SMALL HOUSE TIPS 🏠 Why You Should LOVE Living In A Small(er) Home!
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Summary
abby shares 5 reasons why she loves living in a smallish home. 1. It's cozy 2. There's less area to clean 3. It feels like a cocoon 4. It doesn't feel claustrophobic 5. It has a finite amount of space
Transcript
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Today I want to talk about five reasons I love having a small-ish home. If you are new to my
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channel, here we talk about classic living and traditional values and I would love if you would
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consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell. My name is Abby and I have been really
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loving talking about homemaking and motherhood lately and so today I really want to talk about
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the homemaking element of making a small house feel lovely and a place you love to be. Now I
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want to preface this by saying that we have a small-er home not a small home. I know many people
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live in very small homes. We have a small-ish home for the size of family we want to have but it's
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not a small home for a lot of people. But also because our house is one large living space the
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whole middle area is one room which makes it a little less practical as far as having separate
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kind of areas but it does make it I mean I personally really like it and we only have
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three bedrooms and since my husband works from home that really means that he has an office and
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then we have our master and our nursery. So trying to kind of balance that with now having another baby
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and then hopefully having a big family means that we have to take into account that we live in a
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slightly smaller space. But I love our home and I'm really excited to share with you guys
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why I love having a smaller house as compared to a huge house. So let's just get into it.
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The first reason that I love living in a smaller home is that it is just so much cozier. When we
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first moved into our house my husband called it a cottage and that spoke to me. I know we live in
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Florida we don't really have cottages in Florida but the idea of a small home being a cozy space
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is so attractive to me. And speaking of coziness I am so excited to share that this portion of
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today's video is sponsored by June's Journey. June's Journey is a free hidden object mystery game set in
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the 1920s and it has the best ambiance. Each chapter takes you through a murder mystery where June Parker
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is trying to solve her sister's murder and she meets a ton of interesting and cool characters along
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the way. At the same time you can customize and design your own island and mansion. The game is
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super classic in its design and it's so relaxing to play. So I can pick up my phone whenever I have
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a free moment or if we're at the airport play a chapter and get a sense of a different time and a
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different place as well as learn more about the plot of the story and the mystery. I personally love
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the art design I think that it is so beautiful to look at. The drawings and the pictures are just
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really attractive and fun to look at because they're from a different time period and so it's cool to
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actually look for the hidden objects which is not as easy as it sounds. Initially you think it's easy
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but then it's not. Make sure to download June's Journey for free by clicking the link in the description
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PC through Facebook games. I know you guys are going to love it as much as I do. It really is
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such a cozy game. Thanks again to June's Journey for sponsoring this portion of today's video and now
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let's get back into it. Humans like things that are human scale aka things that are the size of you
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as opposed to being on a really large wide street with really tall buildings. We can admire that but
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where we actually want to live and stay and spend our time is within smaller human scale spaces.
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And so being in small spaces kind of feels like a cocoon which is just absolutely wonderful.
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The feeling of coziness that a small house exudes is so different than any other size home.
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Because you are in a smaller space everything just feels warm and closed in in a positive way.
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It's not claustrophobic. It's very um it just feels like a big hug and that's what I love about
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being in a smaller home. Number two and this is of paramount importance is that there is less
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area to clean. I cannot tell you how nice it is to know that there is a finite amount of space for
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me to clean in my home. When I go to other people's houses and stay there and my son gets to traverse the
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whole area and then I have to go back and clean up everywhere he's been it could take hours and my
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small house I don't have to do that. I know where he is. I can clean things up quickly. I can say okay
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even if I'm going to do like let's say vacuuming the floors and cleaning the floors like that is a
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limited time period where it can get done. Maybe like half an hour or 40 minutes to do the whole
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house. I love that. It's really nice to not have a huge house to clean especially if you are the one
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cleaning it. So I love having a small house for that reason. Number three is we utilize every single
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space in our home. A lot of the time you go to big houses and they have a formal dining room or a formal
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living room that nobody ever goes in and I know that I used to go to people's houses like that when
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I was growing up and it's it's such an odd thing. You see a room that is literally never used and in a
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small house that is not the case. When you have a small house every single corner of that house is
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loved and used constantly. Our main portion of our home like I said we have an open concept home
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is like a main central point that everyone needs to use all the time which is actually really nice.
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It makes it feel like you are getting your money's worth out of your house in a sense but also it means
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that everybody is within eyesight of each other. So if we're in the dining room with friends and the
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kids are playing in the living room it's all one room so we can easily see what they're doing. It
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doesn't feel like someone has to rush off and then be completely disconnected from the adults.
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We don't have a situation where everyone gets divided up because the house is so big. Everyone
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is in one space and that means that we actually can spend more time together which I love. Number
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four is we have to be deliberate about what we bring into our house which means we can't have a ton
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of clutter. Now I will say that doesn't mean that we don't have any clutter. It doesn't mean that we
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don't have stuff that we don't exactly know where it goes but that I think is the point about having
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a smaller space. If you have a big house you can find a closet to store things in that you'll never
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use. You can find a room that is not being utilized and use it for storage. We don't have that luxury
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so we cannot own things that don't have a home and if we do it drives me a little crazy because I'm like
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I don't know where I'm supposed to put this. There's nowhere for me to put it. So having a small
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home really forces you to only buy what you have space for and what you'll use and what you need.
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You know we have an armoire for example right in the middle of our living room. I'm looking at it
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right now and we use that for my filming equipment and currently we're trying to decide whether or not
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to get rid of something we actually do like but we never use which is our record player. My husband
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got me that record player a couple of years ago. I love it but we don't really have a place for it
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right now and so it's really taking up valuable storage space in that armoire and so that's a
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question for us is like do we get rid of it? Do we declutter it or do we kind of keep it in there
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until we want to pull it out for an event and use it? But you know these are the kinds of questions
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we have to grapple with when you have a smaller space which isn't a bad thing because it means
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that you can't just hold on to broken items or things you never use. You actually have to come
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to terms with I can only have what I need and what I have room for and that's going to make me make
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better informed decisions. Number five and I kind of touched on this earlier is that I can see my son
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at every moment and I don't have to worry where he is if I'm in another part of the house.
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That's a really nice thing about having an open concept but also a smaller home is that there's
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not very far my son can go where I don't know where he is especially if I close the doors to
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the bedrooms. He is in the middle part of the house. I'm in the middle part of the house and I can see
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him from anywhere so I don't have to worry that he's going to wander upstairs. I don't have to worry
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that he's going to wander into a room where I am not. We are in the same space constantly and that is
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such a comfort. Now if I leave the door open to his nursery it's also totally fine because his
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nursery is completely childproofed and safe and the truth is I can leave the door open to my bedroom
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and it's pretty safe in there too so he can like wander in and there's only three bedrooms where
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this whole middle space is open so he can really be free to roam and I'm very confident I know where
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he is. The only rooms I don't let him go in are the bathroom and my husband's office.
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So it is a really nice thing in having a smaller home is that I can keep track of my child and hopefully
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future children as they are in the house. I don't have to think okay maybe they're you know a thousand
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square feet away. So those are my five reasons for why I love having a smaller home. I really enjoy
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being in our space. I wouldn't want more space at this time in our life. Like I really love where
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we live and I think that there is value to having a small space. I actually got a lot of this
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inspiration from a book called The Not So Big House. I think that's what it's called. I'll link
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it down below and it's kind of dated the pictures but the message is great. The funny thing is though
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is that even in this book she says something like you know if you have a smaller house like 3,000 square
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feet and I was like I'm sorry 3,000 square feet is not a small house lady. Like I don't know what
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you're talking about but the idea that people have houses that are simply too big for them and then
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they don't feel warm and invited and cozy into their own home really stood out to me and has influenced
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how I approach homemaking in our house. So I want to encourage you if you live in a smaller home
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to embrace that to love that and thanks again to June's Journey for sponsoring a portion of today's
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video. Make sure to download June's Journey for free by clicking the link in the description box
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or scanning the QR code on the screen. Thank you guys so much for watching. Make sure to subscribe
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if you haven't already and I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye!