and share the load. All of us lead busy lives and it’s important to help out around the house.
5. Minimal furniture.
Get the big bulky furniture out of the house or minimize the amount of stuff you own. Keeping light and easy to move furniture makes cleaning and moving very easy. One strategy that has worked well for us is using big pillows as chairs.
6. Beautiful art and pictures.
Rather than displaying decorations on the counters, hanging beautiful photos of family, friends and art on the walls is perfect. Pictures give a small living space character and hanging art/photos is minimal and beautiful. Plus, photos are a portal to past memories and remind me of what is important in life. Not stuff, but people.
7. Keep the good stuff.
Stick with quality items. Keep stuff that you use everyday and love. For instance, we donated all of our big and heavy furniture and kept our favorite Ikea chair. We purchased it used and absolutely love it!
Questions…
I’m curious to hear from you. What strategies have you used to make living in a small space with others fun and easy? Would you add anything to the list?
You can learn more about small living by reading my blog, RowdyKittens or following me on Twitter.
