In my last post, I wrote that changes are coming, and at the time, we were not entirely sure what it would entail; now we do.
We are listing our home–the home we love and have enjoyed personalizing for the past five years–and when it sells, we will make our move.
Not out of the state, not even out of the city, but to a place where we can realign and reset–spiritually, emotionally, physically and financially.
It’s time. It is long past time.
Some people call this kind of move “downsizing”, but I’ve decided to label it “faithsizing” because we are stepping out in faith based on mine and Jeff’s mutual belief that God is calling us to something more by choosing less than our current lifestyle.
Oh, the possibilities…
We have friends who own a 960 square foot home on a small, private lake. They are willing to sell it to us and have even generously offered to let us “try it out” before buying.
By some people’s standards, the lake house would qualify as a tiny house–it’s not by a long shot, but it is tiny compared to our current 2330 square foot home. It has a kitchen, but not a dishwasher…unless you count Jeff–oh wait, he said he can’t be “dishwasher” and resident “fisherman” all at once. It has air conditioning units, but no central heat and air. It has one teensy bathroom, which might be the stickiest (no, not stinkiest) situation of all if you think of all the moments when the two bathrooms we have now were so desperately needed, but here’s the real kicker–there are no bedrooms. Nope, not one.
Since Emelie signed a lease on her own apartment last week, our previous household of five is down to four. When our home sells–and we feel confident it will–four people will reside in what amounts to one large room; naturally, there has been numerous discussions about privacy.
There is what I’d call a large closet. It’s about 8×8′ and has another laundry closet within it. We decided that it would best serve as a family closet and a roomier place to change clothes, which would provide some measure of privacy beyond the bathroom.
Though many would say that privacy issues are First World problems, we know we need a certain degree of it and will miss it when it’s not there. Rest assured, Jeff and I will proactively secure our own *cough* private moments *cough*. We want to be sensitive to our kids’ desires for their own space too; so, we have made it clear we do intend to build up or build out (there are a few options) as soon as we can.
That said, since one of our primary goals is to lower our overall debt and finance as small a mortgage as possible, we are fairly certain we do not want to finance add-on costs into the mortgage. I write “fairly” because we haven’t even secured estimates to have a clue what to project. As is probably obvious, we are still working on details, but we have plenty of time because our current home hasn’t even gone on the market yet.
Overall, we are thankful for the peace we have felt since making the decision to sell, despite all the unknowns, and are confident the Lord will honor our desire to be better stewards of what He has allotted us.
Keep us in your prayers, and we will do our part to keep everyone updated!