Enough is Enough
When Micah and I moved into our house nearly four years ago, our mantra was "just enough." We wanted a house that met our needs without exceeding them. We had had a big, beautiful dream house when we lived in Illinois, and while we absolutely loved it, we always felt we were on the brink of being overwhelmed by it. We had seen the effect of too much space, too much mortgage, too much of too much in our culture and we were bent on not falling into that cycle.
So our house is very moderate. On paper, it's 1300 square feet (although we have a basement with a small living area and bathroom to add a little more space). We loved this place because it was one of the most concise, space-efficient houses we'd ever seen. I say our house is moderate in size, because we've certainly lived in smaller spaces. But "just enough" wasn't about being minimalistic. It was about knowing what was important and finding what we needed to accommodate it.
What was important to us in that season (and even more so in this season) boiled down to two things: family and community. We needed enough space for our family (we wanted our kids to have to share rooms) and ourselves, and we needed enough space to open our home to others. This house accomplished that. We have three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, a living room, kitchen and dining room downstairs, and a family room/guest room, laundry, and bathroom in the basement. It's simple. None of the rooms are massive. But it's enough. Just enough. We also have a backyard with a smoker and a picnic table and a swingset someone was giving away for free. All of them are frequently filled with friends and family (well, not the smoker. But we often cook meet for those people in it).
Even with a "just enough" mentality, though, the excess creeps in. Birthday and Christmas gifts and hand-me-downs and sales that were too good to pass up. Suddenly we look around us and find that every cupboard, every closet, every inch of space is full. We begin to spend our weekends cleaning up clutter, fighting it back like some kind of hardy weed. We grumble about how "this space just isn't big enough for us," or "there's not enough storage in this house."
Maybe it's the season we've just come through healthwise--learning what it means to balance work and rest, good and bad, fear and peace--but we've started to approach life a little differently this year. I hope we've always tried to be generous and unencumbered by "things." This season has pushed us farther. We want our whole lives to be open-handed. They've had to be, in the months we've just come through. They've shaped us and changed us in so many ways. In the end, laying our health, our family, our future on the altar has taught us a lot about what God might like to do through our health, our family, and our future!
So we've been in a season of both downsizing and upsizing. We've been going through the closets and cupboards and all the spaces that have been too full for too long. We've given bags and bags of things away: clothes, toys, household items. They were blessings to us at the time, and now we are blessed to watch them go. I pared my closet down to just the things I actually wear and actually like, the things that make me feel good. When I opened my closet for the first time the next day, I felt like I could breathe! The following weekend, we walked the kids through the same exercise. We took out all of the toys, laid them on the floor, and went over the rules: if it was broken, never played with, or didn't really bring them joy, it was time to let go. They chose the things they knew for sure they wanted to keep first, and put those favorite toys back in the cupboards. Then we dug through the rest of the clutter. I thought they would struggle, but they picked up toy after toy and said, "Someone else would probably really love this one." When we finished, they stood looking at the toy cupboards with just the things they loved most. "We can breathe!" Yesterday, Thomas brought me an armful of clothes from his closet. "I never wear these, Mom, and they're just taking up room in my closet. I was thinking we could give them away."
At the same time that some things are being pared down, we've recognized that in some places we don't have quite enough. Our beautiful, old, classic home consists of small rooms that are cut off from one another. Nowhere is this more true than in our dining room. At the most, we can accommodate eight people. We are five of them. The space limits how generous we can be in sharing our home. We've made it work through the years, eating around in the living room or hosting outdoors when the weather is nice. But in the same season we're pruning back, it's time to also expand. We're embarking on our first-ever remodeling adventure: turning our attached garage into a large dining room, and converting the current kitchen/dining room into a larger kitchen. The new kitchen will have an island with stools, and a window seat. We can fill it with kids and people while we cook. The dining room will open directly onto the backyard. We can spill out into the back space and host large groups of people.
Sometimes "just enough" means less. Sometimes it means just a little more.
One of my favorite sayings of all is this: "When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence."
I've been looking around me constantly recently, thinking, "How could someone else benefit from this? What do I have that I don't need, that I can share?" and, "Where is the excess in our lives? What are the things we can share? Where is our longer table?"
I hope our fences are getting shorter, and our tables ever longer.
So our house is very moderate. On paper, it's 1300 square feet (although we have a basement with a small living area and bathroom to add a little more space). We loved this place because it was one of the most concise, space-efficient houses we'd ever seen. I say our house is moderate in size, because we've certainly lived in smaller spaces. But "just enough" wasn't about being minimalistic. It was about knowing what was important and finding what we needed to accommodate it.
What was important to us in that season (and even more so in this season) boiled down to two things: family and community. We needed enough space for our family (we wanted our kids to have to share rooms) and ourselves, and we needed enough space to open our home to others. This house accomplished that. We have three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, a living room, kitchen and dining room downstairs, and a family room/guest room, laundry, and bathroom in the basement. It's simple. None of the rooms are massive. But it's enough. Just enough. We also have a backyard with a smoker and a picnic table and a swingset someone was giving away for free. All of them are frequently filled with friends and family (well, not the smoker. But we often cook meet for those people in it).
Even with a "just enough" mentality, though, the excess creeps in. Birthday and Christmas gifts and hand-me-downs and sales that were too good to pass up. Suddenly we look around us and find that every cupboard, every closet, every inch of space is full. We begin to spend our weekends cleaning up clutter, fighting it back like some kind of hardy weed. We grumble about how "this space just isn't big enough for us," or "there's not enough storage in this house."
Maybe it's the season we've just come through healthwise--learning what it means to balance work and rest, good and bad, fear and peace--but we've started to approach life a little differently this year. I hope we've always tried to be generous and unencumbered by "things." This season has pushed us farther. We want our whole lives to be open-handed. They've had to be, in the months we've just come through. They've shaped us and changed us in so many ways. In the end, laying our health, our family, our future on the altar has taught us a lot about what God might like to do through our health, our family, and our future!
So we've been in a season of both downsizing and upsizing. We've been going through the closets and cupboards and all the spaces that have been too full for too long. We've given bags and bags of things away: clothes, toys, household items. They were blessings to us at the time, and now we are blessed to watch them go. I pared my closet down to just the things I actually wear and actually like, the things that make me feel good. When I opened my closet for the first time the next day, I felt like I could breathe! The following weekend, we walked the kids through the same exercise. We took out all of the toys, laid them on the floor, and went over the rules: if it was broken, never played with, or didn't really bring them joy, it was time to let go. They chose the things they knew for sure they wanted to keep first, and put those favorite toys back in the cupboards. Then we dug through the rest of the clutter. I thought they would struggle, but they picked up toy after toy and said, "Someone else would probably really love this one." When we finished, they stood looking at the toy cupboards with just the things they loved most. "We can breathe!" Yesterday, Thomas brought me an armful of clothes from his closet. "I never wear these, Mom, and they're just taking up room in my closet. I was thinking we could give them away."
At the same time that some things are being pared down, we've recognized that in some places we don't have quite enough. Our beautiful, old, classic home consists of small rooms that are cut off from one another. Nowhere is this more true than in our dining room. At the most, we can accommodate eight people. We are five of them. The space limits how generous we can be in sharing our home. We've made it work through the years, eating around in the living room or hosting outdoors when the weather is nice. But in the same season we're pruning back, it's time to also expand. We're embarking on our first-ever remodeling adventure: turning our attached garage into a large dining room, and converting the current kitchen/dining room into a larger kitchen. The new kitchen will have an island with stools, and a window seat. We can fill it with kids and people while we cook. The dining room will open directly onto the backyard. We can spill out into the back space and host large groups of people.
Sometimes "just enough" means less. Sometimes it means just a little more.
One of my favorite sayings of all is this: "When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence."
I've been looking around me constantly recently, thinking, "How could someone else benefit from this? What do I have that I don't need, that I can share?" and, "Where is the excess in our lives? What are the things we can share? Where is our longer table?"
I hope our fences are getting shorter, and our tables ever longer.
