The Downsizing Journey Begins
This is a guest post by my hubs, Nick (AKA Dad Most Traveled). We are spending the summer on separate continents, myself in USA and Nick in Asia. He is going to give us a weekly update about his projects in Asia.
Our family has been living in Laos since 2003. Since we moved from our apartment on the north side of Beijing (China), it seems that everything in our lives has steadily grown larger. Our family sized has doubled, our housing has more than doubled, our cost of living has increased exponentially and our possessions have reached the uncountable stage.
When I was offered a teaching position at Vientiane International School (VIS), CanCan and I decided to rethink our situation. Instead of using the opportunity to continue our growth towards needing a steam liner to sail our possessions home if we ever leave Asia, what if we downsized and lived like, well, as if we were in Asia.
In reality, what we are trying to do, goes against the popular attitude currently infecting people in Vientiane. American and Thai TV stream into Laos bringing ideas that happiness is found in possessing objects. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone, so I won’t belabor you with my thoughts.
I will just say that when Von and Baht (our babysitter and her husband) first saw our new house, it came as a shock to them. They didn’t verbalize it directly to us but their facial expressions and comments of the house being “cute” made it clear. They didn’t couldn’t understand why we were moving into a smaller house. Where were we going to put all of our new stuff?
So, yes, we are trying to live more economically and maybe while we’re at it, a little more environmentally friendly. We are moving from a 1,500 sq. ft. 3 bedroom house to a 864 sq. ft. 2 bedroom house. There are many reasons behind the move and I’ll try to give you a few now.
First of all, what we are going to lose by moving to this smaller house. The most obvious is space. The main room in our old house has 650 sq. feet of space, that’s about 26 ft. x 26 ft., with 12 foot ceilings. It’s was a great space to have parties and it was awesome for setting up all kinds of play things. We could pitch tents, throw frisbees, play tag or set up enormous train sets and not have to put anything away.
Along with the indoor space, we will also lose a sizeable outdoor play area. The driveway was great for the ride on toys and the grassy areas were ideal for the swing set and the coconut, mango and pomegranate trees.
The next thing we will miss is the storage space. The enormous wardrobe in our bedroom had the capacity of two walk in closets. It was easy to make the house look clean by shoving our mess into out of the way areas in the house.
We will not have any room for Von to live with us at the new house (we had a small apartment for her Baht connected to our old house). She will live with Baht’s mother about 7 kilometers away. It has been wonderful having Von around the house. Anytime, we wanted to go out, she would be available to watch Jojo and Deeds, even if we didn’t decide to go out until 7 p.m.
These losses, though, are easily outweighed by the advantages. To begin with, our rent is dropping from $400 a month to $300. Along with that, the smaller rooms will equate into smaller utility bills. Instead of having an air conditioned office, our computers will now be in the kitchen/dining area that does not have air.
The new house is also in a fabulous area of town. All of the roads are well paved with very little potholes and it is close to anywhere we would want to go. The house is only 5 houses down from VIS so Jonas and I will be able to walk to school together every morning (that alone makes the move valuable). Less gas! The proximity of the house to the school will also allow CanCan and Deeds to regularly come over to join us for school lunch time. VIS has one of the largest playgrounds in the city, one that we will have unlimited access to as employees. Living so close will allow us to walk over anytime the boys want to.
The smaller house will force us to have fewer things. This could go either way. With reduced storage we could fall into the trap of having cluttered house, however, with effective planning, hopefully, we will not only reduce our possessions but also be able to manage the ones we have.
The smaller living area will also force to get outdoors, something we have done less and less since being here. The new house came with a bland concrete garden, but hopefully we’ll be able to turn it into a vegetable garden that will yield some juicy produce. The garden work will give us something to do outdoors, as well as something to be involved in with the kids.
This is just a brief overview of why we are moving. Over the next couple of months, while the family is in the States, I hope to write little updates about how the move is going and show pictures of the transformation!
Posted by Nick, Dad Most Traveled!
(Read further installments about our journey towards the simple life in The Great Purge, 2009 and Making Our Small House Livable)
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26 June 2009, 7:54 pm
Sounds like you’ve got it all well in hand! How nice that you can handle this while your darling family is out of the country! I can imagine if I left the task to my spouse. I’d come home to some serious mess.
26 June 2009, 9:20 pm
That sounds like a lot to get rid of, but your new home sounds like it will in a nicer place. Can’t wait to read more on the move.
26 June 2009, 9:42 pm
Leaving a comment on this poor, lonely post.
27 June 2009, 8:16 am
Although I was drooling over the 2 walk in closets and a living room with ample space to play frisbee for $400 a month, I think the plan and goal to get outside more often and plant a wonderful garden, especially with the kiddos trumps all. Good luck with the move, I will be tagging along to read about it.
27 June 2009, 9:22 am
Can’t wait for the day when I can come over for a visit to the new digs! Thank you for being such a great host to Da, too, when he was there at the beginning of June.
29 June 2009, 1:23 am
For some reason I thought I had commented on this already…
Anyway, I’m really impressed with what you’re doing. We Americans tend to have aspirations of bigger and more lavish standards of living, and I admire your scaling back. While we don’t have tons of things in our home, it’s certainly a lot more than when we were first starting out.
I’m looking forward to reading the updates.
03 July 2009, 11:55 am
This is quite brave what you are doing, but most importantly you give life a different meaning. It is not about materialistic possessions but more about true inner possessions. I wish you lots of happiness in your new house!
05 July 2009, 2:32 pm
[...] earlier installments about our journey towards the simple life in The Downsizing Journey Begins and The Great Purge, [...]
05 July 2009, 2:35 pm
[...] further installments about our journey towards the simple life in The Downsizing Journey Begins and Making Our Small House Livable) Got Muffin Top? [...]