The Cozier the Better

Remember building forts? You collected all the blankets you could find and strategically placed them over tables and chairs. You found a flashlight or a string of lights and a few of your favorite things. It was pure magic. And it never mattered how big it was, actually, the smaller and cozier the better.

700-Square-Feet

Now imagine being an adult and living in a grown-up version of that fort. I love telling people that my husband and I live in a 700-square-foot apartment and waiting for their reaction. It’s often an “I could never”, response, a look of curiosity, and even a wondering if we “have to” live here. When I tell them how much we both genuinely LOVE it, they let their guard down and start asking questions. In July of 2021, we traded in our dream home, a 2500 sq ft corner lot with a recording studio and a racquetball court. We traded in an empty nest, maintenance, lawn care, shoveling, property taxes, big utility bills, and a lot of stuff we no longer needed for a tiny “fort”, more flexibility, and more freedom.

Does it sound intriguing? For anyone thinking... yes! I want to live minimally! I must warn you that it doesn’t happen overnight. Actually, it’s such a process that it could probably be a series of blogs itself! Throwing away those Christmas ornaments that are made of paper and pipe cleaners? I’ve got you. Those jeans that you haven’t worn in 20 years? Toss ‘em (or donate them). Throwing stuff away really does get easier the more you do it. I read a quote once that said “look around you.. all that stuff used to be money” and it hit hard. I want to have money to travel, to gift experiences, to help others, not to have “stuff”.

A note to Real Estate Agents

I think for us the first step was probably the hardest, but it definitely got the ball rolling. A note to all the real estate agents reading this… It all started with a cold call from a realtor saying, “I want to buy your house”. Now.. I’m sure it was a sales pitch, but it worked. It’s like he KNEW we wanted to sell but didn’t know where to start. Now, he didn’t buy our house, but he did sell it for us the first day it was on the market!

I thought it would be impossible to say goodbye to the walls that held our past. The walls that heard the laughter of 3 children growing up, of birthday parties, playdates, neighbors running in and out, Girl Scout meetings, Boy Scout meetings, and a decade of daycare families trusting this home to protect their little ones. But it wasn’t as hard as I thought… I was able to visualize a new family making beautiful memories within those walls. After that, it almost felt selfish to keep it once I could “see” another family filling it’s space.

Community

With the house sold, next up was finding an apartment that we both loved. That took some compromise. My husband wanted to move into a big, bright, spacious, brand-new apartment, and I wanted to live in a very old, very “European” feeling brick paper mill. His logic was solid. You can only move into a brand-new space once, the old building will always be… old. So I compromised, but it didn’t take long for us both to realize we weren’t the “fancy, new” kind of people so we finished our one-year lease and agreed to give the Fox River Historic Mills a try. It warms my heart to realize that we’ve been here for 3 years already. Every time we talk about “maybe we should buy a house again” we just can’t do it. It’s not just the exposed brick, soaring ceilings, river view, industrial soul and simple living… it’s the community too.

Something we didn’t expect when shrinking our space was growing our community. The beauty of the building is only matched by the beauty of the people who call it home. The highlight of the year for me is always the Christmas round robin. It happens at the end of our apartment Christmas party, after all the appetizers, drinks, music, and fellowship. It’s when residents open their unique apartments for a tour, they showcase their space, their layout, their homes. Our first year here, we “clicked” with a group of neighbors during the tour. A group that calls themselves the “503” because they meet weekly around 5:03pm. Isn’t that just the sweetest name ever? This group has shown us what true community looks like and they are what really keeps us here.

Shift the Perspective

While owning a home is the traditional American dream, we’ve shifted our perspective from ownership to freedom. From quantity to quality, both with our things and our time. We need to be intentional about what we bring into our space because well, there isn’t much of it. For us living minimally feels so much lighter. We stopped trying to “keep up with the Joneses”, we stopped chasing the idea that bigger is better. We started chasing things that truly matter: experiences, time, and peace of mind.

Kids Know

Our journey from a big house to a tiny apartment taught us the powerful lesson kids know instinctively: true comfort isn't about having more rooms. Just like building a fort out of blankets, happiness is about having the right things in a beautiful, intentional space, surrounded by people who care. We built our grown-up fort in the Historic Fox River Mills, it's cozy, it's ours, and it’s absolutely the perfect hideout.

Tell me: What does "having less" look like to you? Share your thoughts below!

Won't you be my neighbor?