b. chic design: paring down

Holy moly,we brought way too much stuff!

The last month and a half has been an insane whirlwind...no, more like a freaking tornado. We made the decision and finalized plans to move on December 8th. We found an amazing renter for our house on December 11th. We celebrated Christmas with a train trip to Chicago to see family on December 18th. We arrived home on December 28th and immediately packed up the entire house, in between work, a sinus infection and ruptured eardrums, and moved into Seattle five days later. We made it through, but it was, as I said, insane.

This move has been the ultimate lesson in downsizing, organizing and being prepared. None of which I was able to do successfully, due to the time table we had to work with. At the last minute, I held a "design grab" and had my girlfriends over to go through the bunches and bunches of stuff that was clinging to the shelves in the basement. They took lots of the good items, which was very helpful, but there was still SO much. On the day of the move friends and relatives were taking multiple trips to St. Vincent de Paul to donate items. Crazy!

I had packed as much as I could in the few days before we left. I labeled the boxes as thoroughly as possible. I carefully considered what I could live without. I gave things away, threw things away and boxed items for storage (my generous boss' basement). I laid out furniture using a floor plan tool on my iphone, so I could really decide what would fit in the new space. But we still brought too much.

Did I mention that we were moving from a three bedroom house with a full basement (and I mean FULL), to a ONE bedroom apartment with ONE closet? Even if I had had ample time to take on this downsizing, I think I still would have overestimated what the new place could hold. Its just such a huge undertaking, and one we have not done in about 5 years. In the past, most of our moves had been to larger places, so we just filled them up.

So this move was difficult. We are still sifting through things and will most likely take more items to storage. Its a great feeling though, this clearing of the decks and relearning how to live without so much stuff. Although this move is somewhat temporary, these lessons will be permanent. I think that this change is very, very good.

My preliminary floor plan for the living room... too much furniture and some of it was too big.