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Claudine M Jalajas

Writer, Web Developer, Decorative Painter

I'm a tired, worn-out mother of three young children. I never really fully appreciated what being sleep deprived was like before my children--and I now believe it is a valid form of torture. I live on Long Island with my husband (who I rant about frequently) and three little angels. ;)...

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Moving On Down; Getting Rid of the McMansion

Claudine M. Jalajas

Not me, we never had a McMansion but other people are doing it.  I read an article this week about other people moving out of their huge homes to "smaller" (in my world, normal) homes in order to control costs and live a little.

I've never understood the lure of the giant home.  When we were on the market and house hunting it never occurred to me to look for a big house.  "Thor" and I would be driving around and I'd say, "there's a cute little house."  He'd say, "looks small, no?"  And, I'd say, "looks perfect."

When I see a bigger house I think, more cleaning, more heating to pay for, more air conditioning, higher taxes, more decorating (ok, that part's fun but it's pricey) and more STUFF.  I don't like to accumulate stuff (and we still have a good deal of it).  But, if you have more space it's even easier to accumulate stuff--by the time you notice that there's too much it's out of control.

Recently I started to try and put my office together.  After all the moving back and forth of stuff between the garage and the house for the extension, papers, bills, letters, all had a way of getting stuffed in baskets in and carted around or shoved on an empty shelf. 

I sat on the floor taking one basket at at time.  I made piles, stuff to keep/file and stuff to chuck.  I was so excited to see so many things hitting the trash.  I now have a nice pile of EMPTY baskets in my office. 

When I read the article about the houses, it made me think of the day last week when we were at the beach.  I went to the car to get a shovel--the RIGHT shovel apparently.  As I was walking to the car another family was on their way out.  The mom said to her 2 children, "When we get home we have to shower and get dressed.  We're going to Uncle Billy's for dinner."  The daughter, about 8 years old, said, "but I can go swimming when we get home first, right?"  The mother said, "Are you kidding me?  we've been at the beach all day and now you have to swim in the pool?"  The daughter whined for a while and the mom said something I say at least 5 times a day to my own children, "It's never enough with you..."

I have noticed that it's not just my kids.  It's a LOT of kids.  Nothing is enough.  They want MORE.  But, then I look at people with 4,000 square foot houses having their basements finished into gorgeous playroom, media room, could be an apartment type basements and I can't understand why they need another 1k square feet.  When I ask, "why?" they usually answer that it's a good place to store the toys, for the playstation (Wii, gamecube, whatever), big screen TV and maintain the rest of the house in it's show room glory. 

I'm all for a house staying neat and nice, but at some point, when is the house big enough?  When are there enough toys?  Is this what they were talking about when they said, "keepin' up with the jones'?"