How to Make a Smaller Home Work For Your Family
There are plenty of reasons to downsize your home and make a smaller home work for your family. However, this may be an intimidating change to make, if you are not prepared with a good vision for how to make the space work for your family. Be ready to condense as much as you can, be creative, and be patient with yourself, your family, and your home! Here are some ideas to help you get there.
How to Make a Smaller Home Work For Your Family: Embrace Dual Use
Take advantage of any change to double up on the usage of furniture and space. The more space you can feel, the better—look into ottomans, couches, and beds that are hollowed out to double as storage. Hide-a-beds also double the amount of sleep space you have available while allowing you to tuck that space away when you aren’t using it. Innovative furniture designs have created desks that can fold up quickly or slide into closets and drawers, or tables that can fold into big and small options depending on the need and occasion, both for decoration and functionality. It may take some research and trial-and-error, but you will find ways to double up on the purpose of your furniture and therefore save space on the unnecessary pieces.
Use Bunk Beds
If you have a large family, it may worry you thinking of how you can divide the space up amongst your family members. Bunk beds are a fun and smart way to save on space by stacking them! While bunk beds may seem like they would compromise individual space and privacy, they do the opposite—kids can make the space on their bunks as personalized and private as they want! Top bunks are tucked away, bottom bunks feel more enclosed… each can still provide the child with their own area to feel comfortable in. These beds allow for more children to fit in one room, which is ideal if you are intending to decrease the number of or space in bedrooms.
How to Make a Smaller Home Work For Your Family: Find Creative Ways to Declutter
Minimalism is more than a popular modern movement, it’s an effective way to create space in your life for the most important things! Find creative ways to determine what you value, what things you use, and what you can afford to get rid of. For example, try hanging your clothes backward, and whenever you wear something, hang it back up normally. After a few months, you will be able to see what things you wear, and what things you may want to consider giving up. With things other than clothes, dedicate some time to evaluating how often you use them and if you have unnecessary multiples of any of those things. Get rid of the broken stuff, donate the things your family has outgrown. You may be surprised at the relief “decluttering” can give you!
Use a Storage Shed
Rental storage units cost monthly fees that accumulate quickly. Decide what you need to store and how easily or frequently you will need to access it, and that will help you determine the size and style of the storage unit you need for your family. Instead of renting a storage unit, you can build a modular garage and save money. Modular garages are an investment that you can use to store vehicles or any other storage needs. Backyard sheds are another option for that little extra storage space, kept out of the way of your home.
Encourage Spending Time Outside
Your inside space may be limited, but your access to the outdoors is not! Encourage your family to spend time outside! Provide the means for relaxation or recreation in your yard, or make the location of your smaller home a priority—somewhere close to parks, or suburban areas where they can make friends that live nearby. Studies have proven that children who spend time playing outside have better overall health, including their weight, motor skills, immune systems, and muscle strength. Mental and emotional health benefit as well, with frequent use of their senses, interaction with others, and even practice with independent creativity. Fostering positive opinions towards the outdoors will improve your children’s lives and relationships with your family and their peers.
Stay Organized
Keep things clean and put away! Even if you have “decluttered” as much as possible, you can still find your things messy and disorganized if you don’t implement some sort of system for cleaning and placement. You will feel more in control of your possessions and aware of what you have. Establish expectations in your family for what goes where and the frequency with which you should keep things cleaned up. Make it a rule, or part of your schedule, just make sure it happens! This will decrease the anxiety and stress that comes with disorder, helping every family member feel more comfortable in your walls.
Find an Effective Layout
It may be a good idea to get a professional opinion on how to place your furniture to promote a good flow in each room, or even decorate a room so that it appears more spacious. Interior designers have a level of experience with floor plans that will help you find that “flow” and increase that space without the frustration of mixing it up all the time yourself. Experiment with different layouts and see what feels comfortable. Look at model homes with similar sizing, or consult people you can trust to give you good ideas on how to organize your space as much as your things.
Practice Patience
Be patient with yourself, your children, and your home. This is a change you are all facing! Adapting won’t happen overnight, and you can help each other do so by fostering an attitude of positivity and sharing. Create opportunities to enjoy each other’s company within your home, to create a consistently good feeling or opinion of your home for your family members. Do your best to work with what you have, learn how to improve, and make changes as necessary.
Your smaller home doesn’t have to be any more stressful or unmanageable than your larger one. Implement as many of these ideas as are beneficial to your circumstances and you will find that downsizing may be even better than you’d thought!
Read this next: 3 Challenges You’ll Have to Deal with in Real Estate Investing
Steelbridge Realty LLC is a Licensed Real Estate Brokerage that utilizes cutting-edge marketing techniques and data-driven Real Estate solutions in today’s ever-changing environment. Our group of professionals have decades of experience and have navigated through many business cycles. Our diverse background gives us the tools to guide people towards successful decisions.
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