Everything You Need to Know About Making a Small Home Work for You

Big can be beautiful but small can be better when it comes to homes.

Living in a smaller home allows you to have fewer material things and to devote your time and energy to doing more things that will bring happiness to your life.

You may think that living in a small home would somehow detract from your happiness or quality of life. However, most people living in small homes tend to believe that it actually improves their life and the benefits outweigh the downsides.

Yes, you have to be organised, yes the kids may get under your feet, and at times you might crave a bit more space, but moving to a small home, with the right mindset, makes a lot of sense for many people.

Living in a huge mansion may not make you happier, will certainly make you poorer, and will certainly add stresses and worries to your life that you would not have living in a smaller home.

It is not the size of the home that determines your quality of life, it is how you live your life, the experiences you have, and the effort you put into creating happy memories that really matters.

Maybe you have just come out of a relationship and are downsizing to a smaller home, maybe you just need to know how to make a small home work for you, maybe you need ideas on how to organise a small living space, or maybe you are considering moving for financial or ethical reasons and wonder how to move to a smaller home.

This week’s home moving blog looks at every aspect of living in a small home and seeks to answer all your small home questions.

• Why Living in a Small House is Better
• How to Make a Small Home Work for a Large Family
• How Do You Organise if You Have No Space?
• How Do I Move my House to a Small Flat?
• Can I Live In a Smaller Home?

Why Living in a Small House is Better

Having a bedroom for each member of the family, open space to move around in, separate rooms with specific functions. That sounds great, but the reality can be that bigger homes equal more money, more work, and less time to actually appreciate the space you have.

Financially you could be significantly better off in the long run living in a small home. You could use moving to a smaller home as a way to create a nest egg, to afford to live in a better area, enabling you to be able to afford a forever home or even to retire early.

Not only will you benefit financially from living in a smaller home, but your quality of life should also improve too.

So what are the benefits of living in a small home?

• Smaller homes are cheaper to rent or buy
• Utility bills are cheaper as small homes tend to be more energy efficient
• Maintenance is cheaper and also less time consuming, you won’t spend every weekend doing jobs on the home.
• It takes less time and energy to clean leaving you with more time to devote to more pleasurable activities
• Small homes tend to have individual rooms rather than open plan, making them more homely
• You will own fewer things and consequently spend less money as you have less space to accumulate things that you really don’t need
• Smaller homes tend to be in areas with more of a community feel
• Smaller homes tend to be nearer town or city centres so are more convenient for socialising or just nipping out to the shops
• It is more environmentally friendly to live in a small home. As mentioned above, small homes tend to be nearer the centre of town so you will drive less and walk far more
• Living in a smaller home encourages an outdoor lifestyle
• Living in a smaller home can also help people bond more and work through issues rather than escape to another part of the home.
• When renovating a small home it costs less, so you may be able to spend more money on luxury fittings, for example, something that in a larger home would be financially out of reach.

You may like to read: Tiny Living – Could you take living in a small home down another notch? Have you considered living in a tiny home? Discover all you need to know about living in a tiny home, the new phenomenon taking the housing world by storm. 

How to Make a Small Home Work for a Large Family

And by a large family, I don’t just mean the number of people living there, but their physical size too.

Having a number of young children in a smaller home can work when they can share bedrooms or when you can comfortably walk around each other in your galley kitchen, but is living with teenagers in a small home doable?

The moral of the story below shows that you may discount homes to live in that are perfectly suitable for you, but because they are listed as 1 or 2 bedrooms you may immediately ignore them. Just by thinking a little outside the box, you may save yourself an absolute fortune in the purchase or rental costs.

My home is 72sqm or 775sqft (about the size of a small terraced home), originally 1 bedroom, living room, dining room, galley kitchen, and small bathroom. This is how I changed the configuration so that a family of four, including two large teenagers, a dog, and a cat, could easily live in that much space.

So here’s what I did.

It was easy and obvious enough to change the dining room and living room into bedrooms so each of the kids had a room.

A small office space for me and a place where the kids can do their schoolwork was created in each bedroom, giving us privacy when we needed it.

The problem then was where would we eat and relax?

The hallway off the kitchen is just 3m long by 2m wide but was big enough to run a narrow but long length of wood off the wall to create a breakfast bar/dining table. There is more than enough space for 4 to eat at the table.

With a wall mounted TV, it is a snug area that we can all fit into. Being teenagers, the kids spend most of their time in their bedrooms or out of the house anyway, so a large family space may not be as important as you think.

The small galley kitchen only had two cupboards and two shelves, with space for a washing machine and cooker. Out came the washer and in its place I repurposed some old cabinets from the living room into kitchen cabinets. Two people can barely squeeze past each other, but do you really need more space than that?

The lobby from the front door became the laundry room. With floor to ceiling storage and the washer/dryer hidden behind doors so it looks just like a wall of cupboards.

I took the doors off between the corridors and kitchen so that it gave more of an open feeling and which also created more space.

The bathroom is the only bane of my life. Teenagers spend crazy amounts of time in there, so if you have the opportunity for a separate shower and toilet, it will save your sanity.

When looking at smaller homes think if you could repurpose rooms, what the space could be better used for, if you could partition areas, or by using clever storage ideas how you would make better use of the space.

How Do You Organise if You Have No Space?

How can I make my small home looked less cluttered? Knowing how to maximise space in a small home is essential as it will make your living conditions not only visually more pleasing but easier to live with on a day to day basis.

Try to make use of every available inch of space, use multipurpose pieces of furniture, and keep everything really organised.

But the very first thing to do is get rid of all your surplus items, things that you no longer need or absolutely love. The fewer possessions you have, the more living space you will have.

Absolutely Must Read: Decluttering your home, to make the most of the available space you have, is a huge subject and requires more space than we have available here. So we have created a room by room, step-by-step guide that will steer you through the process – The Epic Guide to Decluttering – it is essential reading for those looking to move to a smaller home, or who are overwhelmed with the prospect of decluttering their home.

Floor to Ceiling Space Saving Ideas For Every Room

• Create shelving or wall units to use the space right up to the ceiling
• Use lower shelving for the younger kids stuff, and as the kids get taller then they have the higher shelves. Things like seasonal clothing can be stored on the highest shelves.
• The space around and above door frames can also be shelved.
• The space between the supports in stud walling can be cut out and shelves installed. This is an amazing space-saving idea that looks good too. A quick online search will give you lots of advice about how to go about creating this great space saver.
• If you have a beamed ceiling you can suspend baskets between the rafters if it is safe to do so.
• The space around the bed headboard is often not utilized, so look at how you can shelve this area.
• Bunk beds are great to make use of limited floor space, but you may even find with higher ceilinged properties that you have room for a triple bunk bed.
• Consider having a murphy bed (the beds that drop down off a wall) so that you have floor space that can be used for another function, then at night the bed is folded down.
• Futons or sofa beds are also great space savers and are dual purpose so save you money too.
• Beds with under storage are an absolute must, you can store a huge amount of stuff in them.
• Use plastic storage bins under the beds or buy beds with lift up mattresses that have built-in storage.
• Chairs that fit right under the dining table will save floor space.
• Bench seats around a table also offer plenty of storage beneath the lids.
• Short of space to store clothes? Colour co-ordinate your clothes so that you need fewer items. Use a colour to base your clothing palette upon, for example, black. Then all your other clothes should match that base colour, you will therefore need fewer shoes and handbags for example.
• Add an extra hanging bar inside tall wardrobes so that shirts can be hung above and below each other.
• Vacuum bags are great for storing out of season clothing and reduce the bulk of these items considerably.
• Ottomans are particularly useful as they are storage, a footstool, and extra seating all in one.
• Pots and Pans can be hung from racks on the kitchen walls or ceiling, and use stacking containers on shelves or in cupboards to maximise the use of the space.
• Plenty of light will help make your home seem bigger
• Paint with neutral colours and use accessories as colour highlighters as it will make the rooms more airy and light

Downsizing to a smaller home requires a new mindset. But once you realise that less is more, that most of the things we surround ourselves with we really don’t need, then moving to a smaller home can make a lot of sense for many people.

How Do I Move my House to a Small Flat?

We looked earlier at the benefits of downsizing to a smaller home, but where do you start when downsizing, how do you go about it?

The furniture you currently have may not be multiple purpose or even fit into the available space in your new home. You are likely to have far too many possessions, many of which you never use. So following these few tips for downsizing your home will prepare you for the home move.

How to Downsize Your Home Step-By-Step

#1 Create a Floor Plan of Your Home

By creating a floor plan of your new home you will know whether your existing furniture will fit into the available space. There is no point in trying to make things fit for the sake of it, the space you have has to be functional, safe, and provide you with a home that creates happy memories.

Create your floor plan as early in the home moving process as you can, this will give you time to sell or donate the items of furniture you will not be taking. Remember that the fewer items you move, the cheaper your removal costs will be.

Bear in mind that MDF, self-build furniture is not designed to be dismantled or moved. Trying to move such items often results in damage and costs more to move and repair than replace.

Recommended for you: How to Create a Floor Plan -Your estate agent should have a floor plan of your new home, if not we have produced a handy guide on how to create your own simple floor plan. With advice on how to scale the drawing and how to measure furniture, it tells you all you need to know about making a floor plan.

#2 Declutter

No apologies for repeating this piece of advice from earlier in this guide. It is vitally important.

Being organised and decluttering is the most crucial element of a good home move. For any home move, you will save substantial amounts of time and money by not packing and moving things that you don’t need to.

When moving to a smaller home, decluttering will make your home move easier and cheaper, will keep your new home looking good, and will ensure that you maximise the use of all the available space with only things that you actually use and need.

Must Read:

How to Declutter Your Attic for a Home Move – Your loft is likely to be full of things that you have totally forgotten about and will be one of the most time-consuming parts of the home to declutter. Your removal company will not enter the loft for health and safety reasons so you will have to get it emptied before moving day. This step by step guide shows you how.

The Ultimate Guide on Where to Donate Things When Moving Home – Having decluttered your home, there is then the problem with what to do with all your unwanted items. This guide shows you, item by item, places where you can donate the things you no longer need.

#3 Hire Professional Packers

You may consider this strange advice if you are moving a limited number of things, but there are very good reasons for hiring a packing service.

• If you are only moving items that you absolutely love and need then the last thing you need is them getting damaged in the move. Professional packers will give your precious items the best protection during your move.
• Most insurance companies will not insure items during a move that you have packed yourself.
• Professional packers will optimise the space in every box. This means fewer boxes, quicker loading and unloading, faster unpacking, fewer piles of boxes to navigate around in your new home, and fewer packing materials to dispose of after the move.
• Packing for a home move yourself is expensive and time-consuming.
• A packing team will pack your household goods in half the time that it would take you.
• Hiring a packing service is excellent value for money and may actually save you money overall.

Recommended Reading: Hiring Professional Packers – Is it Worth the Cost? Yet another bill to add to your home moving costs and maybe one that you think you can avoid. But learn why that could be a false economy and why hiring packers could be one of your best home moving decisions.

#4 Hire a Removal Company

You are only planning on moving a few pieces of furniture and a few boxes so your immediate thought is that maybe you can move home yourself. If you are moving with no furniture at all this may be a cost-effective option, but there are still risks to that assumption, and also hidden costs that you need to consider.

Things to Consider When Moving Home By Yourself

• There is the risk of personal injury when moving things yourself, an injury that could cost more in lost work time than the cost of hiring a removal firm.
• If you damage a piece of furniture, or your old or new home, you are liable for the cost of repairs.
• Any damage to a hire van can end up being very costly.
• Trying to drive a van is daunting and dangerous for many people.
• Are your licenced to drive a van?
• Your things may not be covered by insurance if you try to move them yourself.

The Benefits of Hiring a Removal Company

• They have the skills and equipment to maneuver your furniture into small spaces
• It is safer and less stressful for you
• The move will be faster and easier for you
• Any damage caused they are liable for
• Any problems that arise, they will likely have faced before and know what to do

Must read:

The Pros and Cons of Hiring a Removal Company vs Moving Yourself – Read in more detail why hiring a removal company makes sense for most home moves. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of how you choose to move home.

What to Expect When Hiring a Removal Company for the First Time – If you have never hired a removal firm before you may be unsure as to what they exactly do. This guide will answer all your questions about hiring a removal firm.

Every Home Moving Option Explained – Every home move is unique and is not always as simple as do I hire a removal firm to do it all for me or do I do it all myself. Here we look at every option you have and weigh up the pros and cons of each option.

Can I live In a Smaller House?

Moving to a small house as we have discovered has many benefits. There will of course be days when you wish you had a bit more space, but equally, in a large home, there will days when you wished you lived in a smaller place.

If the pros outweigh the cons for your particular situation then downsizing and living a less cluttered life can feel very liberating for many people.

You may however be in a situation where you have no choice but to downsize, and the change of mindset for living in a smaller home may be more difficult to adopt.

Money at this stage may be the limiting factor as to what size your new home will be. In that case, you may also consider what type of home you choose to live in. Often a large flat can cost around the same as a small home.

Only you know what type of home would be suitable for your lifestyle and circumstances but look at all your options with an open mind. View places with a mindset of how can this work for me rather than how the home is configured now.

You may also like to read: What type of property is right for me – house, bungalow or flat? – Here we examine all the pros and cons of different designs of homes. You may just discover that discounting a certain style of home is a mistake.

Outdoor space is often just as important as the dimensions of the building you live in. A small private backyard may be preferable to a large garden that backs onto a school playing field. Everybody has different priorities and what they want from a home.

Whether you view moving into a smaller home as a lifestyle choice or because you have no choice, the fact that you have a home is a blessing. The people that live there, the memories you create, your happiness is what really matters.

Many view bigger or newer as somehow better, but those who live in smaller homes tend to lead happier lives once they adapt to the lifestyle and concentrate on the quality of their life rather than the number of things in their life.

If you still have some concerns about living in a smaller home there is a whole library of home moving advice in our home moving blog section, but here are a couple of guides that you may find particularly useful:

How to Create a Home Office in a Small Space – Discover some creative ways to find a space to work from in your home, no matter how small it is.

How to Choose a Storage Unit – Many people choose to use a storage unit to keep their out of season clothing, leisure equipment, or things that they have no room in their home for but cannot part with. Storage is often a cost-effective solution and here we show you how to choose the best unit for your needs.

The Ultimate Guide to Moving Into a Shared Home – Your downsizing could mean moving into a shared house. In this guide we explore exactly what living in a shared home is like, things to avoid, and ways to make living in a shared home a great experience.

How to Move Out of a Home You Love – You may be having to move to a smaller home not by choice. Here we look at ways to move out of a house you love and how to fall in love with your new place.

If you have any tips that you would like to share with others about living in a small home please leave them in the comments section below.

Good luck with your home move and we hope you create many happy memories there that you will cherish forever.