Downsizing

I have realized we have a lot of stuff way too much stuff. In order to make this work, we have to get rid of everything almost everything.  We are hoping we can get our stash down to an 8' 1800PackRat container worth of stuff.  That means we will be going from about 3300 square feet down to about 50 square feet of storage and approximately 300 square feet of living space.  Sounds impossible... We are getting rid of all the furniture, most of our clothes, and everything that is easy to replace.

Newly finished basement with couches, TV, and cocktail style arcade machine

We just finished the basement in our house.  We have a pretty awesome TV that David picked out and a comfy recliner with matching L-shaped couch that recline and light up with the push of a button.  David also special ordered a fancy cocktail style arcade cabinet that he can run just about any arcade/computer game ever designed on it. After finishing the basement, we have 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a rec/theater room, a massive storage room, an office, and all the other basic rooms you would find in a house... for the 3 of us!

The 3 of us in front of our new 79" TV

 With all that room, I still can't find a place for all of our stuff.  I am constantly moving piles around, not sure where so many things belong.  It is very overwhelming! I guess it is fair to say that we live a life of excess!

Lorelei's closet... and these are the leftovers that she
didn't take on her 6 week summer trip to Georgia!

Lorelei's closet is crammed full of clothes but the funny thing is, she usually wears the same few outfits over and over.I know that if I wash a certain shirt, she will wear it the day she finds it hanging in her closet.

I am pretty much the same way.  I have a few go-to outfits that I wear over and over again and plenty of clothes that remain untouched 95% of the time.  I buy a lot of our clothes second hand or at bargain Costco prices so I try to tell myself that it is OK that we have so much stuff but I think I am just making up excuses.


We started downsizing about a month ago by participating in our city wide garage sale.  I think we made over $800 at the sale which is nothing to scoff at, but it is a bit depressing to think that most of the stuff we sold was sold for 10-25% of the original price we paid for it.

We started stockpiling our garage sale items in the dining room

The night before the sale with the garage crammed full of stuff

The set up on the driveway

After the sale, we loaded up both of our cars with leftovers to donate to Goodwill and since then, we have been making 1-2 trips to Goodwill each week!  We are trying to sell the nicer stuff on Craigslist and nextdoor.com but there is still so much stuff left in our house.  The plan is to be on the road in about 6 weeks... but I'm not sure we can get rid of everything in time.  Well, I'm sure we could give it away... but it is nice to be able to recoup some of the money we have spent on all of our furniture and clothes... and my car!  Oh, and did I mention we are selling our house, too?  Fortunately, this is an awesome time to sell a house in our area so unlike our Las Vegas house which we are STILL underwater on, this one should turn a nice profit for us!  It will be worth it in the end, right?