Lifestyle

Why we love our small home & Tips for planning a small space

July 7, 2018 /

We closed the sale on the cottage in the countryside when Iza was just 6 weeks old. It was a crazy time of dreams coming true. I had a baby in one arm and the keys to our new home in the other. We had done it, we had managed to buy a house mortgage free. 

Ive had this thing about wanting to own my home since as long as I can remember. I wasn’t fussed in what form it manifested, a piece of land, a co op, a garage tucked behind someone else house. It wasn’t about the house, it was about the freedom it would give me. 

As rent prices rocket and mortgages lasting until you retire, I wanted a way out. I didn’t see why having a secure roof over my head should leave me in financial crisis. There where too many things I wanted to do in my life other than work such as, have kids, travel, have ‘time’ for family, for friends, for me. And so we hatched the crazy plan of buying a house out right.

Just three short years later we had done it. Yes we had to work hard for a few years and made a few sacrifices, our home is small, its unconventional but it was so worth it and now we get to reap the benefits. 

Our home is more than a house, Its symbolises freedom to us. Our home gives us life instead of taking it. We are free from the stress of renting, free from the banks but most importantly have more choice regarding how much and when we work. We have put ‘time’ as our priority over any materialistic gain. We chose to not live fancy and have made our money making ‘time’ as small as possible. We may feel the purse strings tighten at times but were used to living off very little and somehow it always works out. Money comes easily and freely right? say it enough times and it will happen.

We are incredibly blessed and remind ourselves of this daily. But we chose this life, we created it. Think about the life you want and start working towards it, no matter how crazy. Everyone told me it was impossible to buy a house without a mortgage, yet here we are.

When planning our house we had a very limited budget and a strong view of what we wanted. We wanted a small simple home that was functional, nothing fancy. There were a lot of back and fourths with our surveyor drawing our plans but in the end we went back to the original sketch we drew before we even closed the sale. Our surveyor felt it was too small but for us 40sqm was huge! You’d be amazed what you can fit in a well designed space. Here’s some tips we picked up when planning a small design.

1)Keep it open plan: Our house house is basically one big living space bar the bathroom and two bedrooms. It’s great we spend all our time in the main space, cooking, eating, relaxing and playing in the one room.

2)Get lots of light: We made sure to maximise the light on site when positioning the new build. Its main windows point south and we have  light coming in all day long. Also we were super lucky to find gorgeous quality windows for dirt cheap on done deal. Check our your local resale website, you’d be amazed what you’d find. Good windows are worth the time to source as they are the main focus on most buildings. 

3)Get height: This actually happened by accident but our bricky added an extra few feet to our ceilings and its the best things that could have happened.  We now have these huge white ceilings that open the space up and make it feel twice as big as it really is. 

4)Maximise storage: We were really careful when planning and buying furniture that every possible storage space was taken advantage of. For our kitchen I actually wrote all the things we had to store in it and made sure we had a specific cupboard for them. Our couch doubles as a bed for quests and also has seats that lift up for storage. We also utilised the height and have lots of shelves that run up to the ceiling. 

5) Make it personal -You know your life, you know what you need your home to do. For us the kitchen space was most important. We love cooking and spend pretty much all our time in the kitchen / sitting room and that’s where most of our square footage went. The rooms we spend less time in are the bathroom & bedroom so they are the smallest part or our house. We also knew we needed a space away for the main house to work from, have guests over, do yoga etc and so part of our budget was prioritised for the cabin. Its was worth every penny ands makes our home feel so much bigger. 

Hope you enjoyed some of these tips! Its been a journey for us and theres still loads to do. Communal living its next on our list! Looking back I still cant quite believe how it all came together, Its seems too good to be true or maybe its the power of thinking outside of the box?

Welcome to this magical corner of the internet. Here you will find Charlotte's latest life musings on her blog & info on her upcoming holistic events. Charlotte facilitates Ritual Yin yoga & Breathwork courses which take you on a journey of inquisitive inner learning & healing.

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