As we unpack and figure out where we want to put everything, we begin to see the floor and realize that this place is going to be more spacious than we thought! I look around and feel a bit like a domestic Mark Watney, walking around the house and finding solutions to our problems.* Sure, we have to get creative with some storage, and we’ll need to get rid of some things, but we’re doing ok.  We realized quite quickly that the spaces underneath our beds are actually the biggest shelves in our house.  And Meg and I put our bed on risers because we want to live in a college dorm room together.  Our bedroom is about that size, anyway. But that makes for even more storage space!

The kids’ toy box makes for a great coffee table.  There’s an antique chest  we’re using as a table beside our couch that can hold things.  We have three bookshelves that keep our books off of the floor. There’s a great space in the kids’ bedroom to make a large cabinet/shelving unit for extra storage (not a huge DIY guy, but I guess I’ll start!). Even the oven is a great space for our cookware. We keep our cast iron in there, so if the oven turns on and we forget, the pans won’t be ruined…they can take quite a punishment (like my cooking…har har).**

And we have a basement, so we can store things down there too. Clearly we aren’t lacking for space like I thought we would after cutting our living space in half, and I’m challenged by how the things I own can control me if I let them.  While we’re happy we get to keep things and not ship them off to storage, we have a big box quickly filling up with stuff we’re going to take to goodwill – nice things we kept but never used, clothes we haven’t worn in forever…it’ll be good to declutter our living space as well as our minds of all of the stuff we own.  I know I should definitely practice that more.

What are some of your decluttering practices and habits? Share in the comments!

-Adam

*If you get the Mark Watney reference, one nerdy gold star for you! If not, read “The Martian.” You’ll love it.
**That horrible joke was a very Mark Watney thing to say…just read the book…I promise you’ll love it!