Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Temporary Downsizing

As those of you who follow me on Facebook know, we're replacing the floors in our house. Yep, the entire house. Ten years and 4 pets later (with all manners of body fluid issues), the carpet is seriously nasty (you can only bleach it so much). Of course, all this work is a bit expensive (we're going for the floor that lasts forever - porcelain tile), so we're doing it in sections - bedrooms now (the back half of the house), living room and dining room, etc (the front half of the house) later.

Well, the trick with porcelain tile, is it takes time to cut, lay, dry, grout, and seal. Days for all this to take place, in fact; and that's with the professionals doing it. The contractor started last Wednesday and it's now Tuesday and we're just past half way through the back of the house). Clearly, that has resulted in an eviction from our bedroom. So what to do, what to do?

We could have slept on the couches in the living room (real comfy, right?), but nah. Instead, we downsized Heather-style - a.k.a. we moved into the dining room. That's right. We are currently living in our dining room, separated from the kitchen by a breakfast bar). Let me tell you, it's AWESOME!

You see, it reminds me of my single days when Dave and I started dating and I was living in a 350 square foot efficiency apartment. I LOVED it! Seriously, you could clean that place from top to bottom in 20 minutes. It was all so cute and compact. My kinda home-sweet-home (trust me, Dave worked really hard to convince me to move into a house, even longer before I was willing to call it my home). So here we are, although temporarily, living in just one room of the house. Doesn't it look cozy?

We've already rented out two of the bedrooms (house-mate moving in this weekend - more on this soon), perhaps we could rent out our bedroom too and just live here in the kitchen. Hmmm. Toilet and shower might be a problem... we're currently sneaking into whichever one isn't off limits at that particular moment. But the food is really close. It would take breakfast in bed to a new level...

Ok. Maybe not, but for this week anyway, we're camping out in the dining room (that's a photo of the kitchen as I'm sitting on the bed) and enjoying the sweet reminiscences of the simple life. Hmm. Sweet simplicity...

6 comments:

Danae said...

You know what, that really does sound like fun! 20 minutes cleaning sounds brilliant to me... Why do we have this American (and British) obsession with BIG houses? Its such a waste of space and resources....

Going Crunchy said...

Hum, having my bed so close to the kitchen might do me some damage!!!

Good luck with the refresh.

Chile said...

Ah, remodeling. It can make or break a relationship. Sounds like it's working out well for ya'll!

(We once lived in a 25' RV (stationary) for 2 1/2 years. Talk about small living space!)

Sam said...

I think small living spaces bring couples together. It certainly did for me!

I can't wait to hear about your housemate situation and how you found them and what made you pick them.

J said...

You are too funny Heather, but I DO understand the cozy feeling smaller spaces provide. We actually have a nice full sized living room in our two bedroom apartment, but we have our "living room" in the spare bedroom, it is quieter and much cozier than when we used to hang out in the actual living room.

Good luck with the renovations!

hmd said...

Sera - I don't know. I LOVE small spaces :)

Going Crunchy - It is tempting, but so far so good...

Chile - Cool! I lived in an RV for a month and just loved it. You really figure out quickly what you REALLY need.

Beany - It's brought on a few laughs, that's for sure. Last night, we had to take the long route to the bathroom - through the kitchen, out onto the back patio, into our bedroom from off the patio, down the hallway, and around to the bathroom; hugging the wall here and leaping over the tiles we weren't supposed to step on yet. Almost like Indiana Jones :)

The nice thing is from the living room, we can go to bed looking at the moon and it's been gorgeous these last few days. That's not something we could do from our bedroom.

Jennifer - Thanks! So far, so good. Two of the bedrooms, the hall, and 1-1/2 bathrooms are done. I've been told I can spray the grout sealer in about an hour. Just our master bedroom suite to go and we're done. For now anyway...