Janna’s Small & Functional Home for 4

Someone pinch me because I can’t believe our luck.  Janna and her husband purchased a 600 square foot (55.7 sq meter) one bedroom home in Portland, Oregon 3 1/2 years ago, and today Janna is sharing some of her wisdom in living small and creating a home that works for your family.  Yes – family!   Their home – built in 1925 – was in sad shape when they moved in.  But as you can see below, a lot of love (and a whole lot of hard work) has helped this couple create a home worthy of a standing ovation.

Here’s what Janna has to say:

We bought this house because it was all we could afford and it was actually IN the city, so we could walk or ride our bikes everywhere and we wanted a house with character. When I got pregnant, we were just going to use the dining room as the nursery, but halfway through the pregnancy, we found out we were having twins! So, my husband immediately started remodeling the basement (which we’d been using for storage and laundry – it was just concrete walls, concrete floor, very primitive). He finished when our twin boys were a little over a year old and so now we have a 1200 square foot house, which isn’t really that big, but feels like a mansion to us since we were used to living in half that.

There are two main ways we’ve found to live a clutter free life in our small house (1200 square feet, 2 adults, 2 babies and a dog).

1. Just don’t acquire very much stuff. This was easy when it was just the two of us, but when I was pregnant with the twins, we had to really make a conscious decision not to go overboard. There are so many products for babies out there and the baby industry really markets to parents’ fears that their child won’t be safe or won’t be smart without every last thing. We just decided that wasn’t going to be our way and we were very careful about what we brought into our home.

We borrowed much of our gear, so that once our babies were through with it, we could give it back right away (for example, they only used their bouncy chairs for the first six months). Also, we swap books and toys with two other families so they get new stuff every few weeks, but we are also getting rid of stuff at the same time.

And of course, we realized very quickly that even with twins, you simply don’t need all the junk that they sell for babies. In our bathroom, we have a plain container that holds two plastic cups, a few bath toys and their soap and washcloths. We store this container under the tub and use it as a faucet guard when our babies are in the bath, instead of purchasing a brightly colored baby shower caddy and hippopotamus faucet guard.

One other thing we did was let people know when they asked what we needed that we had a 600 square foot house (which it was at the time we had the babies; we hadn’t finished remodeling the basement when we brought them home from the hospital) and so we just didn’t have room for a lot. This cut down on the overboard of extra baby clothes, decorations, toys and trinkets.


2. Put it away right after you finish with it. Again, this was much easier before we had babies, but even now, I try to pick up toys and books and put everything back where it goes (they have a tendency to move furniture around right now) before we leave the house or they go to bed at night. It helps that everything has a place, so after I pay bills, I can immediately file them and we don’t have a stack of papers laying around or when I’m finished with reading a library book, I put it in the library book bag hanging on the coat tree. This also helps, because there are fewer opportunities for the babies to get into things (and cut their own hair or eat something they shouldn’t or break something) if we keep the house picked up.

Here’s my office nook. It’s just a little bump out in the already tiny living room, but I love it. It fits my second hand desk and garage sale typewriter perfectly. We put a mirror on the back wall to make it bright and appear bigger. It’s the perfect place to sit and drink coffee, read blogs, pay bills, etc…

What we love about living in a small house:

1. We can afford it (not just the mortgage, but also the heating bill and taxes).

2. It’s easy to clean

3. It’s more efficient and we are wasting less.

4. We love our neighborhood. Everything is walking distance (post office, bank, grocery store, movie theater, thrift stores, parks, church, restaurants). And anything else we need is biking distance (my husband’s work, the store where we buy diapers, downtown).

Three cheers to Janna and her family!  Are you as impressed as I am by her philosophy – especially on baby products?  What are your favorite parts of these corners of her home?  Love that desk?  How about that wonderful tub and old tile?  Talk about victory in using what you have to work with, huh?

Thanks for sharing with us, Janna!

And don’t forget – if you have a small space or simple corner in your home, toss around the idea of sharing it with us.  We’d love a looky-loo.