Throughout my married life, I’ve never lived in a large house. Our first house, where we lived for 20 years, was about 1100 square feet. It seemed spacious for the four of us, and we even had a second bathroom in the garage!!

After we lost our house in 2012, we moved to an even smaller rental (under 1000 feet), but this time there were five of us and one bathroom!! This was probably the time period where I developed my best strategies for living in a small house. I call them strategies for small house living, but really they were strategies for keeping my sanity 😉

I talked to my friends on Facebook and between us we came up with these:

Top Eight Tips For Small House Living

Organize, organize and keep it that way. Use clear, same size boxes for shoes and other items to make easy stacking, label stuff and put things you use most often right where you can see it. If you haven’t looked at something in over a year get rid of it. Most of all make use of vertical space. – Christina D.
Walls are thin -be aware of your volume, i.e. loud music, yelling, slamming doors.- Teressa M.
Get rid of everything! Live life with only the utmost necessities. When I got divorced I was forced to move from a 2800 sq ft home to a 890 sq ft apartment, I kept some clothing and shoes, sold and donated about 90% of my possessions. Simple living is easy and stays neat longer. I own more yarn now than anything else. Haha – Rosie A.
Communication is key, especially if you only have one bathroom. We would always check to see if anyone else needed the bathroom before we took a shower. Otherwise we might get a surprise visitor mid-shower!! – Teressa M.
a) – a subcategory of this tip is that if you only have one bathroom and the shower has a sliding door, hang a shower curtain in case someone needs to use the bathroom while you are taking a shower.
I keep it simple. One set of things, ie towels, sheets, dishes. I only buy what I need. Also I find having less clutter is freeing. Less stuff, Less stress. – Christine Z.
Have a place to go outside the house – garden, walk, join a gym, volunteer- so you have a place to go when the walls close in. – Teressa M.
a) a subcategory of this tip is to make sure everyone has their own space and the ability to have alone time.
Purge …purge….purge. If I want to keep things that I only use once in a while, I store them in clear bins, and store them in the garage. – Marjorie G.
Clean the bathroom sink by moving items onto a TV tray outside the bathroom. – Teressa Morris