Living in Large Houses Is Stressful; I Downsized and Am Finally Happy

Growing up, I was always told that the bigger your house, the richer you are, and the richer you are, the happier you are.

Looking back, none of my childhood homes would be considered small. I always had my own room and a big yard to play in. Yet, as I grew up, I still wanted more.

The first home I lived in as an adult was a two-story new-build house with three bedrooms and 2,400 square feet.

I bought it with the inheritance I had received a year earlier with my dad’s passing, and rented the other bedrooms to two fellow college students.

It became home to all of our mismatched things and items our parents didn’t want anymore, ranging from couches to old Pyrex dishes and cake pans.

When I moved out at 25, I got rid of most of the stuff I’d accumulated. I remember saying to myself, “Never again.” I never wanted that much space or stuff, ever again.

I bought an even larger house 12 years later

Fast-forward 12 years, and I’d forgotten what my younger self had said. I bought a 2,900-square-foot house for our little family of three.

Truthfully, I didn’t want the big house; I knew I would be the one cleaning most of it.

At the time, though, other smaller houses cost nearly the same, so we figured, why not opt for more space for about the same price? Sure enough, we filled the space with stuff and more stuff.

The downstairs became a catch-all of toys, Christmas storage, and whatever else we thought we needed but rarely used.

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I downsized to a smaller space, but it still wasn’t the right fit

Two short years later, I found myself in the midst of my divorce, muttering those same words “never again” as I emptied out all the cabinets and drawers and closed-off rooms.

I was moving into a 900-square-foot townhouse with my daughter, and extra space was no longer a luxury. So, a lot of stuff had to go, but some things I just couldn’t detach from, like the teapot we got as a wedding present.

In the end, I still had too much and would spend my days in the townhouse playing what I call the “stuff shuffle,” where I moved stuff around, trying to make it all work, but it never did.

I only lasted a year in that townhouse.

Our big move finally taught me to detach

Life wasn’t working out where we were, so in the summer of 2025, my daughter and I moved to Hawai’i to be closer to family.

Instead of paying thousands of dollars to ship everything, I downsized it all into a 150 cubic foot container to prepare for the 600-square-foot space we’d be moving into.

I went through high school scrapbooks, keeping only a few pictures of people I actually liked and tossing the rest. I let go of little pieces of my grandparents and parents that had just stayed buried in boxes for years. I cried over the teapot, which I also left behind.

For the first time, I wasn’t just decluttering, I was detaching. I let go of clothes I thought I’d fit back into, my daughter’s extra toys, and kitchen gadgets I never used.

I felt lighter with every decision.

I panicked at such a small space at first

When we arrived in Hawai’i and walked into our new 600-square-foot house, I panicked. It didn’t feel like the fresh start I wanted; it just felt like less.

After a few weeks, though, something shifted. With nothing but the basics around me, I started to feel calmer. There was less to clean, less to organize, and less to stress about.

Now, I don’t wake up overwhelmed by visual clutter or spend my evenings chasing messes. It takes 15 minutes to clean and tidy the place up and an hour for a deep clean, which leaves me with both extra time and energy to devote to my daughter, writing, and sitting on the couch doing nothing guilt-free.

I’ve realized I didn’t need more storage bins or furniture; I needed breathing room. And somehow, this small space gave me exactly that.

It took a few months to settle in, but for the first time in a long time, I feel peaceful in my home. I have enough to feel like I’m not lacking, but not so much that I feel overwhelmed.

Sometimes I miss aspects of my bigger houses, like the large vanity, not sharing a bathroom with my daughter, and having a big, comfy couch. I was always stressed in those spaces, though, because it felt like it was never enough.

Yet, within this 600-square-foot place, it finally feels like enough.