I have this friend...

So the last few weeks have been a bit nuts. My oldest son turned 8 and got baptized. My husbands work announced that they are opening a Trader Joes in Spokane. My best friend in Spokane (Misty) sending us links to houses and referrals to agents. Then there is the non stop perusal of Craigslist and Realtor.com.

You see, we are on the short list of possibly getting transferred there. And in the non-stop perusal of Craigslist we realized something. The rental market in Spokane is nuts. You see something nice and it's gone a week later. Or less. Then we realized something else. OWNING a house in Spokane is cheaper than renting. :|

So we may or may not have gotten pre-approved to buy a house. Ok. We totally did. ROFL. So this weekend we are loading up the car and driving to Spokane. Now, granted we are going because it's Misty's baby shower and I have loads of boy clothes to pass down to her. But that's like the icing on the cake. We are going to look at houses.

The smaller the better.

SAY WHAT?!?!

You see, I have this friend and she lives in a 256 square foot cabin with her husband and their daughter. Purposefully. I never really understood it until she posted on her facebook a link to this video.




And while living in less than 100 square feet is just not possible for a family of five (and maybe more) it did start us watching and reading online a lot more about small house living. Ok, so I still want one of Jay's tiny houses... it would make a great guest house. And a very portable cabin for when my husband goes hunting!

We have been married 9 1/2 years and have always rented. You should see our "dream house" list. It's insane. And would probably require 5k square feet just to fit it all in. There's a few problems with that thinking though. 1. My husband doesn't make enough money for a 5k square foot house. 2. I don't want to clean it. 3. Can you imagine the utility bills on that? 4. Do 5-6 people really need all that space? REALLY?

And while yes, having a screening room would be ten shades of awesome (heck that's what basements are for, right? So it stays on the list) we'd rather travel and give our kids experiences instead of stuff to fill that 5k sq. ft. house. Or at least buy them ultra awesome small stuff.

Some reasons why my brain shifted gears so quickly:

1. We want to be debt free. Including our house. It will take a whole lot less time to pay off a 150k mortgage than a 300k mortgage.
2. We have a lot of stuff we just don't use. If we have to live in a small house that stuff's got to go!
3. We want to travel.
4. The utilities alone would kill us. What if someday we want to go off-grid (or at least partially off grid) outfitting a 3k square foot house would be expensive. Outfitting a 1800 square foot house would be do-able.
5. Granite counters, awesome cabinetry, millwork, radiant heating... heck yeah I'm going to do it! I can have all these luxury finishes if my house is smaller. It will cost less!

Do you see where I'm going with this? We currently live in an 1800 square foot rental. We fit amazingly into it with plenty of room to spare. And as my dear friend Shawna pointed out to me yesterday 1800 square feet in most parts of the world is a fantastic luxury.

At least my bedroom is not our living room and I don't have to fold my bed up in the wall every morning. See, it's all about perspective.

Small will be awesome.