Our first day of (our first) retirement is full of dust-bunnies, boxes, and lots of trash bags. The full chaos of moving is upon us. Luckily, we have a whole week to move our life and our house into a 12×12-foot storage space before we fly away to Baja California where our adventures begin. Even more luckily for us, Rob had the super-awesome idea of building a wall to divide our garage in half so that we can use the back half to store our stuff.
The up side: we only have to move all of our worldly possessions downstairs, which is rad. But we still have to seal it, box it, wrap it, tie it, and stuff it carefully so that: a) it doesn’t mildew or get water damage, b) no rodents or creepy-crawlies destroy it, and c) it all fits into a space roughly the size of a bathroom.
(Interesting factoid of the day: if you wrap your mattress in plastic or put clothes in Hefty bags, you should insert some silicone packets between the plastic and fabric first to suck up moisture.)
Here’s a typical conversation this afternoon: “Rob, I’m throwing away this ratty old blanket with holes in it,” as I toss it toward an overflowing trash bag.
“But, what if we want it for later?” Rob yells from the freezer he’s immersed in cleaning. “Hey, cool! I just found a whole bag of lemongrass.” Rob also found frozen brussel sprouts, watermelon, cake with suspicious-looking blue icing, hops, and 12 packages of frozen beef.
Rob and I work well together — especially when we take on separate projects in separate corners and don’t ask permission when sorting and purging. Just kidding. We both agree on the fact that less is more in life, which will help us immensely as we pack up this week. And, thankfully, we both agree that our couch and our bed are the most important items we own. Everything else is just icing on the cake (though much nicer icing than what was on that nasty cake in the freezer).
Packing your life into 144 square feet + one backpack each is a good test for a relationship. So far, so good.
I’ll let you know how we fare when the heavy lifting starts.
3 thoughts on “Packing Your Home into a Small Space”
This makes me think about how we are planning to pack for our camper van and upcoming trips! Funny how stuff blows up and takes up room… Well done packing it all down.
I seriously doubt you’ll want any of our ghetto junk. That blue mirror thing is the nicest piece (which you’re welcome to, J-Sav).
Other items of interest in the free pile: a 1970s chaise lounge with blue and green slats, our propane BBQ, fly-fishing books, a small bookcase … and whatever else we find in the next few days. Come by!
Can i look through your goodwill pile? xoxo