I’m the first to admit I love the simple life that Something
to be Found promotes - utilize design to use space efficiently and save money
through re-use of what others have discarded. It’s a concept that looks
beautiful on Pinterest and when done well can make people feel very inadequate
for not being able to take a large piece of discarded wood (because that is
what trash furniture really is) and turning it into something that just happens to fitperfectly into their vintage styled kitchen.
One of the unique challenges of Something to be Found is having a 1,200 square
foot house serve as the corporate headquarters and warehouse while living with
2 kids. I love it when I come home from work and go into C’s room and it looks
like a grenade hit it and then C hits me with a proactive, “Mommy did a photo
shoot, I didn’t do it” – a 5 year old delivering a “just so you know” message
to throw his mom under the bus is always funny. The point is rooms end up
having a dual purpose, but we love our house (we think). We have a bi-annual
freak out that goes something like this: oh my god we might need to move
(because mostly we have kids and the book says you are supposed to move to a
bigger house when you have kids), ok let’s look to see where we’d want to move,
man, these houses are expensive and I’m not sure it’d be worth it, I love our
neighborhood, yeah, why would we want to move, let’s just be happy where we
are, and most importantly let’s not freak out again in another 6 months. Then
we laugh and agree to not freak out again in 6 months then we freak out again
in 6 months. It’s an awesome cycle. Mostly, though we love our simple house and
here’s why:
You can use the
excuse of a small house to not accept gifts (or give gifts) for your kids that
they will only use once then forget about – Somewhere in my DNA is a
chromosome that makes me really nervous when I’m around a lot of plastic stuff.
A small house forces you to limit the plastic stuff and all other stuff because
you just don’t have the room. With a small house you can also pretend your
unwillingness to buy your kids lots of gifts is because you want to teach them
the dangers of consumerism instead of the fact that you just don’t like
spending money. As you can see we do a great job of limiting excess stuff:
[Insert picture of “somethings” in garage and basement]
Caption: In
fairness these are all “somethings” and the cumulative cost was probably $13.
Welcome to our warehouse.
It forces Kate and I
to talk about creative ways to use our space (but then not really execute any
of the plans we talk about) – I’ve spent more hours then I’d like to admit
drawing out plans to optimize the use of our space. There are three outcomes to
this activity: 1) I come home from work (where I do most of my productive time
wasting) and start explaining what I’m thinking. I usually get a quarter
through my talk track before Kate politely interrupts and starts explaining why
what I’m thinking wouldn’t work from a design perspective. She’s always very
respectful but within 2 minutes I am basically told that I make no sense (and
she’s right). 2) We talk about the ideas and they quickly get very extravagant
– we’re building new levels, knocking down walls, putting sliding doors across
the entire front of our house so we can literally open the whole front of our
house to the porch in the summer (I’ve seriously suggested this) – these conversations
always end with us saying it’s too expensive. 3) We agree on practical actions
but then don’t do anything because I struggle hanging a picture (honestly) let
alone making any degree of structural change to a house. We also enjoy laying
on the couch staring at our phones versus doing any work past 6PM (noon on the
weekends).
[Insert scanned imagine of my design drawing next to a
picture C drew]
Caption: There is
honestly not much difference from my design drawings and C’s drawings of our
house.
I can mow the lawn in
30 minutes but also can fake the need to trim and edge to extend my free time
from the kids for an additional 30 minutes – A small house means less
maintenance time. Whether it’s mowing the lawn or cleaning (or paying someone
to clean) it all takes less time and money. I can mow the lawn in 30 minutes if
I have something I want to do afterwards, but also have the flexibility to draw
it out for another 30-45 minutes if there’s something I don’t want to do like
hanging pictures (or anything other than laying on the couch and staring at my
phone). Sometimes we’ve seen nice houses with lots of property and I start
getting anxiety: oh no, I’d need to get one of those driving mowers, I can
barely operate my walking mower, that would be expensive, I’m scared, I’m going
to go stare at my phone and ignore my problems.
But like I said we are going to have a house freak out again
in 6 months and here’s why that will happen:
Not enough open space
to host those fancy holiday parties with friends, that we always think we would
host, but if we had the space would realize we don’t want to do the work – Our
latest bi-annual freak out came after Thanksgiving and was driven by a fantasy
we have of hosting family and friends for elegant holiday parties. The fire is
roaring, the bar is fully stocked in the corner and we have the seasonal big
game playing on our beautiful big screen TV while Kate emerges from the kitchen
with delicious appetizers. Then we realize the following: a) in reality the
appetizers would have to be Kate’s buffalo chicken dip, pesto noodles with
cheese and I would make fried eggs which I just learned to make 3 weeks ago. I
mean that’s all we basically cook so not sure how the cooking is getting done
at our fantasy party. b) We don’t have cable so we would be limited to watching
NBC, ABC, FOX or fuzz on CBS. c) Hosting significantly hampers our ability to
lay on the couch and stare at our phones. Besides, assume we could even pull it
off, how often would it actually happen? 1, maybe 2 times a year? Nonetheless,
our fake parties are always really fun, especially our fake New Years Eve
parties so I’m sure we’ll freak out again in early 2014.
[Insert image of classy party like from the Cleveland Flea]
Caption: Kate
attended a fake party in her photo shoot for the Cleveland Flea. Fake parties
are classier and much less work.
All 4 of us standing
in our side entry way makes me want to fall down the stairs on purpose – When
the 4 of us are coming and going we are doing it through our side entry way
which is about the size of a welcome mat (when it’s not covered with 12 pairs
of shoes). We are putting on boots, coats, hats and gloves while making sure
the kids stay off the kitchen floor because we don’t want them to mess up the
pristine gray/blue hodgepodge tile we inherited from the previous owners 11
years ago. The thought of this process, in that space, has probably prevented
my kids from experiencing meaningful things in the outside world. I honestly
believe that 25% of the great excursion ideas we have are crushed by the idea
of standing in the side entry way. I’m always afraid one of the kids is going
to fall down the stairs to the basement when we are all standing there – I mean
their boots do all the time. You could spend 5 minutes meticulously placing their
boots into the shoe bin at the top of the stairs and I guarantee they will
still find a way to take a painfully slow tumble to the basement. For a second
you think you are going to be able to stop them but instead you watch them fall
in slow motion every time. Sometimes we wish we were the boot. Side entry way.
I hate you.
[Insert image of us crowded into the side entry way]
Caption: I feel
like we are raising our kids to waaaay overspend on a house with a nice foyer
someday.
When we have guests
with kids we have to try way too hard to have the kids play in the basement so
the adults have enough space upstairs, which usually involves a) free reign on
candy if it will keep them in the basement and b) spending too much time
justifying why it’s okay for 2.5 year olds to be down in the basement by
themselves so we don’t feel guilty – The perfect entertaining situation in
our house is the adults upstairs in the family room watching no cable fuzz on
CBS and having a few drinks while the kids play in the basement. It is so funny
how long we go without hearing a sound before we go investigate. It’s not like
we have 13 year olds down there. In our situation a 5 year old might as well be
a 31 year old with a masters in both nursing and education that teaches the local
CPR class. I’m not sure what standard protocol is in this situation but I think
every 15 minutes sounds about right – if you don’t hear anything for 15 minutes
you check in. If 2 times that feels wrong then I’m comfortable that 4 times
that is definitely too long, but in the right situation, with the right
conversation, it can happen. It’s not a sense of pride, just reality.
Inevitably the kids will come up from time to time trying to get us to spend
quality time with them. Our solution is always some light hearted banter, maybe
a quick wrestling match, then an aggressive candy bribe to get them to go back
downstairs. The line between a perfect entertainment situation and complete
chaos, with nowhere near enough space, is their acceptance of the candy.
Occasionally it backfires but mostly it works with them quickly learning they
can get more candy whenever they want by just coming up to try to spend quality
time with their parents. The other thing is that if we have more than 5 adults
sitting in our family room we start needing to utilize Something to be Found
inventory as chairs. Mostly you get an industrial looking chair or something
made for a 5 year old, but if it sets the right vintage tone who’s going to
complain?
[Insert image of our candy jar and extra chairs]
Caption: Our
ticket to adult freedom and our inviting extra seating.
Who knows if we will move some day – only our reaction to
our next bi-annual freak out will tell. We are generally pretty normal people
so living long term in a small house at least provides us something interesting
to talk about at our fake parties.
